Thread: Littlewoods Catalogue missold-help please!

Hi, first posting on here so please be gentle with me...

Wrote a letter of complaint to LX Direct 12 February 08.
Received acknowledgment letter 2 weeks later followed a day later by what seems a bog standard letter they seem to have sent a lot of people on here-with a few tweaks here and there stating to go on your bike...


Further to our letter of 2/2008 concerning your complaint in relation to Extra Care Advantage Insurance (ECI).

Please accept our apologies that you have found it necessary to complain.

In the interests of improving the service we offer to our customers, all complaints received are taken very seriously and a full investigation is always carried out.

Our understanding of your complaint is as follows:

• You state you were mis-sold ECI.
• You are requesting a full refund on any insurance charges plus statutory interest at 8%.
We have made a full investigation, assessed your concerns and can confirm our findings as follows:

In relation to the sale of ECI:

• The original insurance was offered to you on the telephone when you placed an order on your account on 1999. At that time a Certificate of Insurance was sent to you outlining all the terms of the cover. The certificate of insurance highlighted the various benefits along with the relevant exclusions.
Within your policy documents it advises you to read the certificate and if you decide you do not want to go ahead with the insurance, send the certificate back to Littlewoods within 30 days and we will cancel the cover.

As the insurance is offered and accepted over the phone there is no paperwork to be signed. It would have shown on each statement since the acceptance date whenever you had a closing balance on your account. It is also charged on Buy Now Pay Later goods so that they are covered should you need to make a claim.

Our ECI telephone sales process confirms to customers the basis for the calculation of their premiums. You have been charged 1.98% of your outstanding monthly balance on your home shopping account and the premium charged is shown on every monthly statement which contains an outstanding balance. The price and payment procedures are also explained in the back of our catalogues.

On 2000 you upgraded this policy to Extra Care 500. On 2005 you upgraded your policy further to Extra Care Advantage Plus Insurance.

Each time you accepted Extra Care Insurance (ECI) you were sent a set of policy documents detailing the terms and conditions for each of the variants of ECI. These include all the benefits and exclusions of the product. Should you have decided that ECI was not suitable to your needs you were given a 30-day period to cancel the policy without incurring a charge. After this period the policy can be cancelled at any stage, however, no premiums will be refunded.

In relation to your request for a full refund of all premiums that have been applied to your account, plus the 8% interest you feel is payable under the County Courts Act 1984:

• Whilst you have requested a full refund of all premiums applied to your account since 2000, I would respectfully point out that you have had the benefit of the cover for this time and had you made a valid claim which fully satisfied the terms and conditions of your policy, whilst your cover was still in force this would have been accepted. The limitation or exclusions included in the policy were detailed in the original literature and would have explained the many benefits available to you.

I note your comments regarding a full refund of charges applied to your account, and to this end we note that you claim to be entitled to recover interest at 8% being the amount a court would award, to be added to each payment made. We do not agree with your comments.

We are aware that the 8% rate is awarded at the discretion of the Court and it is not an entitlement `as of right'. It is only payable if a claim was successful and interest at the Court rate is awarded as part of a county court Judgement.
Taking these facts into consideration, I am not in a position to be able to refund any premiums you have been charged as you have had full benefit of the cover should you have met the criteria needed to make a claim.

I trust that our explanation meets with your satisfaction and confirm that this letter concludes our investigation into your complaint.

As your policy was sold before 22nd December 03, unfortunately you are unable to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (fos) as we were not a member of a Dispute Resolution Service until this date. I feel it is appropriate to point out that, if you do decide to refer to FOS, it is unlikely that they will consider your complaint. However, they will require you to confirm that we have issued a final response, and to that end you may consider this letter as our final response.


Ok so I have sent a SAR Monday recorded.

I am going to send a 2and letter with the following statements in.
Any advice what to add delete much appreciated....


I believe I was missold this as I was not in employment-and was suffering with my health in 1999-diagnosed with a chronic disease-diagnosed since Aug 2000.

I cannot remember agreeing to this PPI.

I maintain that no agreement for insurance to be added to the account was made with full knowledge of the purpose of the insurance.


I do not recall ever having policy documents being sent to me via email or post.

