Abbey misselling alert

EdInvestor

Abbey has been whacked with the biggest-ever fine for cheating people on endowment misselling claims.

They will be reviewing all policies where they turned down claims - at least 50,000 are involved.

So if you complained to Abbey in the last few years, they turned you down and you didn't take it any further, you may now get some compensation.

If Abbey doesn't contact you within a month or two, chase them up.

EdInvestor

Looks like this is turning into a big crackdown, with three more providers rumoured to be in the firing line.

Standard article

Anyone who's had an endowment misselling complaint turned down should keep an eye on how this develops.

scaty

Scanning the threads on endowments and came across this one.

I've just a letter from Abbey about reviewing my case. I was among the turned down lot and didn't take things further - too many things going on at the time. Kidney failure for one- and yes I had been sold critical health insurance along with the endowment. BUT :mad: I didn't qualify for any payment as I didn't have dialysis - just how many hoops do you have to jump through. To me it seemed that I missed out whatever I did with Abbey.

The letter states that I should just wait to hear from them, it hasn't asked for any further contact. It states that it would cost me money if I went and sort any kind legal help. Which I thought could be a a bit off putting to some.

My question is do I just sit and wait or is there something I can do to improve my case?

Like most people I've read about on the threads, most if not all of the verbal promises were not put on the printed agreement which I signed.


PS I tried to look at the article and the link said 'sorry......

EdInvestor

Hi Scaty,

Gosh how awful, I hope your health problems have improved since.

At this point I should just wait and see what happens,it's quite encouraging that they are already sending out letters. (I have read they have set up a special call centre and employed 160 people to deal with this problem).

Do report back on any further developments.

I will delete the dysfunctional link.

suer_2

I am trying to claim comp for 2 mis sold endowments from the Abbey National. The first was sold in 1987 by staff in an AN branch & was a friends provident policy. AN say that they were merley acting as FP agents & when they stopped being agents & set up their own dept all the paperwork relating to the sales was forwarded to FP. FP have just said that we are out of time.

Does anyone know if AN can pass the buck in this way?

They have incidently made a derisory offer on the endowment they sold in 1992 - supposedly calculating how much worse off we are now compared to taking out a repayment mortgage.

Our main worry is a shortfall of 15k on the Friends Provident endowment that 'matures' in 2012.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

EdInvestor

Hi Suer

suer wrote:

I am trying to claim comp for 2 mis sold endowments from the Abbey National. The first was sold in 1987 by staff in an AN branch & was a friends provident policy. AN say that they were merley acting as FP agents & when they stopped being agents & set up their own dept all the paperwork relating to the sales was forwarded to FP. FP have just said that we are out of time. Does anyone know if AN can pass the buck in this way?

The timing on this seems odd - if it was after 1988 it's more likely to have been true.When did you get your first "red letter"? The timer starts ticking from then.

They have incidently made a derisory offer on the endowment they sold in 1992 - supposedly calculating how much worse off we are now compared to taking out a repayment mortgage.

That is the correct procedure: the redress will not pay off the shortfall.You need to surrender the endowment, and pay the proceeds, plus the compo money in to reduce the size of the moprtgage and then increase your monthly mortgage paymwent by the size of the current endowment premium.Then you should be OK.

defender_of_the_weak

I am with editor in being a bit puzzled by your posting.

In 1987 Abbey were independent but it is common practice for them to send turn down letters saying we did not give any advice and merely forwarded the paperwork. This is simply not true, it is merely a tactic to put you and many others off pursuing your case.

FP apply the time bar rigidly but there may be grounds for appeal to the Ombudsman due to exceptional circumstances i.e serious ill health

How on earth was kidney failure not covered by the critical illness element of your policy, that should definetly be referred to the Ombudsman

scaty

Hi Defender of the weak

Apparently I was not 'critical' enough!! If I had had one course of dialysis then I might have stood a chance of getting something back from all of those premiums.

Unfortunately, when you are being sold things like critical illness cover, you do not read e v e r y w o r d carefully and spot the the now obvious get outs for the insurance company. I had 6 months off work to recoperate- slept most of the time like Rip Van Winkle. I went back to work after that, got scared in case I lost my job and could not afford half pay. Now my health comes first and I don't do the hours for free like I used to.

I have another story of when I re-mortgaged and they, ABBEY, told me amongst other stories, that it was too dangerous for the robots to go in and get my deeds. I wrote down all the replies I was getting as it was becoming like a comedy sketch. When a colleague in work was beginning to have the same run around as me, I showed her what I had been told and she read them them out to the person at ABBEY. Her remortgage went through much faster after that.

Apparently my complaint on that is still being looked into - 3 years later!!

defender_of_the_weak

I asume you are now with the Ombudsman Service, if not, you should file your entire sorry tale with them, including the FP turn down.

BenL

Editor wrote:

At this point I should just wait and see what happens,it's quite encouraging that they are already sending out letters. (I have read they have set up a special call centre and employed 160 people to deal with this problem).

Ahh the special call centre in abbey house made up of the people they made redundant from the banking centre the week before and sent them all home due to jobs moving to India.

Then called them back in to start on this with no previous experience just before the story came out in the paper.

Highly motivate staff, i think not.

Ben

Seesaw_2

Got my questionnaire 3 days ago - very much more indepth then the original questionnaire which suggests that they are either going to look into the mis-selling more seriously or this is a way of them getting the ammo to throw the claim out !

Anyway putting as much info in as poss and crossing finders !