I am very confident I never took PPI - should I still claim?

magpiecottage

Yellabowley wrote: »

It is definitely worth sticking a claim in if you know that you always turned the offer of PPI down.

Except that a complaint about a non-existent product can be dismissed by FOS as frivolous and/or vexatious - and a firm can pursue a complainant to recover its costs in such cases.

So it is not entirely without risk.

Nasqueron

Yellabowley wrote: »

While it might have been there in black and white, it appears that in many cases it was NOT clear to see.

As the person above has stated he didn't want or ask for it, yet when the account details were given to Lloyds they refunded the money he had paid out for PPI.

It's fine all the people on here taking the moral high ground and stating quite categorically that they always read all small print and always double checked figures for everything. Unfortunately not everyone has the time or even the financial understanding to do this. Those people relied on the banks to simply do what they said they would. And now several years later the paperwork is gone. The only way to check if they were conned is to complain and ask the banks to look into it. The worst the banks can say is that they've looked and can confirm that no PPI was taken out. If a system of auto payouts has been set up then that isn't the fault of the person making the complaint.

No, just no. People didn't read the contracts or their statements, that's not "hidden". It's a complete myth about PPI being hidden, people complain about not knowing they had it on a credit card despite it being on every bill. People complain about not knowing it was with a loan even though it was on the agreement. It is categorically NOT miss-selling a product if you simply don't read your documents - at the very least ignoring CC statements is a recipe for card fraud.

Yellabowley wrote: »

There are so many examples like the guy above, that I stand by my opinion. It is definitely worth sticking a claim in if you know that you always turned the offer of PPI down.

There are actually very very few examples of people who genuinely did not know they had it (thanks to dodgy sales staff ticking boxes after) - there are, however, a great many examples of people simply not reading their documentation and then claiming to not know about it, or simply forgetting about what they signed up for.

On a recent post on this forum, a user claimed back PPI on a credit card from 1985 - they claimed, like your example, that they always refused PPI yet they did not question the PPI payment on every statement for years - it takes 10 minutes to ring up a bank and ask what a charge is, one of the defences banks can put up on a CC claim is the fact it's right there on every statement.

It's not taking the "moral high ground" to say that PPI was not hidden if you simply didn't read your statements that showed you paying it, it's just common sense.

Oh and as magpiecottage says, you are lucky banks are not taking customers on for fraud for putting in a complaint about miss-selling of PPI when there wasn't even PPI on the account.

At the very least, you should be advising people to check they had it first, putting in a complaint to try and get money back from a non-existent policy is borderline criminal.

addedvaluebob

magpiecottage wrote: »

Except that a complaint about a non-existent product can be dismissed by FOS as frivolous and/or vexatious - and a firm can pursue a complainant to recover its costs in such cases.

So it is not entirely without risk.

Complete nonsense. FOS would only ever use the frivolous and vexatious reasoning in the most extreme of circumstances. A neighbour of mine took a case to FOS because the bank told him they had never had a policy or mis-sold anything to his mum.

Turns out the bank were mistaken (lied). But in the remit of this forum it would probably be described as frivolous and vexatious because the bank have said so.

They have no high ground from which to take on any case in the courts that's why they don't do it, along with the costs of pursuing such an action and the publicity.

People should not be told this is a possibility as again it looks like they are being discouraged from pursuing possible complaints /reclaiming for mis-selling.

It seems that this forum has just become a vehicle to tell people they are all mistaken, PPI was never mis-sold, never hidden and it is all their own fault for being stupid and not diligent enough. Yet the % of complaints being upheld continues to show more complaints upheld in favour of the consumer than the selling company (oh sorry I forgot these were just auto-payments because the company did nothing wrong but it is cheaper to pay you off than pay the FOS fee)

I wonder how many of the contributors here have software on their machines where they can categorically state they have read all the terms and conditions before downloading.

magpiecottage

addedvaluebob wrote: »

Complete nonsense. FOS would only ever use the frivolous and vexatious reasoning in the most extreme of circumstances.

Yet again you make a statement which is misleading. In case study 94/3 a complaint that PPI was missold when it never existed WAS dismissed as frivolous and vexatious.

Therefore I am correct, there IS a risk that this could happen. The old FSA confirmed that, in those circumstances, a firm can charge a complainant. Arguably, too, this is consistent with Principle 8 as the cost would otherwise have to be borne by its other customers.

