DX100UK 'V' Monument stealth PPI

[dx100uk]

As a result of requesting Monuments stealth PPI [Payment Protection Plan] be cancelled on my O/H CC A/C it turned in to a dual claim to! here is my first letter:



Tuesday, 13 February 2007
Dear Sir/Madam

ACCOUNT NUMBER: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You are hereby instructed to cancel, from the date of this letter, the Payment Protection Plan currently associated with the above account & to write to me confirming this action has been carried out.
The policy is of no use to me as I am a housewife, previously self employed, so I cannot claim on it anyway. This I am very upset about.
I strongly believe that the PPI was mis-sold to me in the first place, but I cannot afford to waste the £10 on the Subject Access Request Fee necessary to begin this process.
However, please be aware that I will be doing so in the near future & that with the reclaim of PPI, I will also be claiming back all the over-limit & late payment fees, with interest, that you are continually placing my account, putting it further in the red.
I thank you for your time

Yours faithfully,


dx100UK

[dx100uk]

i received this reply:


Portland Building 25 The High Street Crawley West Sussex RH101BG
Tel: 01293 802 473

20 February 2007
Customer Reference:
Dear Mrs
I write further to your letter of 13 February 2007.
I understand that you feel you have been mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance.
Initially, please allow me to clarify that you do not have a Payment Protection Insurance with Monument. However, I note that you have previously been enrolled in our optional Payment Break Plan, which is not insurance.
As a result, 1 can further clarify that our Payment Break Plan it is not subject to the CISC private code. However, the optional Payment Break Plan is subject to the Terms and Conditions of the account and the optional Payment Break Plan Terms. For your records, 1 have enclosed a copy of the optional Payment Break Plan Terms.
In summary, you may elect to enrol on the Plan if you are a UK resident who is either employed, self employed, retired or permanently disabled and not in breach of the terms of the account The Payment Break Plan is an optional feature of your account and can be activated if you were to lose at least 25% of your annual household income due to a natural disaster, involuntary unemployment, illness and other related reasons. You can request to activate the plan and your account could be frozen for a period of up to 30 months if the situation remains unchanged. During this time you would not need to make payments to this account and no charges would accrue.
Acceptance or non-acceptance of enrolment for the Payment Break Plan is determined during the initial telephone call to applicants as part of our standard application procedure. According to our records we contacted you on 3 March 2005 and as a result of this conversation you were enrolled in the optional Payment Break Plan.
Subsequently, confirmation of your enrolment in the optional Payment Break Plan would have been sent to you shortly after this date.
In accordance with your account Terms and Conditions, should you disagree with any item that has been debited from your account, you must notify us of the reason for your disagreement within 30 days of the date of the statement on which the item appears.
I note that prior to your telephone call of 7 December 2006, you have not previously contacted Monument in respect of the optional Payment Break Plan on your account. I further note that during this telephone call your enrolment in the optional Payment Break Plan was cancelled.
1 therefore conclude that Monument has acted responsibly in the management of your account and in accordance with your account Terms and Conditions.
However, as a gesture of goodwill and with no admission of liability, 1 have refunded the last twelve Payment Break Plan charges in the total sum of £175.49 that have been applied to your account.
I further understand that you are requesting a refund of the late payment and overlimit fees that have been applied to your account Our records show that late payment and overlimit fees in the amount of £24.00 each have been applied to your account in the total sum £120.00. Our records further show that late payment and overlimit fees in the amount of £12.00 each in the total sum of £132.00 have also been applied to your account
Under the Terms and Conditions of the account which you agreed to be bound by when applying for the Monument VISA card; a late payment fee is applicable if you do not make at least your minimum payment by the payment due date and an overlimit fee is applicable if you exceed your agreed credit limit at any time. In addition, an unpaid payment fee is applicable if a direct debit, cheque or other item is not paid when first presented. Further to this interest is applied to any outstanding balance on your account at the contractual rate each month.
At Monument we believe it is fair that when a customer pays us late or the balance on the account exceeds the agreed credit limit, the costs we incur are borne by the customer.
We would remind customers that fees are easily avoided by making payments on time and keeping within the agreed credit limit.
Furthermore, fees and charges are made clear to customers in the Terms and Conditions when they apply for a card. Information is also included every month on our statements.
In addition, I would like to take this opportunity to clarify that accordance with the Office of Fair Trading suggestions our default charges have been decreased to £12.00 each.
I therefore once again conclude that Monument has acted responsibly in the management of your account.
However, putting this issue to one side, as a gesture of goodwill on this occasion only I am prepared to refund £126,00 which represents half of each charge in question. I hope you will agree this is a fair and reasonable offer. If you would like to accept this offer, I would request confirmation in writing and upon receipt 1 will arrange for the appropriate credit to be applied to your account. 1 have enclosed a pre-paid, pre-addressed envelope for your use.
In addition, 1 further note that we have recently accepted a reduced payment arrangement on your account for a period of six months. On the basis that we receive a payment of the agreed amount by the payment due date each month interest and charges will be waived on your account.
I hope that the actions I have taken in this instance meet your expectations. I will keep your complaint file open for 8 weeks so you have time to consider my response. If I have not heard from you by then, I will regard your complaint as closed.
Our aim is to resolve all complaints internally, although we recognise this may not always be possible. If we are unable to agree a way forward you may be able to ask the Financial Ombudsman Service to review your complaint. We will help you if you would like to do this; however, 1 hope we can resolve matters for you before you take this step.
You can find more information about how we deal with complaints and the Financial Ombudsman Service in the leaflet sent with my previous letter.
We take your complaint seriously as the comments you have made may help us to identify where we can improve in the future and 1 thank you for letting us know.
Yours sincerely
Emma Fairchild Customer Relations


