assumed monthly payment by Natwest

michaelweb

I have received an offer from Natwest but they have 'assumed' that I would have agreed to a monthly premium and have deducted an amount of almost £2k. Should I challange this? At the time I do not think I would have paid a monthly premium due to financial difficulties. Thanks for any advice.

dunstonh

Should I challange this?

This means your complaint has effectively failed as they have identified no wrongdoing at their end and you havent supplied them any evidence to support your complaint reasons.

However, they are saying it should have been monthly premium PPI and are correcting it to be that.

So, you need to look at your complaint reasons and their rejection of those and decide if the evidence available supports that or not and make a decision from there.

At the time I do not think I would have paid a monthly premium due to financial difficulties.

Monthly premium would have been cheaper than than the single premium added to loan. So, that argument wouldn't stack. You would effectively be telling them that you would not have taken the cheaper option.

Nasqueron

Depends if you have any evidence to support that assertion e.g. a work contract with good sick pay like the civil service 6 full 6 half pay

addedvaluebob

It doesn't mean the complaint has failed, as they are offering redress. Go back to them and tell them you want the offer re-calculated without the deduction. If they won't agree take it to the Ombudsman.

This is just typical of the banks ripping people off yet again

dunstonh

It doesn't mean the complaint has failed, as they are offering redress.

it does mean it has failed as they would be paying a full refund if the complaint had succeeded. Instead they are saying that the complaint has failed but acknowledge that it should have been on monthly premium and are paying the difference.

This is just typical of the banks ripping people off yet again

Not sure how you have worked that out as the OP has not mentioned what their complaint was or the reasons for rejection. This method of address is approved by the regulator in cases where the only identified failure is single premium instead of monthly.

Insider101

The complaint has neither (completely) failed nor succeeded from where I am stood. The OP has been offered some redress, but not full redress and presumably based on reasons other than the ones the OP originally gave.

I can only echo Dunstonh's comments. Whilst we are guessing a bit as we don't know the complaint reasons or the reasons for partial rejection, where there is a he said-she said situation they will often look at whether you has a financial need for the cover. If you had a need for cover and wouldn't have been significantly affected by any of the exclusions then this indicates a rational person would have taken it regardless of any possible sales failings. It just would have been regular premium.

Insider101

addedvaluebob wrote: »

It doesn't mean the complaint has failed, as they are offering redress. Go back to them and tell them you want the offer re-calculated without the deduction. If they won't agree take it to the Ombudsman.

This is just typical of the banks ripping people off yet again

Incidentally this is nonsense. It is not ripping off anyone in any way, shape or form. This is one approach to redress specified in the FCA rules as allowable in the right circumstances and they have chosen to use it. Anyone who thinks it is rolling people is probably basing it on the popular misconception amongst the general public that having a complaint upheld or a failing identified automatically means you get a full refund. It doesn't , it's all about the significance of the failing and what you would have done otherwise.

There is no point the OP going back and asking them to recalculate without the deduction unless the OP can persuade them that taking a regular premium policy would not have been in his best interests. If he had a need for cover and could have claimed on it without restriction then why should he get the money back after having had the benefit of being insured for the full term of the loan?

WatchMan

Insider101 wrote: »

The complaint has neither (completely) failed nor succeeded from where I am stood. The OP has been offered some redress, but not full redress and presumably based on reasons other than the ones the OP originally gave.

This.

Offering a refund along the lines that NatWest is only acceptable if they believe that the single premium was unsuitable and that the OP would have gone for a regular premium instead.

If there was another flaw in the sales process, then a refund of this nature is not on and a full refund should be given.

magpiecottage

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding here.

The complaint has been upeld. Otherwise no redress would have been offered.

NatWest are saying that they believe, had it been properly sold, the OP would have taken a monthly premium policy. As a rule of thumb, FOS will accept that if the policy covered a mortgage or other loan seccured on the borrower's home but not for an unsecured loan.

We do not know which type of loan it was so I would not like to speculate on how likely it is that FOS would uphold.

addedvaluebob

In the original post the OP said they would not have taken the cover due to financial hardship. The idea that this is a popular 'misconception' is no more than one persons opinion just the same as my post. Without knowing the full case details we are all just posting opinion. My experience tells me that the case reviewer is likely to have included something like the following paragraph.

'In reviewing your complaint we have taken into account your personal, financial and employment circumstances at the time. Based on these details we believe it is reasonable to assume that you would have been willing to pay the lower monthly cost to protect your loan repayments'.

Banks have not changed their spots and are still managing both the uphold rates and the amount of redress they pay. Consultancy companies that hire the contractors to do this work do not get the contract based on the number of customers they treat fairly they get it by making a pitch to show how much they can save in costs.

Nasqueron

Addedvaluebob - would it not be prudent to HAVE payment protection if someone was taking out a loan or had lots of credit card debts and they freely admitted they were in financial problems? Having that safety net sounds to me as an impartial type that it would actually be an excellent idea!