HSBC admits mistake on our PPI claim

janepn

Hello my husband and I put a PPI claim in with HSBC well before the August 2019 deadline on a mortgage we had taken out through them with Royal Sun Alliance. The response was that the PPI claim wasn't successful. We have now received a letter from HSBC apologising to say they didn't in fact contact Royal Sun Alliance at all. I'm not sure what to do now as if I were to make a PPI claim again, I understand that we would have to go to court which seems totally unfair. Any advice would be gratefully received. Many thanks

brettcta

That’s not a claim, it’s a complaint.

if they have written to you admitting to a fault, I would presume it’s because they’re reviewing past decisions and have found issues. With that, I’d expect they would be reviewing their decision. What does the letter say?

the only ones that can give you a proper answer is HSBC.

janepn

They supplied our HSBC policy number along with their apologies for not contacting Royal Sun Alliance, and yes, said we can make a complaint but do you know what making a complaint is likely to result in? My grievance is we were misled in our original claim and have now missed the window. 

brettcta

It’s likely to result in your complaint being investigated and an outcome being provided to you in an appropriate time.

send a copy of that letter you’ve just received with your complaint and they should accept it despite the fact we’re so far beyond the deadline.

as an aside, did you make the original complaint yourself or did you use a third party claims company? If it’s the latter, they are more than likely to have been CC’d into any correspondence and should be contacting you shortly at the sniff of getting a pay out from you.

if not, then there’s no need to be concerned by anyone else writing to you.

janepn

Thank you so much for your help - it was done via a third party and nothing from them as yet and we've had this letter a little while now. I don't even know if they're in operation now to be honest - there's no cc on the letter we received. Thank you again

brettcta

Which CMC was it?

[Deleted User]

You need to be clear on your terminology - if you believe your PPI was miss-sold, it is a COMPLAINT not a claim. No-one claims back PPI as no-one was owed it. People complain it was miss-sold and if the complaint is upheld, you get a refund.

Assuming your complaint was lodged in time, the fact they have rejected it but are now reviewing it is a positive, the complaint being made in time means that they cannot bar it as a result of the mistake so no you don't need to go to court. Wait for them to do the review and decide if you were miss-sold or not. Whether they agree will be down to your complaint reasons and evidence they have of miss-selling or not.

janepn

Yes we believed it was miss-sold so it is a complaint as you say. That's interesting, because it's their error, we don't need to take it to court - that was what worried me as they told us they'd made the error over 2 years after the PPI complaint deadline. 

dunstonh

They supplied our HSBC policy number along with their apologies for not contacting Royal Sun Alliance, and yes, said we can make a complaint but do you know what making a complaint is likely to result in? My grievance is we were misled in our original claim and have now missed the window. 

I'm not sure why the need to contact RSA would impact the outcome of the complaint as the seller holds the liability for the sale. Not the provider.  So, HSBC had no requirement to contact RSA.

You haven't mentioned anything about your complaint reasons. So, we cannot really comment on that.  However, statistically, the majority of MPPI complaints fail.

Yes we believed it was miss-sold so it is a complaint as you say. That's interesting, because it's their error, we don't need to take it to court - that was what worried me as they told us they'd made the error over 2 years after the PPI complaint deadline. 

You don't need to use the courts.  The error allows them to look at it again.  Although whether the error is one that is sufficient to change the decision is a different matter.   A colleague of mine helped out a larger firm which had to re-review over 500 cases due to a technical mistake in the original decision making and not one case had its outcome altered.   Sometimes errors are just a technicality that reopens the case but doesn't actually change the decision unless the error involved an area that impacted on you.

Thrugelmir

janepn said:

Hello my husband and I put a PPI claim in with HSBC well before the August 2019 deadline on a mortgage we had taken out through them with Royal Sun Alliance. 

Wasn't the mortgage with HSBC though?  The PPI cover presumably being a condition of being offered the mortgage.