Possibly miss sold savings investment

NJW69

Hi,


I took out a ten year savings plan to pay for my sons university fees.


At the time I wanted something low risk given the reason for saving.


The plan was with Friends Provident taken out from an advisor who visited me at home.


I was given information on what the plan may be worth based on three different levels of growth delivering between 9-13k on a 6k investment over the ten years.


I was also told that if I stopped payments within the first couple of years I may not get back my full investment as the plan was front loaded with charges.


I wasn't told that I could loose money over the ten years but I actually came away with £600 less that I had put in.


I would never have invested in this way if I had known this at the time.


Has anyone any experience of this and whether this qualifies as miss selling?


Many thanks

dunstonh

I was given information on what the plan may be worth based on three different levels of growth delivering between 9-13k on a 6k investment over the ten years.

Those example rates were set by the regulator. Not the provider. They also would have come with the warnings underneath them saying they are just examples and not guaranteed and you could get back more or less than that.

I was also told that if I stopped payments within the first couple of years I may not get back my full investment as the plan was front loaded with charges.

Quite normal.

I wasn't told that I could loose money over the ten years but I actually came away with £600 less that I had put in.

Read those risk warnings again. You will see it said that you could get back less than you pay in.

Has anyone any experience of this and whether this qualifies as miss selling?

Very few complaints get upheld on that basis as the documentary evidence will show you were given those risk warnings. Whilst most investment complaints fail, the ones that do succeed, tend to be for people who invest above their risk profile and/or capacity for loss. However, most of these old regular contribution plans used no higher than medium risk (with the majority being cautious or low/medium - such as the with profits fund or the default managed fund).

Friends Provident havent had reps for well over a decade. So, this must have matured some time ago. So you could even be timebarred from complaint (6 years from the start or 3 years from being reasonably aware of an issue whichever is later. So, three years from maturity would be the timebar that could be applied here).