Reclaiming PPI- Arranged via independent financial advisor

stevobreen73

In 2007, I received financial advice from an independent financial advisor in my local estate agents- Allen and Harris in Clarkston. They gave advice on my mortgage and protection policies such as unemployment, sickness and critical illness cover. I took all of these policies and from memory I think they were with Legal and General.

Can anyone advise if these are the policies that may have been missold and if so, who would I make the claim against; the estate agent who sold the policies or Legal and General? I was paying these policies up until at least 2010.

Any help would be appreciated.

Nasqueron

Why do you feel they were miss-sold?

Nearlyold

stevobreen73 wrote: »

In 2007, I received financial advice from an independent financial advisor in my local estate agents- Allen and Harris in Clarkston. They gave advice on my mortgage and protection policies such as unemployment, sickness and critical illness cover. I took all of these policies and from memory I think they were with Legal and General.

Can anyone advise if these are the policies that may have been missold and if so, who would I make the claim against; the estate agent who sold the policies or Legal and General? I was paying these policies up until at least 2010.

Any help would be appreciated.

Nothing in what you describe would indicate any wrongdoing by the adviser, why do you believe he may have been wrong to recommend these policies to you. It seems to me that you are trying to construct a complaint when there doesn't on the face of it appear to be a justifiable reason to complain.

dunstonh

In 2007, I received financial advice from an independent financial advisor in my local estate agents- Allen and Harris in Clarkston

Interesting. Allen & Harris are appointed reps of Connells. Connells are tied agents of L&G. So, how did you manage to see an IFA from a firm that does not employ IFAs?

. I took all of these policies and from memory I think they were with Legal and General.

Which they would be if you bought from an L&G tied agent.

Can anyone advise if these are the policies that may have been missold

Any product that exists on the market place can be potentially mis-sold. Nobody here was present in your meetings or has access to your documentation. So, we cant tell if they were mis-sold. There is nothing actually wrong with the products you have from a product point of view. All of that type are still available to buy today.

Why do you think they were mis-sold?

addedvaluebob

Interesting. Allen & Harris are appointed reps of Connells. Connells are tied agents of L&G. So, how did you manage to see an IFA from a firm that does not employ IFAs?

Because the adviser lied or did not explain their status clearly enough. It was commonplace for advisers in the mortgage market to profess their 'independence' without making it clear they were 'tied' for the sale of the protection products.

Lots of potential for mis-selling but cannot be judged without proper details

dunstonh

Because the adviser lied or did not explain their status clearly enough. It was commonplace for advisers in the mortgage market to profess their 'independence' without making it clear they were 'tied' for the sale of the protection products.

You are right. it is not uncommon for tied sales reps to try and give the impression they are independent. Research some years back showed that over half of people seeing tied agents though they were seeing an IFA.

Lots of potential for mis-selling but cannot be judged without proper details

Exactly as I said. Any product can be mis-sold. However, it is also true that advisers have a very low complaint rate and a low uphold rate on complaints. So, some context is needed. Looking at the FOS stats for complaints date to Dec 2015, Connells had no data published for PPI (they did for mortgage and home finance though). This means they had fewer than 30 PPI complaints in that period. So, despite their size, they are not exactly suffering many PPI complaints.

magpiecottage

addedvaluebob wrote: »

Because the adviser lied or did not explain their status clearly enough. It was commonplace for advisers in the mortgage market to profess their 'independence' without making it clear they were 'tied' for the sale of the protection products.

In 2007 a tied agent of Legal & General would have provided a "Key Facts" document at outset which explained that they were tied to Legal & General. The format of this document was prescribed by the Financial Services Authority, the regulator at the time.

The Financial Services Authority designed and specified this format to ensure it was clear, fair and not misleading.

If the OP has forgotten what it said, the failure is perhaps understandable after 9 years but it is the OP's not the adviser's or Legal & General's.

If the OP never understood what it said in the first place, that might be their own fault or the fault of the Financial Services Authority or a combination of the two but, since they had no influence over its content, it is not the fault of the adviser or Legal & General.

