EGG PPI Issues

Max223

Apologies for the vague title, could not think how to word it.

Short history, took out a card with Egg back in 2004 (approximately) to help pay costs whilst I took time off for 6 months to care for terminally ill close relative.

Racked up quite a debt on the card whcih I continued to make payments to and then became ill myself with heart problems a couple of years later, ended up taking 6 years off work due to severe health problems and low chances of success for heart surgery (difficult procedure back then).

When I contacted Egg to make a claim on my PPI to help pay for the card/interest whilst I was off sick they told me I was ineligible for the insurance as it was a "pre-existing condition". After years of struggling to pay the interest (and the PPI). I ended up borrowing from a family member to pay the balance of the card and close the account.

The heart condition has now been Surgically corrected and I have made a number of complaints regarding PPI.

I recall trying to claim PPI for Egg back in 2013 but could not find who to claim from so I left it (or so I thought that was the case).

A friend referred me to a Claim company recently. I know they are sharks but I did not seem to get anywhere previously. They claimed on my behalf to Barclays (ended up going to Canada Square Operations), they refunded me the commission they earned on it which was next to nothing but have advised me that they sent a final written decision rejecting the actual PPI claim back in 2013.

I have no recollection of the letter and I would likely have kept such a letter and filed it (I am somewhat financially wiser than I was back when I racked up the debt) yet I cannot find it.

At the time of the claim I assumed since Egg have not existed for some time that the claim simply had a low chance of success and if I got no response so be it.

As it is well past the 6 month Ombudsman claim limit it seems as though there is nothing I can do.

Personally this sticks in my throat as it's fairly clear they sold mis-sold me a product that I was ineligible to make use of (other companies have agreed that was the case and paid out).

This 6 month Ombudsman complaint limit seems ridiculous to me.

I am going to contact Canada Square Operations and ask them for a copy of the rejection letter supposedly they sent me back in 2013 (assuming it was them that sent it to me).

Is there anything else I can do?

McKneff

Sorry, but it seems you are well out of tme

Max223

Thought as much, to be honest I'll request the letter as personally I believe they never sent me one but there's no real way to prove that.

I'm sure if their system has a registered rejection they'll just print a standard rejection letter they send to anyone, send it to me and claim they sent it back in 2013.

Answer is not to be so bloody stupid with money in future, you can't trust these institutions and the system is stacked against you as a consumer getting any recompense.

Due diligence in future.

Thanks for your time.

Nasqueron

If they have proof it was sent that is sufficient to trigger the time bar, you do not have to have received it.

6 months after rejection is more than enough time to refer it, a process that takes 2 minutes via an email.

Other complaints have no impact on this one, the firms may have auto-paid or found another failing. A pre-existing condition alone does not invalidate PPI as it could pay out for any other condition or for loss of job etc

Nasqueron

Max223 wrote: »

Thought as much, to be honest I'll request the letter as personally I believe they never sent me one but there's no real way to prove that.

I'm sure if their system has a registered rejection they'll just print a standard rejection letter they send to anyone, send it to me and claim they sent it back in 2013.

Answer is not to be so bloody stupid with money in future, you can't trust these institutions and the system is stacked against you as a consumer getting any recompense.

Thanks for your time.

The FOS is incredibly customer biased and the sheer amount of PPI complaints paid out and volume of the money says that the complaint process is stacked in favour of the customer. I seem to recall the whole PPI refund industry was started on the basis of banks being told they had to treat complaints based on the current rules even though they were obviously not in force when the sale was made

Max223

Nasqueron wrote: »

The FOS is incredibly customer biased and the sheer amount of PPI complaints paid out and volume of the money says that the complaint process is stacked in favour of the customer. I seem to recall the whole PPI refund industry was started on the basis of banks being told they had to treat complaints based on the current rules even though they were obviously not in force when the sale was made

This 6 month limit is not a consumer interest based limit but one which is likely imposed out of practicality. The Ombudsman simply cannot process the sheer volume of complaints regarding PPI referred to them, the 6 month limit is designed to cut down on that volume.

Canada Square Operations (responsible for Egg PPI Complaints) seem to of out of hand rejected my claim and not actually sent me that rejection letter.

