What you have heard around was right. The bank possibly owes you a great deal of money this time as a result of the recent discovery that Payment Protection Insurance was sold in scheming and fraudulent ways to gain profit from their customers. This only means that you don’t need to shrug your shoulders off in surrender to the horrid amount of money you have paid to it all along. PPI claims have now started to queue up in banks and financial offices and you can actually make one yourself, given the fact that you fell victim to the mis-selling scandal.
Truth is Payment Protection Insurance has not been a bad idea at all if sold properly. It was intended to protect credit consumers from getting broke and up to the neck in debt by covering a portion of the repayment in the event that the account holder was made redundant at work, got sick, or met an accident. What made the insurance policy appalling was the way it was mis-sold to potentially millions of consumers in the market.
There have been many scheming ways that the bank came up with if only to push their customers into buying an overly expensive insurance policy like PPI. Some were signed up without their consent while others were forced to believe it was a condition on their application for credit. Individuals under the age of 18 and over 65 were also sold the policy even though they were not eligible. The same thing happened to those who had pre-existing medical conditions and not employed full time. A likewise great number of consumers were also misled about the insurance. Certain important information was kept from them – details that could have possibly made them turn their backs on PPI because they never needed it.
If any of the said situations happened to you, too, you may need to get started with your PPI claim by gathering your account documents and looking for references to PPI. When you’ve got it all together, write to your bank about the mis-selling and ask them to review your account. Attach whatever paperwork you collected to serve as evidence that they can refer to when they begin the investigation.
PPI claims are usually decided on after 6 or 8 weeks. There are times that it could take longer especially when evidence is not enough to prove that it’s valid so be sure you’ve attached everything you believe to be pertinent. Through the duration of the review, the bank will refer to as much detail that you presented and cross-check it with the information they have in their database. Their sales channels will also be investigated.
Although you can claim for PPI payments reaching as far back as ten years ago, remember that banks and the credit bureau can only store information about your account of it was not older than six years when it began or last paid off so they may be limited to the information you will send if the account and PPI were older.
When you feel you’ve reached a dead end because the bank did not contact you after the review or they reached a decision that was not acceptable for you, take it up to the Financial Ombudsman Service and lodge a complaint. The Financial Ombudsman Service can take over the review and ask your bank further questions as to why they decided on ruling against your favour or why they failed to get in touch with you about your PPI claim. Filing a complaint against your bank may mean you’d be asked for additional information but it should help. You may also need to send in a few more paperwork.
Resolving this claim is not going to be very easy as the result will depend on the information and evidence presented but it is certain to be worth it. The compensation you’re about to get when proven valid will be worth the trouble you needed to go through. Banks are indeed required to return a fair reimbursement of the money paid to the insurance policy and the interest it accrued all the while.
