PPI Claim (having already used it)

biggrambo

Hi,

We have a loan with First Plus which included ppi.

We borrowed £40,000 (over 25 years) in Jan 2005. First Plus stuck the ppi premium of £7,972 on top of that and our loan agreement states we borrowed £47,972 and would be paying £436 per month to start with.

This steadily increased over the years to £465 and now £670 per month.

Unemployment in 2007 forced us to claim on the ppi for around 6 months until I returned to work. By the way, claiming on First Plus ppi is a full time job.

Despite having the cover we still fell into arrears. As an added nice touch on First Plus's part, they informed the various credit management companies that we were now in arrears but forgot to mention that their ppi cover was the cause.

Anyhooo, I digress.

When I became unemployed for the second time we discovered that the ppi cover was no longer there for us. Rather than being a product that was was there for the full term of the loan it expired after 5 years. We were led to believe that the cover was automatically renewed/updated in 5 year increments. Having paid £7,972 upfront and having it tacked onto the loan with all the interest implication associated with that we fully expected the cover to be there for us for the full term of the loan.

About 18 months ago First Plus allowed us to not make payments for around 6 months. Then they started proceedings against us to take our house. We argued that our arrears were due to the fact they had waived payments and that their ppi product wasn't there for us when we really needed it. We certainly wouldn't have accepted the offer to waive payments if we knew they were going to use it to strangle us later.

In the end they halted proceedings against us if we increased our monthly payment by £200. As we had no choice in the matter we were forced to comply or loose our family home. As a result our First Plus payment now stands at £670 per month.

I believe we have probably repaid more than the original loan over the last nine years and the settlement figure is circa £50,000.

So, the question is. Can we still claim a ppi refund and compensation having already used the ppi product.

Thank you in advance.

antrobus

biggrambo wrote: »

....So, the question is. Can we still claim a ppi refund and compensation having already used the ppi product. ...

I believe the answer is 'yes', although the amount already paid to you in respect of your 2007 claim will be taken into account.

-taff

read through this, pay attention to amersalls responses, and make sure you use the redress to reduce the loan

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4241629

-taff

Actually, post #77 will do nicely....

amersall

Thanks taff

amersall

So, the question is. Can we still claim a ppi refund and compensation having already used the ppi product.

You certainly can, they will take the claim off any redress, as already stated by antrobus.

The main thing is that the loan will be reset, the whole PPI will come off the loan balance and the loan monthly payment will reduce by the monthly PPI amount, you will save thousands in interest by getting this upheld.
Add to my post 77, that taff gave the link for, what you have put in your post here, especially regarding the cover and FP trying to take your house off you for the payments they told you to miss, use this as the first argument.

biggrambo

Thank you !!! :j

I will get busy with the template pack.

It will feel good to be able to kick back for a change.

I have very few regrets in life .. BUT ... First Plus is the worst financial decision I ever made. They have been a millstone around our necks for the last 9 years.

biggrambo

I'm wondering if being resident in Scotland (Scottish law) will make much difference to our ppi claim?

dunstonh

biggrambo wrote: »

I'm wondering if being resident in Scotland (Scottish law) will make much difference to our ppi claim?

PPI is not a legal issue. It is an FSA issue. So, its the same UK wide.

biggrambo

Posting this as an addendum to my earlier post regarding First Plus PPI and also on the dangers of using a PPI Claims company !

Long before we found this site or even considered doing our own PPI claim, we had gone down the road of a 'specialist PPI claim company'.

After many months, we sacked them. They didn't do very much for their 30% fee and it seems they completely lost track of our First Plus PPI claim. We think the claim handler assigned to us had left the company. I e-mailed their customer enquiries department, it took several e-mails before I got a response. Which basically said that they had investigated our PPI claim and rejected it on the grounds that we never took out PPI insurance. I asked them to review the pdf documents I had e-mailed to them at the outset which included copies of our loan agreement and PPI insurance. We are still waiting for a response.

However, they must have at least started the reclaim process because First Plus wrote to us passing responsibility onto the loan broker.

I quote from First Plus's letter

"we note from your account that the loan and the insurance was sold to you by Pacific Finance in Swindon. As a result we have forwarded details of your concerns to the relevant team at Pacific Finance and asked them to investigate in line with their current complaint procedures"

I did a Google search for Pacific Home Loans and Pacific Finance and other variations. I can't find them anywhere. So it might be safe to assume that they went bust or changed their name to avoid some of the PPI claims fallout. Eitherway, First Plus couldn't have passed anything onto them as they don't appear to exist anymore.

Our loan agreement is on First Plus headed paper and the PPI documentation has the Barclays Insurance address in Shannon together with the First Plus logo on the header.

I don't see any broker reference numbers or coding on the loan agreement but there is a line of printed text telling us that it is an original document and we are to sign it and return to First Plus.

Still, this raises the question. Can I still pursue First Plus for a PPI claim or does the broker (Pacific Home Loans) have responsibility?

Thank you in advance.

-taff

Get rid of them as soon as you can.
Make sure you do it in writing and there is a record of it and they acknowledge it.

Do not go any further with your complaint until you have because if they take the PPI interest off and restructure your loan you'll still have to pay the company despite not actually having any cash to do so. Use the fact they should have told you that you would be liable to replay the money yourself even if you didn't see a penny if they argue, and the fact they have done nothing over 3 years.

Do it now.
Really.....I can't emphasise that strongly enough.


First Plus are correct, it's the broker that has responsibility for the sale. However, if they are no longer around, it all rests on the date it was sold to you....
what date was it sold?
are the brokers still there?