[ I now have 7 defaults on Experian]
DX100uk

[dx100uk]

my 2nd letter re above reply from mon:


Sunday, 04 March 2007
ACCOUNT NUMBER: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Customer reference xxxxxxxxxxx
Dear Ms Fairchild
I write further to your letter of 13th February 2007.
Could you please provide me with a signed transcript of the telephone conversation with me on the 3rd March 2005, where I stated I wished to be enrolled in the Payment Break Plan. I do not recall making such a statement.
Other than this, a copy of the agreement signed by myself, which shows, clearly, that I filled in the relevant box by hand and not one forwarded to me with the box automatically filled in by default, by Monument staff or a computer.
Should neither of these be available, then I refer you to the attached schedule of payments, and, to the fact that I claim a full refund of ALL my Payment Break Plan charges as listed on my statements, plus interest at your quoted rate, 24.9%, a total claim of £315.48. I also therefore reject your offer of £175.49.
Should the evidence above exist to my satisfaction, then I accept the offer of £175.49 & will consider this Payment Break Plan matter closed.
In relation to you kind offer of £126 for default charges made against my account, I have, since the date of your letter, been calculating my spreadsheet, as I did not intend to push this claim, due to lack of money.
However, please find enclosed an additional spreadsheet which I now refer you to. I calculate from data taken from my statements that Monument have taken £252 since account opening. To this figure I have also added interest @ 24.9%, and I hereby claim a total of £290.62 for my charges.
I will ONLY accept the £126 as partial payment toward this total, IF, a sensible offer is made toward payment of the outstanding £164.62. I do this in the spirit mentioned in your letter of keeping things internal. However, please be aware that I am more than happy to escalate both these claims further, should we not come to a satisfactory agreement.
I finally thank you for offering to freeze all interest & payment charges on the A/C. I can confirm a £50 was made by Internet banking on the 3rd March 2007 & that I will endeavor to keep to the arrangement as already mentioned.

I thank you for your time.

Yours faithfully,

dx100uk

[dx100uk]

mon reply to my 2nd letter:


Portland Building
25 The High Street
Crawley
West Sussex
RH101BG
Tel: 01293 802 473
9 March 2007

Final Response

I write further to Emma Fairchild's letter of 20 February 2007.
The investigation of your complaint has now been completed. I am very sorry that we have been unable to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution, as we always strive to provide excellent service at all times. In the circumstances, for the purposes of the Financial Ombudsman Service you may regard this letter as the Monument's "Final Response".
•
In summary the results of our investigation are as follows:
We have clarified that you have never had any insurance with Monument. However, we have noted that you have previously been enrolled in our optional Payment Break Plan, which we have also confirmed is not insurance.