This PPI policy did not even meet my demands and needs as it was void as I had a pre existing medical condition.I was diagnosed with a chronic disease in August 2000 which is a medical condition that excludes me from being able to claim on the account. Also I was not in employment.I do not believe that my policy was sold in my best interests.

Why would I have agreed that I would have taken out a policy that would not have met my needs and also you state that I had upgraded my policy on 20/09/2000 to extra care 500 and then once again on 28/04/2005 to Extra Care Advantage Plus .This does not make sense. As you will be aware if you look at the records, I have never placed a claim on this insurance as I was not aware that I had this cover-and I have had it for over 8 years apparently!



You claimed that every time that I accepted the policy I was sent a set of policy documents detailing the terms and conditions for each of the variants of ECI and I had 30 days to cancel.
I disagree that I was sent the policy documents.

I would not have full benefit of the cover as I was not in employment and I had a pre existing medical condition after I apparently upgraded my policy in 2000.
(I know Im repeating myself!)


Your salesperson did not check my personal circumstances at the time of sale, which they are under obligation to do. If they had done, they would have realised that a PPI policy was useless to me.

Insurers are under an obligation to ensure that the policy they are selling is appropriate to that customer and clearly, as my employment and medical situation means I am unable to claim on the policy, you have not fulfilled this requirement.


Do I add this-
I did not request the insurance cover, and that by adding and upgrading this cover that Littlewoods misled me.
No policy document was sent before this agreement was allegedly made, and the terms of insurance was neither defined nor explained.

The Insurance was mis-sold, as the I would never be in the position to make a claim due to my employment situation and health condition.


I further contend that if the Insurance was applied correctly, that the Agreement was not executed in accordance with the Consumer Credit Act 1974; and therefore any contract of insurance was void.






Do I add this aswell-?

Section 52(1) of the Misrepresentation Act 1967.

• Therefore, under 52(1) of the Misrepresentation Act 1967 provides "Where a person has entered into a contract after a misrepresentation has been made to him by another party thereto and as a result thereof he has suffered loss, then, if the person making the misrepresentation would be liable to damages in respect thereof had the misrepresentation been made fraudulently, that person shall be so liable notwithstanding that the misrepresentation was not made fraudulently unless he proves that he had reasonable ground to believe and did believe up to the time the contract was made that the facts represented were true."

what about this


Burden of Proof in relation to Misrepresentation Act claims
a customer should be able to rely on the information given, and that even without an intent to misrepresent, if the consequences of a misrepresentation are such that a customer is disadvantaged then that is enough.

It also establishes that a clause in a contract which states that a signature indicates full acceptance is not valid where it would be unlikely that the customer would have the skill and inclination to go through the fine detail.






And where they have stated this-


As your policy was sold before 22nd December 03, unfortunately you are unable to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) as we were not a member of a Dispute Resolution Service until this date. I feel it is appropriate to point out that, if you do decide to refer to FOS, it is unlikely that they will consider your complaint.......



what can I do to get my money back to the date I was missold?


Are there any legal phrases...Limitations act that I can add???


doh Im confused at all this legal jargon! :o



Do I ask for my ppi that I have paid from 03 or go for gold from the start?
I want to add that I feel as if they have prayed on me (and people alike ) and have been taken advantage of.



Any advice would be much appreciated.

AMEN






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bump

My friend has a small amount of Littlewoods PPI (only about £50) which we haven't bothered pursuing yet. I think this company has a poor reputation for addressing customer complaints. It took 2 months and lots of chasing before they wrote back rejecting our £12 charges complaint, which is now with the Ombudsman.

I think it's advisable to collect and review the evidence from the SAR before sending a letter full of lots of legal arguments you don't fully understand.

As you can't use the Ombudsman you may need to eventually start a court action, so it will be better if you haven't sent them long letters contradicting yourself that they could use against you in court.

For example, how can you claim you didn't know you had a policy and were never sent the policy documents but state in your letter that "This PPI policy did not even meet my demands and needs as it was void as I had a pre existing medical condition"?

Get a copy of the terms and conditions and then you will have a case because you can show the policy was worthless to you because of your pre-existing medical condition, and therefore almost certainly either misrepresented to you or added without your permission.

If you need to take them court then there are others on this forum with the experience to help you with the claim at that stage.