Who to send mis-sold endowment letter too?

[cran]jeff

Hi, and welcome to my first ever post here.

Like many others, Im going to attemp to get mis-sold endowment cash.

Who do I address letter too? Using the Which letter generator, do I address letter to the Halifax who sold me the endowment while organising my morgage. Or tp standard life who my endowment is with.

Many thanks for looking.

[cran]jeff

YorkshireBoy

When I spoke with Norwich Union and Clerical Medical recently (about exactly the same thing), I was told to direct any correspondence/claim etc to the people who sold/advised me to take out the policy. In my case it was the building society who arranged my mortgage(s) at the time.

hinchy

(cran)jeff, you are in same boat as I am(was) . I had to deal with halifax and not standard life as it was halifax who sold/ advised endowment to me .
By the way I got compensation , Halifax were quite good thru out.

[cran]jeff

Thanks for the replies Especially Hinchy's.

Hinchy - Where did you send letter? Local branch or head office?

Cheers

[cran]jeff

dunstonh

Doesnt matter where you send the letter. Each branch has a process to deal with regulated complaints. The minute it is received at a branch, the clock starts ticking on the complaints proceedure.

FOSman

They get 8 weeks to send you their final decision letter. If they don't, or it you are not happy with what they say, then take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

One bit of advice. Don't use the Which letter. People will take you much more seriously if you word the complaint yourself.

mbamick

Hi [Cran]Jeff,

I submitted a letter of complaint, after reading the Which? Endowment Action website. It even has a Letter Of Complaint generator, where they ask you a few questions, and the site generates the letter.

It is full of useful information, not least the fact that you cannot really complain about the PERFORMANCE of the endowment policy per se. One needs to prove that the adviser behaved inappropriately. I succeeded in my claim simply because the adviser failed to complete a financial assessment on me prior to offering the endowment solution.

Oh, there is also a little gem of a sentence in the computer-generated letter, which most people would overlook; and that is your rights, under both the data protection act and freedom of information act, to have sight of all details that they hold on file. I received several follow-up letters from my adviser's company [N&P initially, but later bought out by Abbey], and each time I reminded them that they had failed to forward copies of the detail that they held on me. I had the cheque within 8 weeks! :beer:

dunstonh

Oh, there is also a little gem of a sentence in the computer-generated letter, which most people would overlook; and that is your rights, under both the data protection act and freedom of information act, to have sight of all details that they hold on file.

Actually you don't when a complaint is involved.

hinchy

Like dunstonh says it does'nt matter; now is the time to start digging out all the correspondence from the day you applied/started your mortgage . The forms you get from Halifax are quite straight forward really.Good luck.

FOSman

As I said earlier, I would not bother using the Which? letter as in the same way that it is a standard letter, you will get a standard reply back.

Use it to get an idea, but write it in your own words. It will be far more effective.
Don't use phrases like: "The adviser did not fully explain the risks involved", as this suggest that the adviser did discuss the risks, but you just weren't listening.

Similarly: "The adviser did not properly establish my attitude to risk". You'll probably be told that the adviser never had to, and if it turns out that he did, then it will be regarded as a sign of good practice.

Just write the letter yourself and be honest. Who ever gets the letter will be looking for inconsistencies to discredit it.

One last thing. Do not refer to a "claim for compensation." You are not claiming, YOU ARE COMPLAINING about the advice you were given.

I think I've been far too generous already.