MBNA Have Rejected My PPI Mis-Sale Complaint Because ...

USOpenTennisFan27

Hi MSE,

MBNA wrote to me recently telling me why they have rejected my request for them to investigate whether PPI has been mis-sold to me. Following on from the title of this post, and typed directly from their letter dated 18th Dec 19:

"... more than 3 years have passed since we wrote to you and no concerns have been raised about the sale of PPI. This means we can't now look into any of the things you've said we did or didn't do when we sold you PPI.

"The time limits for referring a complaint are found in the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) handbook under Dispute Resolution rule 2.8.2. Under these rules we are not required to consider a complaint if the sale took place over 6 years ago and the complaint is referred to us more than 3 years from the date you ought to have reasonably become aware that you had cause to complain (for example you realised you had PPI). This means that it wasn't necessary for you to know all the reasons that you could complain about to realise that you wanted to complain.

"Please note PPI is no longer active on your account and you are not covered by the policy."

Firstly, I can't remember receiving the letter MBNA say they sent to me (dated 17th Sept 2013), I probably thought it was just promotional stuff and threw it out. Secondly MBNA have sent me a couple of cheques for about £200 in total for other accounts I had with them which they've investigated and have agreed that PPI has been mis-sold to me; so, it's almost certain that PPI was mis-sold to me on the account they refuse to investigate. Thirdly, I left my PPI mis-selling application very late and only bothered to make the claim after listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 when the guest adviser on the programme persuaded me to go ahead and apply. When I applied on line I did so in the most general terms possible to allow a PPI mis-selling investigation to take place. However, my application was made just before the 29th August 2019 deadline.

I've spoken to someone at MBNA on the phone and asked her whether this over 3 year cut-off thingy is a legal situation and her response was yes it is -- according to the MBNA they have firm legal grounds for rejecting my PPI investigation application.

I've also written a hardcopy letter to MBNA asking them to reconsider their decision to reject my "complaint", as they put it, as a goodwill gesture bearing in mind I made my application before the 29th August deadline. It seems strange to me that MBNA can legally disregard the 29th August 19 deadline and instead cite this other 3-year cut-off deadline; if this is legit, then it just proves, at least to me, that yet again the law is an !!! and weighted against the little guy.

Anyway, if you have any advice for me regarding this, I would be very happy to receive it.

Kind regards



Peter Fraser

[Deleted User]

USOpenTennisFan27 wrote: »

I've also written a hardcopy letter to MBNA asking them to reconsider their decision to reject my "complaint", as they put it, as a goodwill gesture bearing in mind I made my application before the 29th August deadline.

They called it a "complaint" because you made a mis-selling "complaint".

societys_child

. . . as a goodwill gesture bearing in mind I made my application before the 29th August deadline.

They sent a letter effectively inviting you to complain. You ignored it/ threw it in the bin and exceeded the time limit. The letter was intended to prevent just what you did, why would you deserve a good will payout over 3 years later?

brettcta

Forget it, move on and enjoy Christmas - you’ve little to no chance of getting this overturned

Nearlyold

It seems strange to me that MBNA can legally disregard the 29th August 19 deadline and instead cite this other 3-year cut-off deadline;

MBNA are not disregarding the 29th August deadline, this was a final deadline for receipt of PPI complaints that had not been sent previously however it was not intended as an extension for the receipt of complaints that were already time barred. Your complaint was already time barred because of the 6 year and 3 year rules as explained by MBNA

[Deleted User]

USOpenTennisFan27 wrote: »

I can't remember receiving the letter MBNA say they sent to me (dated 17th Sept 2013), I probably thought it was just promotional stuff and threw it out

The whole point of these letters was to quickly get rid of potential future complaints. Thousands of people who might otherwise not have complained were prompted to complain, while others ignored the letters or (as you did) assumed they were unimportant and threw them away.

You need to understand that the Bank are refusing to even look at your complaint now. Your other PPI successes with this lender are no indication of whether you would also be awarded a refund with this finance. Asking them to consider your complaint as a "goodwill gesture" will get you nowhere and the Ombudsman will not overturn a properly applied time bar.

Basically, as others have said, you missed the boat with this one...

SonOf

Firstly, I can't remember receiving the letter MBNA say they sent to me (dated 17th Sept 2013), I probably thought it was just promotional stuff and threw it out.

You probably did just that. It seems to be something that we have seen time and again.

I've spoken to someone at MBNA on the phone and asked her whether this over 3 year cut-off thingy is a legal situation and her response was yes it is -- according to the MBNA they have firm legal grounds for rejecting my PPI investigation application.

The 3 and 6 year rule for complaining is similar to law and has existed in the FCA (or previous regulators) rule book for over 20 years.

It seems strange to me that MBNA can legally disregard the 29th August 19 deadline and instead cite this other 3-year cut-off deadline

The 29th August was a special additional timebar to the ones that already existed. So, nothing strange about it at all.

if this is legit, then it just proves, at least to me, that yet again the law is an !!!

The law is not an !!! and timebars exist in all walks of life.

and weighted against the little guy.

It is weighted against the lazy and opportunistic. Not people with genuine complaint reasons. People with a genuine reason to complain tend to do so relatively quickly. You have had over 15 years to raise a complaint. You didn't.

Nearlyold

The responses you have received are simply stating the facts, your complaint has been time barred by MBNA, the time bar appears valid & extremely unlikely to be overturned by FOS or anyone else.

What do you want folks to tell you?

brettcta

I hope my manager doesn’t find out I’m a hopeless amateur as I’ve been assessing PPI complaints for the past few years. That’s gonna be a big pile of work to go back over if he ever finds out.

The_squirrell

Can I just say....Merry Christmas to all the "hopeless amateurs" who have posted on this thread. Despite all your extremely disappointing (to some) , but entirely factual comments throughout the year, I have found them to be extremely useful and informative.


Happy Christmas to one and all and lets see what the Christmas CMC Grinch brings us next year!

[Deleted User]

Happy Christmas everyone!