If the OP never read it, then they only have one person to blame.

As far as the sales are concerned, they may or may not have been suitable. However, as with any other area of civil law, for a claim to succeed, it must be shown that it is more likely than not (and not merely equally likely) that the allegation is true.

At this point in time, the OP has only said that the policies existed. That, in itself, does not mean they were missold.

They also say that they had a mortgage and the policies covered that mortgage. So unless there was a mismatch between the level of cover and the mortgage liability, or the OP would never have been able to make a successful claim, the product seems to have met a particular need.

So what little the OP has told us would give no indication of misselling to anybody but a conspiracy theorist.

addedvaluebob

In 2007 a tied agent of Legal & General would have provided a "Key Facts" document at outset which explained that they were tied to Legal & General. The format of this document was prescribed by the Financial Services Authority, the regulator at the time.

The Financial Services Authority designed and specified this format to ensure it was clear, fair and not misleading.

If the OP has forgotten what it said, the failure is perhaps understandable after 9 years but it is the OP's not the adviser's or Legal & General's.

Do actually believe this, the financial services industry is littered with mis-selling over decades and yet if we are to believe you then everything in the garden was rosy and compliant. Even in recent years studies have shown that people were advised without the status of the adviser being made clear. Do you post this stuff on here to be deliberately misleading?

If the OP never understood what it said in the first place, that might be their own fault or the fault of the Financial Services Authority or a combination of the two but, since they had no influence over its content, it is not the fault of the adviser or Legal & General.

If the OP never read it, then they only have one person to blame

.

So it must be the clients fault because the advising community can do no wrong

So what little the OP has told us would give no indication of misselling to anybody but a conspiracy theorist

.

Oh please is this the best you can do to accuse anyone who disagrees as being a conspiracy theorist. You freely agree that you don't know any details and yet it was obviously a fully compliant sale. Do we know the term, the actual SA, who was covered, the presence of any existing policies, whether there was a ASU policy as suggested by the OP.

No we know nothing but yet again posters are advised that it was obviously not a mis-sale and their chances of success are next to nothing

dunstonh

Do actually believe this, the financial services industry is littered with mis-selling over decades and yet if we are to believe you then everything in the garden was rosy and compliant.

Doesnt matter what you think. The assumption would be that it was issued. However, even if it wasnt, it has no impact on the complaint.

So it must be the clients fault because the advising community can do no wrong

Evidence dear boy. You cant prove something was not issued.

No we know nothing but yet again posters are advised that it was obviously not a mis-sale and their chances of success are next to nothing

Chances of success against an IFA are damned low (but its not an IFA). Chances against connells are low (who dont even have enough PPI complaints to get a stat recorded against them on the FOS data. We also know most MPPI complaints are rejected and most complaints against advisers are rejected. So, the chance of success is low when you look at it like that.

And lets not forget, the OP hasn't actually stated a reason for complaint yet. They were enquiring whether it was likely.

magpiecottage

addedvaluebob wrote: »

Do actually believe this

In my experience yes. I have never seen any evidence of the misconduct addedvaluebob alleges and, despite repeated requests from me and other postes that he produce evidence to support those allegations he has have never done so.

I suggest that this is because he has no such evidence.

addedvaluebob wrote: »

the financial services industry is littered with mis-selling over decades

But the argument is whether they misrepresented their status, NOT whether they missold.
So when he says

addedvaluebob wrote: »

we are to believe you then everything in the garden was rosy and compliant.

that, too is a misrepresentation.

and when he says

addedvaluebob wrote: »

Even in recent years studies have shown that people were advised without the status of the adviser being made clear.

but produces no evidence whatsoever to support that allegation, I am not inclined to believe it either.

When I consider that an adviser will produce a document giving his status, it seems most unlikely that he would then risk saying something different and making himself look foolish if his client realised. He would also have no way of knowing.

addedvaluebob wrote: »

Do you post this stuff on here to be deliberately misleading?