The actual process of referring the complaint to the FOS is as you say "a 2 minute email", however it is a little hard to do that when you have not received a rejection letter so are unaware of it.

Had I even been made aware that my claim was being dealt with I would have been able to chase it up and discover it had been rejected.

Again, this is due to a lack of due diligence on my part, I should have searched for a number and tried to track down my PPI Complaint so that I would have known it was rejected. I incorrectly assumed they would contact me.

I am wiser now to these processes and frankly after six years of hell I was more focused on getting back on my feet and making up for lost time working than I was chasing a PPI complaint for a company that folded years before.

Anyway, not going to argue. This six month limit on referring to the Ombudsman is in my own opinion (and the opinion of a number of other people/organisations I have spoken to) a practical restriction for the FOS and a favourable one for the banking institutions, obviously not a consumer focused limit.

[Deleted User]

Max223 wrote: »

I'm sure if their system has a registered rejection they'll just print a standard rejection letter they send to anyone, send it to me and claim they sent it back in 2013.

Unfortunately, there really is no point in requesting the rejection letter unless you simply want to know why your complaint was rejected. There really is no conspiracy.

It seems you have simply forgotten that you did proceed with your complaint in 2013 rather than "left it".

Five years on, the letter you will receive will definitely be a copy of the one you were actually sent.

It will be a customised version of a generic letter, but specific to you.

There'll also be a thorough audit trail of the complaint you made and the response they gave.

Max223 wrote: »

you can't trust these institutions and the system is stacked against you

The literally £billions paid in PPI redress to millions of customers makes a nonsense of your conspiracy theory, I'm afraid.

Max223 wrote: »

This 6 month limit is not a consumer interest based limit but one which is likely imposed out of practicality. The Ombudsman simply cannot process the sheer volume of complaints regarding PPI referred to them, the 6 month limit is designed to cut down on that volume.

I agree this is the case, but only to an extent. The time period is sufficient for the overwhelming majority and it stops people bringing vexatious complaints years later. In August next year, the whole PPI complaint process will grind to a complete halt for the same reason. It really cannot go on forever.

Nasqueron

Max223 wrote: »

This 6 month limit is not a consumer interest based limit but one which is likely imposed out of practicality. The Ombudsman simply cannot process the sheer volume of complaints regarding PPI referred to them, the 6 month limit is designed to cut down on that volume.

The FOS has hundreds of thousands of cases and 6 months is more than enough time to refer your complaint

Max223 wrote: »

Canada Square Operations (responsible for Egg PPI Complaints) seem to of out of hand rejected my claim and not actually sent me that rejection letter.

You're mixing up not receiving (or losing or throwing away) the letter. They will be able to prove they sent it to you.

Max223 wrote: »

The actual process of referring the complaint to the FOS is as you say "a 2 minute email", however it is a little hard to do that when you have not received a rejection letter so are unaware of it.

Had I even been made aware that my claim was being dealt with I would have been able to chase it up and discover it had been rejected.

You admit in your first post you complained but didn't follow it up, that was your choice.

Max223 wrote: »

Again, this is due to a lack of due diligence on my part, I should have searched for a number and tried to track down my PPI Complaint so that I would have known it was rejected. I incorrectly assumed they would contact me.

Again, they did contact you. Many of the letters would appear to be junk or circulars and was probably thrown away, this is 5 years ago, can you honestly remember opening a letter that long back?

Max223 wrote: »

I am wiser now to these processes and frankly after six years of hell I was more focused on getting back on my feet and making up for lost time working than I was chasing a PPI complaint for a company that folded years before.

Anyway, not going to argue. This six month limit on referring to the Ombudsman is in my own opinion (and the opinion of a number of other people/organisations I have spoken to) a practical restriction for the FOS and a favourable one for the banking institutions, obviously not a consumer focused limit.

6 months is half a year. You get a letter rejecting it (or ring up for an update and get told) and it takes 2 minutes to refer to the FOS. It is absolutely not a company focused restriction, it is absolutely a customer favoured limit giving you a huge amount of time to do a tiny task. If it was business focused you might get 30 days or even 60, not 6 months

Max223

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

Unfortunately, there really is no point in requesting the rejection letter unless you simply want to know why your complaint was rejected. There really is no conspiracy.