As a result, the optional Payment Break Plan is an additional product that we are able to offer to our customers, which we feel can be of great benefit. We have also clarified that our Payment Break Plan it is not subject to the CISC private code. However, we have confirmed that the optional Payment Break Plan is subject to the Terms and Conditions of the account and the optional Payment Break Plan Terms. For your records, we have enclosed a copy of the optional Payment Break Plan Terms.

In summary, we have confirmed that you may elect to enrol on the Plan if you are a UK resident who is either employed, self employed, retired or permanently disabled and not in breach of the terms of the account. The Payment Break Plan is an optional feature of your account and can be activated if you were to lose at least 25% of your annual household income due to a natural disaster, involuntary unemployment, illness and other related reasons. You can request to activate the plan and your account could be frozen for a period of up to 30 months if the situation remains unchanged. During this time we have confirmed that you would not need to make payments to your account and no charges would accrue.


As previously advised, acceptance or non-acceptance of enrolment for the Payment Break Plan is determined during the initial telephone call to applicants as part of our standard application procedure. According to our records we have confirmed that we contacted you on 3 March 2005 and as a result of this conversation you were enrolled in the optional Payment Break Plan. Unfortunately due to the length of time that has elapsed since this telephone conversation occurred, we would be unable to retrieve this data from our archived records.

However, we have advised you that confirmation of your enrolment in the optional Payment Break Plan would have been sent to you shortly after this date. I would further like to take this opportunity to clarify that this confirmation would form part of your welcome letter for the card.

In accordance with your account Terms and Conditions, should you disagree with any item that has been debited to your account, you must notify us of the reason for your disagreement within 30 days of the date of the statement on which the item appears.

We have noted that prior to your telephone call of 7 December 2006, you have not previously contacted Monument in respect of the optional Payment Break Plan on your account. We have further noted that during this telephone call your enrolment in the optional Payment Break Plan was cancelled.

However, as a gesture of goodwill and with no admission of liability, we have refunded the last twelve Payment Break Plan charges in the total sum of £175.49 that have been applied to your account.
You are further requesting a refund of the late payment and overlimit fees that have been applied to your account. Our records show that late payment and overlimit fees in the amount of £24.00 each have been applied to your account in the total sum £120.00. Our records further show that late payment and overlimit fees in the amount of £12.00 each in the total sum of £132.00 have also been applied to your account.

As previously advised, under the Terms and Conditions of the account which you agreed to be bound by when applying for the Monument VISA card; a late payment fee is applicable if you do not make at least your minimum payment by the payment due date and an overlimit fee is applicable if you exceed your agreed credit limit at any time. In addition, an unpaid payment fee is applicable if a direct debit, cheque or other item is not paid when first presented. Further to this interest is applied to any outstanding balance on your account at the contractual rate each month.

At Monument we believe it is fair that when a customer pays us late or the balance on the account exceeds the agreed credit limit, the costs we incur are borne by the customer.
We would remind customers that fees are easily avoided by making payments on time and keeping within the agreed credit limit.

Furthermore, fees and charges are made clear to customers in the Terms and Conditions when they apply for a card. Information is also included every month on our statements.

In addition, we have clarified that accordance with the Office of Fair Trading suggestions our default charges have been decreased to £12.00 each.

We therefore once again conclude that Monument has acted responsibly in the management of your account.

However, putting this issue to one side, as a gesture of goodwill on this occasion only we have advised you that we are prepared to refund £126.00 which represents half of each charge in question. We hoped that you will agree that this is a fair and reasonable offer. If you would like to accept this offer, we requested confirmation in writing and upon receipt we advised you that we will arrange for the appropriate credit to be applied to your account. We have previously enclosed a prepaid, pre-addressed envelope for your use.
I am sorry that you remain dissatisfied with our offers and I can confirm that Monuments position remains unaltered. In addition, I can further confirm that Monument will not be accommodating your request for a refund of the respective interest charges that have been accrued on the late payment, overlimit and Payment Break Plan charges in question.
As previously advised, you may be able to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service and in that regard, I hope that you find the enclosed Financial Ombudsman Service's "Explanatory Leaflet, to be helpful.

