First Plus PPI problem

[Suzy9024]

Hi, I am new to this forum and would be very grateful for any advice that you can offer. We took out a secured loan with first plus in Dec 03 and stupidly agreed to take out their PPI insurance, the loan was for £30000 and they added on £7347 for PPI. The loan was joint with my husband and we were told that if we didnt claim for 60 months we would receive full cashback for the PPI. However our circumstance since then have drastically changed, I have become il and subsequently am now disabled and my husband who is now self employed has had to reduce his work to become my full time carer. We had kept up with payments until last month although this meant cutting back on our basic needs but have now got to the stage that we cannot maintain these payments. I have contacted first plus to make a claim on our insurance only to be told that because I am not the first name on the policy I can only claim if I die! and am not covered for sickness/disability. We feel that we have been completely missold this policy as when we took out loan I arranged loan and it was them that decided to put my husbands name first, they did not explain to me that only he would be covered on policy and did infact tell me when I said that the cover was very expensive that it would cover both of us. When I received credit agreement to sign there were terms and conditions of PPI and it does not say anywhere in there that only first person is covered for sickness. I have lodged a complaint with first plus who are calling me on Tuesday, but we are obviously very upset that we have paid £7000 for a policy that is basically useless and still have to find the money to pay the loan or risk losing our house. I have enquired about cashing in policy and they offered me about £100!! It makes no sense, we are both responsible for loan so why are we not both covered on insurance, particuarly as it was so expensive. What makes it worse is that if we fall into arrears with our payments which is now likely we will not be able to claim the cashback either so we have completely wasted £7000 plus the interest. Can anyone please help!!!!

[hellhasnofury]

Originally Posted by Suzy9024

Hi, I am new to this forum and would be very grateful for any advice that you can offer. We took out a secured loan with first plus in Dec 03 and stupidly agreed to take out their PPI insurance, the loan was for £30000 and they added on £7347 for PPI. The loan was joint with my husband and we were told that if we didnt claim for 60 months we would receive full cashback for the PPI. However our circumstance since then have drastically changed, I have become il and subsequently am now disabled and my husband who is now self employed has had to reduce his work to become my full time carer. We had kept up with payments until last month although this meant cutting back on our basic needs but have now got to the stage that we cannot maintain these payments. I have contacted first plus to make a claim on our insurance only to be told that because I am not the first name on the policy I can only claim if I die! and am not covered for sickness/disability. We feel that we have been completely missold this policy as when we took out loan I arranged loan and it was them that decided to put my husbands name first, they did not explain to me that only he would be covered on policy and did infact tell me when I said that the cover was very expensive that it would cover both of us. When I received credit agreement to sign there were terms and conditions of PPI and it does not say anywhere in there that only first person is covered for sickness. I have lodged a complaint with first plus who are calling me on Tuesday, but we are obviously very upset that we have paid £7000 for a policy that is basically useless and still have to find the money to pay the loan or risk losing our house. I have enquired about cashing in policy and they offered me about £100!! It makes no sense, we are both responsible for loan so why are we not both covered on insurance, particuarly as it was so expensive. What makes it worse is that if we fall into arrears with our payments which is now likely we will not be able to claim the cashback either so we have completely wasted £7000 plus the interest. Can anyone please help!!!!

Hello Suzy,

So sorry to hear of your situation.

These companies will do and say anything to you to get your money.
and say and do anything to keep it.

Please read the following PPI - Some Notes for Claimants

You have stated that nowhere in the terms and conditions does it state that only the first person on the loan is covered.

I do think that you have been mislead into the policy and I would start the process of reclaiming the whole amount plus interest and the interest from 2003. This is my opinion only.

Please also have a look at the following FSA link

Consumers to benefit from PPI refunds agreement

If you are having problems making the payments, there are other things that can be done. I presume this is a secured loan on the house.

Maybe look at the following links for advise and help. There is always help and support around. You are never alone on this site.

Read the treads on the General debt forum, they are very helpful and informative

More information can be found here
www.insolvency.gov.uk

CCCS -

Free Debt Management company | Payplan

National Debtline

I wish you well and if you need help please ask

[davefirewalker]

Firstly hells advice on these matters is excellent, and you have a whole forum of people willing to offer advice and help.

dont despair

there are a few different ways of going about this, obviously the missold ppi is one of them. And it is one you stand a chance of winning on.

