15 years ago and no documentation but I can still claim? Really?

Snakey

When I moved to London in 1999 I took out a £5k bank loan to finance it. At the time I was going through a divorce, job interviews, flat viewings, putting house on market etc and so the loan arrangement doesn't stand out in my mind at all. All I remember is that I was expecting it to be really difficult and the woman on the other end of the phone not only said yes right away but was trying to encourage me to borrow more "just in case you need it"! Anyway, I paid it off over two years and then forgot about it.

I'd like to jump on the PPI free money bandwagon (bit late to the party, I know) but I don't want to waste my time if it's a non-starter.

I did some initial research (read some articles on this forum and other places etc) and concluded that because it was more than six years ago and I have no documentation (at all) I would not have any way of taking this further. In addition, I have no idea whether I even had PPI or not, and I certainly couldn't attest to what may or may not have been said to me on the subject.

But in one of the national papers today I saw an advert that says you don't need any documentation, all you need is the name of the lender and the date you took out the loan (which I do know to the nearest month, as it was right before I moved down here) and they will find out whether you had any PPI or not.

But I thought that you couldn't find out if it was more than six years ago. If they have a way of finding out, surely I can do the same thing! But how do they do it? Since they are offering no-claim-no-fee I don't see how it could benefit them to fib about being able to. So what's the trick?

Any ideas?

Or is it likely to be too small an amount to bother with anyway?

societys_child

Yes, you can find out yourself, just phone and ask and if they have any info left, they will tell you. You need to do this before complaining about ppi if you didn't actually pay it!

A claims company can not do anything you can't do yourself, for free They don't have any magical powers and know less about your affairs than you. They would only work on what you tell them (you would still have to fill in the complaint form with valid reasons) and charge you a heafty fee for sticking a stamp on an envelope and dropping it in the post box.

From what you say, you have no reasons for complaint? (assuming you had ppi)

Snakey

I don't know what the claims process is in detail yet, since I only saw this thing this morning that made me think it might be worth looking at after all. So I haven't yet checked up what counts as a valid reason.

My thinking is this: I was on my notice from my job at the time I took out the loan, then there was a gap of a few weeks between jobs while I moved to a new city, and then my new job had a six-month probationary period. So if something had gone wrong in the first eight months of the two-year loan period, the policy would not have paid out. And so it wouldn't have been the right thing for someone to have sold me, would it, knowing that I didn't qualify? I don't know. I thought that was exactly how "mis-selling" worked, people telling you to take out a policy that they knew wouldn't pay out if you claimed because you don't meet the conditions (because I definitely told her that I was moving to London to start a new job, since that's why I wanted the loan).

Of course it may well be that the reason I can't remember anything about it was because either a) there never was any PPI offered or b) they offered it and I declined and the conversation moved on. Which is where I came in at... I'm looking to see how I can confirm whether I did pay it on this loan or not. If I didn't have it I can stop thinking about it, and if I did then I can start seeing whether I think I have a chance of a successful claim.

Won't Barclays have quickly run and shredded all files beyond the statutory six year period, as soon as this kicked off, in order to be able to truthfully say "we don't know sorry, we no longer have records that far back"? If they do have it, are they legally obliged to tell me or can they just say "sorry, not even going to look, it's older than six years so we don't have to"?

societys_child

To put your mind at rest, phone them and ask.

If they say they have nothing left, you can then send a SAR + £10 asking for all data they hold on you. (Could be a waste of time and money, they really may have no details after all this time)