I think that is a question better asked of addedvaluebob himself than of me.
.
After all, when he says

addedvaluebob wrote: »

So it must be the clients fault because the advising community can do no wrong

it seems clearly intended to infer that I have said something which I have most certainly not.

addedvaluebob wrote: »

Oh please is this the best you can do to accuse anyone who disagrees as being a conspiracy theorist.

Another misrepresentation. I do not normally call other posters conspiracy theorists. However, the content of addedvaluebob's posts lead me to the conclusion that he is either a conspiracy theorist who is self-deluded or a troll who has no other purpose than to sow discord.

I appreciate that I said what the OP had told us would only indicate missellling to a conspiracy theorist. I stand by that opinion. A troll would make the same representation with total disregard to the fact that it was, or may be false.

addedvaluebob wrote: »

You freely agree that you don't know any details and yet it was obviously a fully compliant sale.

I ask others to look at my words, not addedvaluebob's misrepresentation of them.

On second thoughts, probably better to compare what I actually said with what addedvaluebob has tried to have you believe I said.

You can then judge for yourselves whether you consider his testimony to be reliable.

dunstonh wrote: »

the OP hasn't actually stated a reason for complain

And there is the real problem.

"addedvaluebob on MSE says lots of advisers missold policies so it necessarily follows that my adviser missold my policy" is, in my professional opinion, unlikely to persuade an ombudsman to uphold a complaint.

If somebody puts a case that seems to have merit, I will tell them so.

On the other hand, if the case they are putting seems flawed it is, I think, better to learn of those flaws before putting the complaint in than being told about them by an ombudsman because they will only get one chance.

Insider101

addedvaluebob wrote: »

Do actually believe this, the financial services industry is littered with mis-selling over decades and yet if we are to believe you then everything in the garden was rosy and compliant. Even in recent years studies have shown that people were advised without the status of the adviser being made clear. Do you post this stuff on here to be deliberately misleading?
.

So it must be the clients fault because the advising community can do no wrong


.

Oh please is this the best you can do to accuse anyone who disagrees as being a conspiracy theorist. You freely agree that you don't know any details and yet it was obviously a fully compliant sale. Do we know the term, the actual SA, who was covered, the presence of any existing policies, whether there was a ASU policy as suggested by the OP.

No we know nothing but yet again posters are advised that it was obviously not a mis-sale and their chances of success are next to nothing

I'll try and explain this as briefly as I can.

Alleging mis-selling is a complaints process and it is one initiated by the person alleging wrongdoing. In its simplest form, if somebody believes they have been wronged and/or missold a product and are dissatisfied with events then they make a complaint. Note the key words "if they are dissatisfied". The complaints process is supposed to be there to ensure fair treatment of clients who genuinely believe they have been mistreated and is very much the exception rather than the rule (taking the number of complaints received by financial institutions each year in the context of their overall number of customers).

The problem with the process nowadays is that it is no longer fit for purpose. The reason for this is that a huge number of complaints these days are not being made because the complainant is genuinely dissatisfied. They are made because they are put up to it by third party ambulance chasers or because they have heard about others getting money fancy a bit of it and are therefore fishing to see if they can try and construct a complaint. The OP in this instance appears to fall into the latter category.

Two of the previous respondents are IFAs, who are potentially subject to complaints, or providers of compliance support to IFAs, who have to deal with them. Complaints against IFAs are not like complaints against banks, where the complaint is about a nameless, faceless organisation and the seller, if they are still there, will probably never even know about it. These people are regulated professionals who can lose their livelihood in the event of too many complaints and seeking to manufacture frivolous try-on complaints against them in the hope of securing personal gain is not on. End of.

In this situation, you can't blame people who work in the industry for answering, correctly, that the OP has not said anything which would point to any kind of wrongdoing and, regardless of what the product is, nobody is going to give out money for nothing. The whole industry is getting fed up of this kind of ambulance chasing. Therefore, unless the OP is going to provide us with his proposed grievance, if indeed there is one, it is perfectly correct to say that as things stand there is no case to answer. Again, it is on the proposed complainant to establish a case, not anyone else to disestablish it.

As for the comment "lots of potential for misselling", it just sounds exactly like something a CMC ambulance chaser would write. Funny that...