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Littlewoods PPI and charges! They say i cannot complain to ombudsman!
I have written a letter to littlewoods stating that because I was on benefits when they were charging me I should be entitled to them back because the money given to live on is for the children and bills under the social security act 1992. Also that I have been charged for goodness knows how long for Extra Care Advantage, after being told goodness knows how many times that this will be cancelled and also that I cannot have the 'advantage' when the account is with the debt collector!
They wrote back saying this;
Further to our letter of 6th may 2008 concerning your complaint in relation to administration charges and a delay in the cancellation of your Extra Care 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 are taken very seriously and a full investigation is always carried out.
Our understanding of your complaint is as follows:
1. You are disputing administration charges applied to your account in the last 6 years and require a full refund along with 8% statutory interest.
2. You require a refund of ECI premiums totaling £***.** from January 2007.
We have made a full investigation, assessed your concerns and can confirm our findings as follows:
1. Your are disputing administration charge applied to your account in the last 6 years and require a full refund along with 8% statutory interest.
Please see enclosed a breakdown of administration charges applied to your account. (this was enclosed but only for the period from 2007.
We are aware of the statement from the office of fair trading (OFT) position regarding fair charges. For the reasons given in this letter, we are satisfied that the charges applied to your account are justifiable in accordance with the views of the OFT and are fair within the Unfair terms in Consumer Regulations.
AS stated in the "your account" section at the back of your book, a charge is applied should you fail to make a payment and as such, I am satisfied that the charges on your account are fair and reasonable.
According to our records the two charges applied on the$%^&())^ and £$^*(^%$ can not be justified as the correct payment was made in line your statement dates. I have therefore refunded administration charges totaling £30.00. However, all the other charges applied to your account are justified.
I note your comment 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 comment.
We are aware that the 8% rate is awarded at the discretion of the court and it is not 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.
I trust that our explanation meets with your satisfaction and confirm that this letter concludes our investigation into your complaint.
AS your complaint is in relation to an event before 6th April 2007 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 pint out that, if you do decide to refer to FOS it is very unlikely 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.
2. You require a refund of ECI premiums totaling £***.** from Jan 2007.
The original insurance was offered to you on the telephone and premiums started being applied on 1st May 2004. At that time a certificate on insurance was sent to you outlining all the terms and condition and benefits of cover.
On the 12th November 2005 you were offered a further variant of ECI known as extra care advantage insurance which you accepted.
Our advisors offer ECI using a sales script and the advisor would have read through the sales script to check for eligibility for cover. ECI is offered to our customers after we have informed them that credit has been granted.
Within your policy document it is advised you tread the certificate and if you decide you do not want to go ahead with the insurance, return the certificate back to Littlewoods within 30 days and we will cancel cover.
AS the insurance is offered and accepted over the telephone there is no paper work to be signed. It has appeared on your statements since the acceptance date whenever you have a closing balance on your account. The premium is also charges on Buy Now Pay Later goods so they are covered should you need to make a claim. Our telephone sales process confirms to customers the basis for the calculation of their premiums. Your have been charged 1.98% of your 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 books which are issued seasonally.
Whilst you have request a full refund of all premiums applied to your account since Jan 2007. 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 your charges applied to your account totaling £***.**, we do not agree with your comments for the reasons explained above.
I can confirm that your ECI was cancelled on 14th February when your account was transferred to NDR. On checking our records we have no trace of your previously asking for it to be cancelled.
I trust that our explanation meets with your satisfaction and confirm that this letter concludes our investigation into your complaint.
I can confirm that this letter concludes our investigations into your complaint. I hope our explanation meets with your satisfaction however, if this is not the case, you can refer the matter to the financial ombudsman service. Please note that this service requires you to refer your complaint to them within 6 months from the date of this letter. They will require you to confirm that we have issued a final response and to that end you may consider this letter as a final response. Enclosed is a leaflet which explained the FOS in more detail.
* I can't see anywhere where they replied about the charges being refunded because of my benefit status. And the letter looks like is has been cut and pasted. Surely their response cannot just be we cannot find a trace of you requesting the cover to be taken off. And that is it?
Re: Littlewoods PPI and charges! They say i cannot complain to ombudsman!
Hello carlih,
2. You require a refund of ECI premiums totaling £***.** from January 2007
are you claiming back administration charges or PPI or both?