Please note you have six months from the date of this letter to refer to the Financial Ombudsman Service for investigation. Monument's previous offers will lapse and the Financial Ombudsman Service may make an alternative award, not necessarily similar or larger than our offer.

Should you wish to reconsider our offer, then please contact us at any time before 6 months from the date of this letter after which the offer will lapse.
I would like to apologise that on this occasion we have been unable to provide a satisfactory resolution as providing a high level standard of service is a top priority for us. We take complaints very seriously and I would like to thank you for bringing this to our attention.

yurs sincerely
Richard Heaysman Customer Relations Manager


15. OPTIONAL PAYMENT BREAK PLAN - part of terms & conditions

15.1 The Payment Break Plan (the 'Plan,') is optional and is not insurance.
You may elect to enrol in the Plan if you are a UK resident who is either employed, self-employed, retired or permanently disabled and not in breach of the terms of the account.
15.2 You may enrol in the Plan at any time after your account has been opened by either calling or by writing to Customer Services at the address detailed on your statement.
15.3 The monthly cost of the Plan (unless you are retired or permanently disabled) is 0.89% of your account balance as shown on your statement, up to a maximum balance of £2,300 (the 'Plan Charge').
If you are retired or permanently disabled, the Plan Charge will be 0.59% of your account balance.
15.4 Once you have enrolled, you can then activate the Plan if one or more of the activation events set out below occurs and you telephone us on the number detailed on your statement (Activate' and/or 'Activation' as appropriate). The activation events (the 'Events') are:
(a) you or your partner (Partner means any person who is either your spouse or domestic partner [Common Law wife/husband or same-sex partner]) become unemployed involuntarily (excluding as a result of your own wilful misconduct) and suffer a loss of at least 25% of your net monthly household income (‘income’}
(b) you or .your partner become sick, disabled or have an accident and suffer a loss of at least 25% of Income,-
(c) you or your partner take leave from work to care for members of your family who are either, incapacitated and/or your child(ren) and you suffer a loss of at least 25% of Income;'
(d) you or your partner are employed in the armed forces and are unforseeably posted abroad on emergency duty;
(e)- you or your partner become hospitalised due to a medical condition; . (f) you or your partner are on Jury Service,-
(g) your main residence is significantly damaged by some natural disaster, for example, a fire, flood, high winds, lightening, landslide etc; (h) your partner dies. ' •15.5 If you wish to Activate, you must do so within six months of an Event first occurring.
15.6 If you Activate, you must provide us with reasonable evidence of the Event within two months of Activation (for example, a relevant doctor's certificate, surveyor's report etc). If the Event continues for some time you must provide us with such further evidence of the Event and its ongoing nature as we may from time to time request.
15.7 Activation will be considered by us to continue for as long as the circumstances of the Event continue (for example, as long as your main residence is significantly damaged as a result of flooding or as long as you are hospitalised) up to a maximum of 30 months ('the Activation Period').
15.8 During the Activation Period, your account will be frozen and you will not:
(a) be able to use your account other than to make voluntary payments to it;
(b) have to make any minimum monthly payments other than payments to clear any outstanding arrears;
(c) incur any interest, charges. Plan Charges or fees.
15.9 Activation will end when any of the following occurs:
(a) the Activation Period expires;
(b) you fail to provide reasonable evidence that the Event occurred and/or is continuing.
15.10 At the end of the Activation Period, the full credit limit on your account will be reinstated (where applicable) and your account will resume incurring interest, Plan Charges and any applicable charges and fees that are payable under the terms of your account. You will have to resume making your minimum monthly repayments.
15.11 You can leave the Plan and/or Activation Period at any time by writing to us at Customer Services.
15.12 If you knowingly make any false or misleading statement in relation to your eligibility to enrol or Activate, we may require you to repay in full the interest and/or charges that would have been payable if you had not activated the Plan.
15.13 Any waiver by us of the above terms of the Plan will not constitute a waiver of any of the other terms.
15.14 We may vary the terms of the Plan by giving you at least 30 days' notice before any change takes effect. However, no such variation will affect the terms of any Activation that has already occurred.

