I was missold investment ISAs. Now need some expert advice

philadelphia_2

Back in 1999 I was sold two high risk investment ISAs to the tune of £12000. One one Japanese fund and the other European fund. Both performed dismally and I lost a great deal of money and had to pull my fast disappearing funds. I have complained recently to the financial company involved but they have turned me down for any compensation. Its come down to my word against the advisors. He says I was up for high risk. The real situation was that I had no idea even that I could lose my original investment. I had to that point never owned any stocks and shares and ISAs had just been introduced by the government and I had not understood the difference between cash and investment. I was a single mother of a dependent child, and was living in a council flat. Because my husband from whom I had separated had died, I was expecting some money from his employment insurance, and was therefore in a position to be repairing my broken finance situation and was seeking advice on mortgages, life insurance and so on.
Really it would not have been difficult to assume that aged 49 with a dependent child and on benefits that high risk ISAs would have been the last thing anybody would advise me getting involved with. I now seek to continue with my claim and wonder what I should do exactly, either contact the Ombudsman or ?. I have noticed in the press that many financials are being held responsible for misselling these type of things and are having to pay back millions.
Any help from anyone with any expertise and/or have had similar experiences would be great, as there doesn't seem to be much on this subject that I can find to compare my situation with and therefore my chances of being reimbursed. Any help gratefully received.

Drp8713

There are going to be several problems getting compensation in this case.

The first is all of the paperwork, if its an investment ISA its going to say that. Did you read what you signed? If it was a cash savings account why would a financial advisor be selling it to you in he first place?

Secondly the amount of time passed.

Lastly, the fact you took your money out. If it was invested in the Nikkei and major markets in france, germany etc t past few years have seen some big gains, if you have left it where it was you would have probably made your money back.

Its probably not what you want to hear but i think your going to have to put it down to experiance and move on

Archi_Bald

philadelphia wrote: »

I have noticed in the press that many financials are being held responsible for misselling these type of things and are having to pay back millions.

There will be very few, if any, successful claims for investments that didn't perform the the satisfaction of the investor. Mis-selling in the news is mainly about things like PPI and packaged bank accounts, neither of which are similar to your investment.

I agree with Drp8713 - given your summary of the situation, it's hard to see why you would get any compensation.

Freecall

It's not the fact that the investments did not perform as you expected that is the issue, that is really just bad luck.

Having said that however, in my view the way you describe your situation does not completely square with the investments you were sold. You need to see the file entries which will give the justification for those investments.

The fact that you panicked when they fell indicates to me that you were not prepared for the volatility of the investments. Of course that may not have come across in the initial fact-find.

Definitely worth having a look at the file though.

eskbanker

On the time-barring point, the rules the ombudsman service work to are:

The complaints-handling rules set time limits for consumers to refer complaints to the ombudsman. After these time limits have expired, the business can choose to object to the ombudsman looking at the complaint on the grounds that it is “time-barred”.



Generally, these time limits are:

• six months from the business sending the consumer a final response (which has to mention the six-month time limit); and
• six years from the event the consumer is complaining about (or - if later - three years from when the consumer knew, or could reasonably have known, they had cause to complain).

When did you come to the conclusion that there had been mis-selling and what prompted this?

atush

I agree the investments seem to high risk for you, but how did the adviser decide you were high risk? Did he do a risk profile? What does it say? Is the adviser an IFA or an FA?

I can't see an IFA advising a widow with child who are on benefits to invest in a high risk areas.

I agree that perhaps you panicked and sold when you should possibly been better off holding- I agree this is a sign of investing above your true risk profile.

The question is how you got there. Ask to see your file, and consider escalating if they won't budge.

Shaolin_Monkey

philadelphia wrote: »

I have complained recently to the financial company involved but they have turned me down for any compensation. Its come down to my word against the advisors.

When a firm completes it's investigation into your complaint you would normally get rights to refer to the Financial Ombudsman if you are unsatisfied with the outcome. You have to do this within six months of receiving the complaint rejection letter, unless there are good reasons for not doing so.

I now seek to continue with my claim and wonder what I should do exactly, either contact the Ombudsman or ?

Yes the next step is to go to the Ombudsman, but note the time limits. If the complaint was investigated a long time ago and you are just going to them now, they might not be able to look into it.

robatwork

My 2p:

1p - you don't say specifically what kind of advisor "sold" you this - just a financial company. Was it an IFA? Accountant? There should be a paper trail where they took your details eg attitude to risk and other savings. You should have a copy

2p - you won't like what you hear on this thread and won't make further contributions

brasso

It would be useful to have more information about the two funds, and how they would stand today (not that this would solve the problem).

I'm sympathetic but as others have said, it will be difficult to prove negligence after this time unless you have quite specific paperwork to demonstrate that you were misled.

Sorry if this sounds glib but sometimes in life you just have to shrug and put these things behind you. A bit like legal disputes and failed relationships, they can get obsessive, and end up consuming people, wasting time and burning even more money.

We don't know the full story but possibly you might have to end up accepting that you made an error of judgment either in buying the ISAs or selling them too quickly. It's human nature -- if an investment does well, we feel we've been clever and skilled in our judgment. If they do badly our instinct is to want to blame someone else for giving us bad advice.

Hope you get somewhere though if you genuinely feel you were deceived or treated wrongly.

eskbanker

Shaolin_Monkey wrote: »

When a firm completes it's investigation into your complaint you would normally get rights to refer to the Financial Ombudsman if you are unsatisfied with the outcome. You have to do this within six months of receiving the complaint rejection letter, unless there are good reasons for not doing so.

Yes the next step is to go to the Ombudsman, but note the time limits. If the complaint was investigated a long time ago and you are just going to them now, they might not be able to look into it.

Yes, but it's not just time since complaint that's pertinent here - even if the complaint was investigated recently, the ombudsman still won't show any interest if it's more than three years since OP became aware (or should reasonably have been aware) that there was reason to complain. Without knowing any more specifics about the funds concerned, the only prospect of success in my opinion is if their performance deteriorated significantly only within the last three years, to the extent that it was this that caused OP to realise that they weren't what she believed she'd bought, but I'd imagine that the annual statements will be key here in supporting (or not) OP's case....

dunstonh

The firm itself has to request the timebar. Assuming we are still within the 6 months following the rejection and FOS access is still available, the FOS will investigate it if the firm has not rejected it for being out of time. However, if the firm had said it was rejecting it because it was more than 3/6 years.... then the FOS would just check that was the case and if it was applied correctly then they would not take it on.

There are a number of questions posed by people above. However, I think the key one is to find out when the complaint was rejected. If that was more than 6 months ago, then its game over. That trumps everything else.