Another could be to ask to see the agreement. There is a major discussion going on at the moment regarding CCA's (consumer credit agreements) I personally have had £2700 wiped off because of a lousy agreement.

basically if they can't supply the agreement, or have made a fatal mistake in the document, then there is no loan to answer to.

I would use both methods

its worth a try

Dave

[Suzy9024]

Thank you all so much for your advice I will let you know how they try and wriggle out of it when they call me tomorrow

[hellhasnofury]

Originally Posted by Suzy9024

Thank you all so much for your advice I will let you know how they try and wriggle out of it when they call me tomorrow

Hello Suzy,

Be warned about telephone conversations with these companies. listen to what is said, agree to nothing until you have written confirmation of the conversation. If that makes sense to you.

Keep us posted.

Good luck to you

[davefirewalker]

peronally, as this IS important I would write to them and ask for all communications to be in writing.....(if thats possible). That way you have a record of what happened, was said etc.

They record everything you say, and will use it. be on your guard !!

if you do speak on the phone, ask them if it is ok if YOU record it...(whether you do or not )

dave

[Suzy9024]

Hi all

Well I have not received yet my promised phone call from First Plus, so I ahve drafted a long letter of complaint which I will send of today, however something that has come to light and I wanted to get advice on is that I originally took out loan with first plus via Loans.co.uk who I know have been in big trouble about mis selling PPI, however later on that year we revised our loan (stupidly borrowed more) directly with First Plus and they also put PPI onto loan, will first plus try to blame loans.co.uk for originally selling me policy or are they both accountable??? In my opinion they both mis sold it to me but if they blame loans.co.uk what do I do??
Thanks for everything

[reidnet]

Hiya Suzy,
Now this one interest me a fair bit..lol, I was in a similar position with a Firstplus loan and PPI. My loan etc was arranged through GE Money / Purpleloans.. I am at court stage with them at the momment, in fact have a allocation hearing at Wolverhampton on the 22nd May.

The way this one interest me is with the Firstplus PPI, I also pressume that the original PPI was one of their major Rip off single Payment policy with the cashback option if you do not claim within 60 months, And this type of policy only covers you for 60 Months so beware of that fact please.

Now the Interesting bit, you say that Firstplus organised a top up loan some time after you took out your original loan, If you have the Agreement for this ammended loan I would read it very very carefully, You may find that in fact you have been sold a new PPI policy at the time of the further advance.

I found a very well hidded and very unfair term in their Terms and Conditions of the PPI policy that I had, It stated on a seperate leaflet that any change to the loan would invalidate the PPI Cashback option, this is not mentioned in their main terms and conditions though. A further advance, and I had many many offers of these from Firstplus but luckily I never took up their offer and it was only when I started investigating the whole rip off PPI market that I discovered this very well hidden clause.

You really need to find out if Firstplus set up a completely new PPI policy when you took out the further Advance, If they did and cancelled the original PPI policy which you would have received a fraction and I mean a tiny fraction of the original premium as a rebate. My original policy cost me over £3388 and when after 3 years i Cleared the loan I got a massive rebate of £97 for the PPI policy.

When I did clear the loan Firstplus charged me over £750 as an early settlement charge, I fought that one with them and just as soon as I issued a court summons they Repaid the £750 as a gesture of Goodwill as long as I cancelled the court action.

Good luck with this one and if you need help etc Just shout or PM me and I will help you with your fight.

Ian

[Suzy9024]

Hello again,

well I sent my complaint and have today received 3 letters, 1 from first plus thanking me for my complaint but stating that apparently the 1st PPI was taken out with Loans.co.uk and then when we increased our loan later that year we took out PPI with a company called Central Capital Ltd I do not recall this but they have passed our complaint to both companies to investaigte. I also received a letter from Loans.co.uk and Central Trust who state that they are investigating our complaint and will be in touch. Does any one have any dealings with these companies and now that first plus have passed the buck do you think we still stand a chance of reclaiming this money??and where do I go from here? thanks for everything Suzy

[calvi36]

One important point Suzy, you HAVE been misold the PPI as your husband is self-employed and this would invalidate any claim you made. So by their own reasoning as he is the first named on policy he was not covered.You have been sold a useless policy in the first place.