dx100uk

[dx100uk]

ok what to do now............thought welcomed.

things that strike me:

they continually keep up the stance it is not insurance, so i cannot claim it back.

they actually say that as result of this [telephone] conversation you were enrolled on the scheme. [but does not actually say O/H agreed to it].

they also say that if they were to look they would not be able to find the tape [so they haven't looked!].

i fail to see any point in issuing Subject Access Request/CCA requests.

i fancy just writing and doing what they have done & repeat what i have said re PPI+INT & charges+INT please...in full giving 14 days? before i proceed with starting court action.

seems like most of the text is identical to what has been used in their replies to claimers since about sept last year.


anyhow, views welcomed.

dx100uk

[hellhasnofury]

Originally Posted by dx100uk

ok what to do now............thought welcomed.

things that strike me:

they continually keep up the stance it is not insurance, so i cannot claim it back.

they actually say that as result of this [telephone] conversation you were enrolled on the scheme. [but does not actually say O/H agreed to it].

they also say that if they were to look they would not be able to find the tape [so they haven't looked!].

i fail to see any point in issuing Subject Access Request/CCA requests.

i fancy just writing and doing what they have done & repeat what i have said re PPI+INT & charges+INT please...in full giving 14 days? before i proceed with starting court action.

seems like most of the text is identical to what has been used in their replies to claimers since about sept last year.


anyhow, views welcomed.

dx100uk

Read your thread with interest.

If it is not insurance then what is it? You need to send them a Doctors certificate if you are ill!!!!!!!!!!

Personally I would send them a Subject Access Request and under the Data Protection Act they would have to find the telephone conversation and any other relevant info. They will try to get out of it, but I they accept the £10 Subject Access Request fee they have a Statuatory duty to provide it. If they don't then you can pursue the legal road of getting your information. Non-Compliance etc.

I have had a bit of a fight with one company over recorded telephone calls etc. I sent them a Subject Access Request and they did not comply. I have been like a thorn in their side and kept on at them and low and behold. They did find them, when they realised how serious I was.
The telephone calls proved I had been mis-sold the policy.

I would continue with this and just let them know how serious you are.

They offer you the services of the Financial Obs like you didn't know that.

You can if you wish offer them the services of her Majesty's Court. lol

Good luck and keep the faith

[dx100uk]

ohh yes i'm serious.
& i'm just a little bit determined too, to see how far they push this.

they are one of only 3 of 12 co's i'm dealing with & sadly not playing ball on a short term problem we have, the rest have been good & help a lot.

i wont be moving it fwd till after the 23rd anyhow as i cant afford the £10 Subject Access Request so i thought its about time you fellows/gals here saw what i am upto & used the vast wealth of info to best attack them.

i've read lots over the last months on here & really cant find any resolution anyone has had on this, so im game for taking it all the way.

best wishes to everyone & lets nail this once and for all for everyone conned over this.

i'm sure for every mention of this ppi here there are 100 more waiting in the wings.

dx100uk

[reidnet]

Im sure there will be a lot more PPI claims in the Pipeline, and I will be around whenever possible to help in the fight. Thats once Im finished with GE of course..or if they Finish me of..

Ian

[onetrackmind]

hmm, another aspect to look into.....God, I really don't like monument/providian the theiving G***. Has anyone successfully claimed charges and/or PPI back from them?

[dx100uk]

there are quite a few successes of charges in te barclaycard forum
but i dont think anyone has nailed the stealth ppi yet.

what i really dont like about is the 'its not insurance' bit.
that stinks.
they must know it is of no use else why make a token repayment of the premiums already paid!

what i am toying with is to fire them off a reply now, just doing what they have done and repeat my full claim for it, warning that i will be Subject Access Request'ing them on the 23rd, so please find the tape!
would certainly show i am serious about it me thinks.

dx100uk

[lickthewallfatboy]

if it's any help,I have a letter from Barclaycard which states that the payments to Monument were for "payment protection insurance"....

black and white-let them deny what they want!

[dx100uk]

how about a scan and post of it.
might well be useful to many on here.
sadly, due to personal reasons [family deaths] this year has been a quiet one for me in all my reclaiming .
dx100uk