That is not to say that a consumer cannot ask if they had PPI on an account (although a lender might not know if somebody else sold it) but making an accusation that they were missold a non-existent policy is silly - another word for frivolous.

Insider101

magpiecottage wrote: »

Yet again you make a statement which is misleading. In case study 94/3 a complaint that PPI was missold when it never existed WAS dismissed as frivolous and vexatious.

Therefore I am correct, there IS a risk that this could happen. The old FSA confirmed that, in those circumstances, a firm can charge a complainant. Arguably, too, this is consistent with Principle 8 as the cost would otherwise have to be borne by its other customers.

That is not to say that a consumer cannot ask if they had PPI on an account (although a lender might not know if somebody else sold it) but making an accusation that they were missold a non-existent policy is silly - another word for frivolous.

This is the correct answer.

I have seen many complaints (usually of the CMC variety) which go into several pages of graphic detail regarding the misinformation which was supposedly provided by the salesperson. Yet it then turns out that the customer never took out a PPI policy (and sometimes that it is a mail or Internet sale without any staff involvement).

Sometimes it turns out that the person has got their products mixed up or their dates wrong which is fair enough. However, on other occasions there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that the customer has ever taken out anything remotely resembling a PPI policy.

In the latter circumstance, I too would consider the complaint to be frivolous. People wouldn't go making complaints about the sales of non existent mortgages or pensions so why is it considered acceptable with PPI?

I too have seen FOS case studies where such cases have been dismissed as frivolous. I also think that where a CMC is involved they should be made to pay the case fee (failing which, more firms ought to follow the lead of Alan Lakey and sue them for the cost of the investigation).

addedvaluebob

I have read 94/3 can you please point out where the complaint was dismissed as frivolous or vexatious in case I have followed the wrong path. I have assumed this is in Ombudsman news.

People should not be dissuaded from making complaints because they have a lack of industry knowledge and are worried by the threat of legal action. This is the kind of thinking that helps companies keep the upper hand as ordinary people believe this may happen when in fact out of the millions of PPI complaints I am not aware of a single successful court action.

antrobus

addedvaluebob wrote: »

I have read 94/3 can you please point out where the complaint was dismissed as frivolous or vexatious in case I have followed the wrong path. I have assumed this is in Ombudsman news.....

In accordance with our rules, we decided the case was ‘ frivolous and vexatious’

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/94/94.pdf

It's on page 7. It took me all of five seconds to find it.:)

redux

I've only come late to the whole subject of PPI.

Over 20 years ago I had PPI by default on one product, and was annoyed afterwards because I read all the terms and discovered that as I'm self-employed there were circumstances that weren't covered i.e. being made redundant by an employer, or an injury at work.

So I've avoided it ever since.

What I've realised only in the last few days is that some people have claimed that far back, so I've made a couple of initial phone calls ...

I have all the old statements even that far and further back, so I could add it up myself or send in copies if necessary, depending how things go.

But what I can categorically state for this thread is that the insurance element is clearly itemised on the statement, separate from the interest.

Insider101

addedvaluebob wrote: »

I have read 94/3 can you please point out where the complaint was dismissed as frivolous or vexatious in case I have followed the wrong path. I have assumed this is in Ombudsman news.

People should not be dissuaded from making complaints because they have a lack of industry knowledge and are worried by the threat of legal action. This is the kind of thinking that helps companies keep the upper hand as ordinary people believe this may happen when in fact out of the millions of PPI complaints I am not aware of a single successful court action.

There was the one I mentioned earlier where Alan Lakey of Highclere Financial Services successfully took AIMS Reclaim to court for wasting his time. However, it doesn't happen often. For one thing, FOS are reluctant to declare a complaint frivolous unless it is the most blatant waste of time. Secondly, bank complaints departments are by their nature reactive rather than proactive. They are process driven and nobody cares enough to try and get after the time wasters. Thirdly, regardless of the merits, in today's climate the banks do not want the bad press which would come with taking legal action against a complainant.

The case I referred to above was an IFA which is a different kettle of fish, a much smaller company who take complaints very personally. Now if someone feels they have a genuine complaint then by all means they have the right to make one. However, the system as it stands is being abused and if court action is a credible deterrent (ironically an old FSA buzzword) to people making complaints which amount to virtual fraud then I for one am all for it.

addedvaluebob

So one case from millions has been successfully taken to court. It is hardly grounds for advising people they can be sued for making a complaint without full details