[reidnet]

Hi Again,
Just one thing to watch out for and to check what it states on your PPI policy, If you have a joint loan with the likes of Firstplus etc and have taken out PPI to cover the loan you have to be careful regarding what actual PPI cover you have. Some of these outfits will sell the PPI along with the loan and you think that it covers both parties named on the loan, when in Fact often the policy will only Cover the First Named person on the Loan agreement.

As Calvi says as your husband was the first name on the loan the policy was not suitable and should be considered useless as no claim could be made on it.

The more of this sort of selling that I am seing more of now through CAG really makes my blood boil..and will only add fuel to the next press article that I am working on along with one of the national newspapers..
Which coincidentally should hopefully be Published on Sunday 20th May, ..Oh that is just 2 days before I have court allocation hearing against GE too..lol Coinincidence ..???mmm Yeah..lol ( all going to plan I will post more info regarding the press story when I have date confirmed..)

As normal these companies do not like refunding PPI payments and if anything like GE they will push it to the limit and even use scare and bullying tactics to try and scare you off, But what you have to remember is that It is Those Companies that are in the wrong, You have done nothing wrong apart from fall into their highly profitable Rip Off PPI policies..


Good Luck Suzy and if you need help etc Just shout..

Ian

[Suzy9024]

Hi everyone, thought I would update you all on latest, also need more advice if possible, firstly just need to clarify my husband was not self employed when we took out policy but has since gone self employed. We have had a letter from first plus basically saying that they have done nothing wrong and as they did not sell PPI they are not responsible and have passed complaint to Central Capital who sold us PPI. I have this morning had a reply from them and dont know where to do from here, the points I complained about were: We did want my husband as first named applicant, we were not informed that PPI was optional and made to beleive it was part of loan, we were told it was a joint policy, we were not told PPI was added onto cash loan and interest charged ont it, we were not informed we had other options for PPI i.e monthly policy, we were never given a figure for loan without PPI, we were not explained the level of rebate, we were not asked about medical history or told about exclusions, claims procedures were not explained, we were not informed that cashback had to be used to pay into loan or buy another PPI, terms and conditions wre not clear regarding level of cover.

In response to the above this is what they have said:

My husband was put as first named applicant becuase he was the higher salary earner at time and because my employment was part time I was not legible for sickness and accident cover it is only available to full time workers.( This is not stated anywhere in any terms and conditions or booklets I have)

They have been able to find the tape of sales call but unfortunately it has been corrupted conveniently so they are unable to listen to call and provide me with a copy.

At the time of my application (end 2003) there was no regulatory requirement to verbally disclose features, benefits or exclusions of the ppi or to provide advice surrounding insurance, therefore they relied on customer to make their own decision!! They apparently sent me various documents that I should have read and understood at time of signing loan so they assumed that all was ok. If we did not understand anything we should have raised it at time.

They also state that the Financial Ombudsman will probably not be able to do anything because at time of loan it was out of their jurisdiction.

So basically they are saying that even if they did behave inappropriately and mis sell us policy we cant do anything about it.

This is very infuriating to say the least, can anyone help??

The awful thing is that we cannot claim on policy which would be bearable if we thought we could still get our cashback in 2 years but the problem is due to our bad financial situation and the fact we cant claim we have gone into arrears with loan a couple of times which will mean that they will refuse to pay it, so we cannot win at all and have thrown away over 7k

[calvi36]

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...claimants.html have a look here Suzy. One admission they have made is that as you were part time you would not have been covered anyway. Why were you sold a joint policy then? The FOS can investigate this. If it were me then I would not hesitate in making a formal complaint to FOS.

[Suzy9024]

Thanks for that have read it still not sure where we stand as far as it being pre 2005, pretty sure policy was mis sold but what can I do about it if they were not regulated

[calvi36]

Originally Posted by Suzy9024

Thanks for that have read it still not sure where we stand as far as it being pre 2005, pretty sure policy was mis sold but what can I do about it if they were not regulated

Hi Suzy you have had the reponse from the PPI company so you have now exhausted their complaints procedure. It is time to go to FOS with your complaint of mis-selling. I would not think that it being a pre 2005 policy would have any effect on your complaint.