It seems you have simply forgotten that you did proceed with your complaint in 2013 rather than "left it".

Five years on, the letter you will receive will definitely be a copy of the one you were actually sent.

It will be a customised version of a generic letter, but specific to you.

There'll also be a thorough audit trail of the complaint you made and the response they gave.

The literally £billions paid in PPI redress to millions of customers makes a nonsense of your conspiracy theory, I'm afraid.

I can tell you now that I have letters, statements and emails for all financial institutions going back 20 years all filed in order.

I may have forgotten that I proceeded with the claim but there is a reason I file everything, so that I do not have to remember such details. I did not simply forget about the outcome of the complaint.

If I received a letter. I would most likely have filed it with the rest of the information, though I will admit it is not impossible that something happened to a letter before it was filed but again, that seems unlikely given my record keeping habits.

That being said I did not keep copies of the actual complaints I sent, I assumed (wrongly it seems) the responses would be worth filing not the application.

Still if you believe I may have misplaced and not filed the rejection letter than you also have to (if you are being honest) believe that the opposite is also potentially true and that the PPI Rejection may not have been sent to me at all.

I am not suggesting there is a conspiracy, that is ludicrous based on the little information I have and especially when you consider how small my PPI Complaint is in the grand scheme of things. I have worked in a management role in several large corporations for a great many years. I have seen how underpaid and overstretched employees/departments make mistakes all the time. Especially when pressures are put on them. I think it is "nonsense" people like yourself believe them to be infallible.

Whilst most of the advice in your post (not everyone's advice) is generally an attempt to belittle me to I assume fill some void. I do however thank you for your opinion that there will be a "thorough audit trail of the complaint you made and the response they gave."

That gives me all the more reason to request a copy of the rejection letter so that I can finally put this case to rest and file the rejection letter alongside the rest of my Egg Credit Card paperwork.

Whilst the advice from Moneysavingexpert forums is greatly appreciated there is a tendency for many of the responders to assume when people are frustrated that they are tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists and that the corporation/institution they are complaining about can do no wrong.

I am a professional and so I will not break confidentiality. I will simply say that I have seen practices in large corporations and institutions that directly contradict such standpoints and so I do not naturally assume that they have done everything they claim or are supposed to have done.

I succeeded in my claims to other PPI companies (some I filed myself, some I sought aid from a sharking PPI claims company) despite the companies dubious policies.

1. As an example a company claimed they had no record of an account I closed just last year that had been running for 12 years, I provided them with an account closure letter with account details.
   
2. They then claimed I had not been sold PPI. - I Provided them copies of statements going back 10 years with Payment Protection Insurance listed on each.
   

I was eventually successful despite their efforts to deny the claim.

Like previous corporations I have worked for there is an internal unspoken rule to reject and deny everything until you have no choice but to payout, I have seen it in practice and persistence on the part of the customer pays off, often only have to threatening legal proceedings.

I consider myself to be pragmatic and essentially they are off the hook because my inaction let them off by not following up on my complaint, regardless of whether or not I received a letter.

[Deleted User]

Max223 wrote: »

I can tell you now that I have letters, statements and emails for all financial institutions going back 20 years all filed in order.

Nobody said you definitely received (or filed) the letter, but the Bank will be able to prove they sent it and that would be enough for the Ombudsman to assume that the letter was received I'm afraid.
Just to reiterate, the Bank will also be able to produce an audit trail of your entire complaint. That's the complaint you earlier refuted ever sending to them.

Max223 wrote: »

essentially they are off the hook because my inaction let them off by not following up on my complaint, regardless of whether or not I received a letter.

That's it in a nutshell. You sent a complaint and either forgot about it or simply never followed up the rejection.

Don't be too despondent about it, though, the Ombudsman would likely have rejected your complaint too.

Max223 wrote: »

there is an internal unspoken rule to reject and deny everything until you have no choice but to payout,

How can it be a "rule" if it's unspoken? The fact that many many have had successful complaints makes a nonsense of your assertion. You also tell us that you've had other successful complaints and that even this one produced a Plevin Refund.