AS your complaint is in relation to an event before 6th April 2007 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 pint out that, if you do decide to refer to FOS it is very unlikely 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
Now I am not certain to the dispute resolution service but if you are reclaiming Mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance then the FSA ruling was actually made on 14 Jan 2005.
The original insurance was offered to you on the telephone and premiums started being applied on 1st May 2004. At that time a certificate on insurance was sent to you outlining all the terms and condition and benefits of cover.
On the 12th November 2005 you were offered a further variant of ECI known as extra care advantage insurance which you accepted.
Is this care advantage insurance a form of PPI on your littlewoods account?
The question now is did you receive new certificate of insurance on this new variant of ECI? was a needs and wants document produced to show this ECI would offer you what it said on the tin?
The crunch is that the new ECI was started well after the date of the FSA ruling on single premium policies (14 Jan 2005).
Our advisors offer ECI using a sales script and the advisor would have read through the sales script to check for eligibility for cover. ECI is offered to our customers after we have informed them that credit has been granted
Re: Littlewoods PPI and charges! They say i cannot complain to ombudsman!
Hi there
You are in exactly the same position as me. I am trying to claim my charges back from littlewoods. I had two accounts with liitlewoods. One is cleared and the other is with DCA for £500. My charges from both accounts total £623
I received the same reply as you saying that as the complaint relates to pre 2007 then I can not go to fos. So I wrote back saying that I am complaining now not 2007. Today I received the same reply. I phoned FOS asking if this was true. Unfortunately the said that as the charges were aplied before 2007 they can say this. So i phoned FSA as Littlewoods are regulated by these guys. Again they said it was they can do this.
The man at the FSA did say to check the T&Cs as they should name what they charge for. On my list there is a £5 charge for a credit update. There are several of these. I also had £10 charges for insufficient payment received. Anouther £5 charge for payment arrangement fee. Do they prescribe on the T&Cs. The only thing the FSA could suggest was to see the CAB.
Looks Like court to me
Next Directory £215 NO CCA ***WON***
Littlewoods Visa*** WON ***
Littlewoods evenmore£496.47 COURT CHARGES£296.84 PPI £575.52
Littlewoods LX £0.00 COURTCHARGES £327.68
Choices for you S.A.R owe £362.02
Additions Direct £1400 NO CCA
HUBBY
Bank of Scotland Prefernce account £296
Capital One £300CHARGES£1135 TAKING COURT ACTION
also owe big to
Bank Of Scotland £10000 sending cca reqest
British Credit Trust £6000
Fighting For Family
MUm,***WON ***Barclays for hardship just need to get the last little bit. Chasing LLOYDS TSB for hardship
Bro, HBOS PPI mis selling ***WON***
Re: Littlewoods PPI and charges! They say i cannot complain to ombudsman!
I tried to claim through my PPI after this, but they said i could not claim because i had not made payment in the four weeks before i got signed off of work? SO i am paying for PPI (extra care advantage) and cannot claim? x
When you say the FSA ruling was made, what does that mean for me?
Some financial institutions were not regulated on the PPI issue by the Financial Services Authority before 14 Jan 2005 but they would be regulated after that date with regard to selling PPI.
I do not have a certificate and i belive i never recieved one, as i keep everything, i have files and files of paperwork?
Make sure you ask for all data in all formats, electronic, paper, tape, CD absolutely everything. You should get copies of the Consumer Credit Agreement, terms and conditions and statements of your account with all other relevant paperwork. They have a Statutory period of 40 days to supply this information. If they fail to comply submit a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office. (Address in my thread on complaint letters)
Our advisors offer ECI using a sales script and the advisor would have read through the sales script to check for eligibility for cover. ECI is offered to our customers after we have informed them that credit has been granted.
You should also get a copy of this but I would certainly ask for a copy of this script.
You will need to send a £10.00 statutory fee when you ask for the data.
I tried to claim through my PPI after this, but they said i could not claim because i had not made payment in the four weeks before i got signed off of work? SO i am paying for PPI (extra care advantage) and cannot claim? x
I would suggest that the PPI was of no use.
Please have a look at the information in my thread it is long and will take time to wade through but there are examples of letters in here that you may wish to adapt to your own particular case........
A lot of the financial instutions banks, credit card companies, car sales companies, mortgage companies etc have mis-sold PPI. A number of them have been heavily fined by the FSA for mis-selling and this number will no doubt grow.
It may be worth a call to the fos to get some advice, this is the Telephone number......... 0845 080 1800
Littlewoods PPI and charges! They say i cannot complain to ombudsman!
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