Endowment mis-selling complaint,once closed can it be re-opened?

marrbett

We made a complaint against our endowment company in January 2006 (Sun Life of Canada). My Dad died suddenly and unexpectedly towards the end of that month and we didn’t keep on top of things to do with the complaint. We kept getting letters that we hadn’t given all the details they needed to investigate properly but were told that it looked likely we had a valid claim. Anyway, to-cut-a –long-story-short I wasn’t able to get them all the things they wanted, (I wasn’t doing very well through all this because of my Dad’s death ) and they wrote to us in May or June to say they were closing the investigation as we hadn’t given all the documents to them(I didn’t care at this point, it just didn’t seem important.)
Well, we thought we had had our chance to claim any money back and blown it. The other day I had a cold-call from a mis-selling company asking if we had an endowment and I explained we had already made a complaint but that it had been closed. He said that the company can’t close an investigation once a complaint had been made, and that they would pursue this for us (the fee being about 33%).
Now, I’m thinking that if he’s right, we should be able to do this ourselves, but is he right? Does anyone know if we can go back to Sun Life of Canada and ask them to re-open the case?
Should we use this ‘expert’ company and be happy with the 66% of anything we would get left?
So many questions, sorry, just need a bit of expert advice as to the next move.
Thanks for getting this far. All replies gratefully received.

EdInvestor

DO NOT use the company, there is no need.

When you say your complaint was closed, was it actually rejected?If so you then have 6 months to take it on to the Ombudsman, and you should have a letter from Sun Life telling you that.

However IMHO you have a decent reason for asking for your complaint to be reviewed - either by Sun Life (if they didn't formally reject it) or by the FOS ( if they did) and I would write to the relevant party explaining what happened and requesting the review.

marrbett

Thanks EdInvestor,
The complaint was not rejected,they just said that we had not provided the relevent information,despite letters asking us for them,so they closed the file. I think I had better start hunting out documents.
Sadly we received a red letter warning of a potential £7500 shortfall (on 5% projection) only today.Might have to sell the shares we got from them when they de-mutualised:(
Much appreciated

dunstonh

The other day I had a cold-call from a mis-selling company asking if we had an endowment and I explained we had already made a complaint but that it had been closed. He said that the company can’t close an investigation once a complaint had been made, and that they would pursue this for us (the fee being about 33%

Cold calling by claims companies is a breach of rules. It is mainly the unregulated ones (operating illegally) that are still doing it.

Should we use this ‘expert’ company

Many of these are backroom operations by people who have no qualifications or experience but have a MS word template they use for every single complaint regardless of reason. Some of them aren't even based in this country. One that is breaking the rules and possibly operating illegally is probably no expert.

The FOS will allow complaints to be re-opened if there is justifiable reasons why the prcocess went past the 6 month point. Death is often a valid reason. However, they would also look at the fact your father passed away 20 months ago. Whilst that may have put the complaint on hold for a few months, you would have to justify why it held you up for 20 months. That is going to be harder. Not impossible possibly but harder.

marrbett

Thanks for the above.Will send the 'expert' company away with a flea in their ear. We have nothing to lose by asking them to look again at it.

I was intersted to see that the projected shortfall has dropped from £17,500 (at 5%) in 2004 to £7,500 (again at 5%) in 2007. Is that how much everyone's policies have picked up over the last 3 years,or is this company performing well? Am I wrong to hope we might actually break even in the end (14 or so years left)???? We are trying to take steps to reduce amount owed anyway.