Thread: car2403 -v- GE Capital Bank

After spending a lot of time on my GE accounts (mainly because I've had loads of other threads on the go at the same time) and failing to get the default they registered against my CRA file removed, (that thread is here; http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...pial-bank.html) I've decided to come at them from a different angle - that's PPI...

This is what has happened so far on the PPI issue.

The debt was sold by GE to CL Finance. (It was an absolute assignment of which I have a copy of the original deed - not notice - of assignment, thanks to my CCA request) Originally, I started writing to CL about this, but they just washed their hands of it and said speak to GE, as they sold me the insurance and any issue with that would have to be dealt with by GE, not CL. Lesson 1 for anyone attempting to claim PPI back, then: go for the company that sold you the insurance, not the company that has been assigned the debt or a DCA collecting it. This little nugget could have saved me a few weeks of wrangling with CL.

Anyway, the correspondance between GE and me starts here;

I refer to default charges which have been applied to my account by GE Money, amounting to £105.00, excluding contractual interest applied to those payments.

I have been a loyal customer of GE Money. I have always tried to maintain my account well and believe that the charges applied to my account do not reflect the cost to GE Money of managing account. I therefore ask that you refund the amount of all these charges, totaling £105.00, plus a refund of any contractual interest applied to those amounts, within 14 days of your receipt of this letter.

Further to this, I believe I have been mis-sold a payment protection insurance policy and would like to request a full refund of my premiums, plus interest paid also. When I took out the account I was also sold a payment protection policy. The total amount of my premiums paid, excluding contractual interest applied to those payments, is £76.02.

When I took out the loan, I was told that my application would be refused if I did not also buy a PPI policy. The Financial Services Authority’s advice to consumers is that, while it does not breach FSA guidelines, a borrower should not be refused a loan if they choose not to buy an insurance policy. I also told the salesperson that I had adequate insurance cover through a separate income protection policy, but was still pressurised in to purchasing your account cover. I also said I did not need the PPI as my employer provided a generous illness and redundancy package. In forcing me to buy this policy, you have also breached paragraph 8.6 of the Banking Code, to which I believe you are a signatory. I do not believe being forced to buy this policy as part of the account opening process was a fair and reasonable obligation as I did not need this insurance and said at the time of taking the loan that I did not want it.

I am, therefore, also requesting a full refund of all my insurance payments paid, which total £76.02, plus a refund of any contractual interest applied to those amounts, within 14 days of your receipt of this letter. Please note that should you fail to respond to my letter, or you respond in the negative to these requests, that I will consider taking further action against you.

Please note I have also written to CL Finance regarding these queries as per the attached letters.

GE's reply;

I write further to our letter dated 31 JuI 2008. I understand that your complaint is regarding Account Cover Insurance and Default Charges.

On behalf of GE Money, please accept mw sincere apologies for the sequence of events that culminated in you having to contact us. I assure you it was never our intention to cause any upset and I regret you feel that we have on this occasion. I have carefully recorded your comments under the above reference number.

Having checked your account details, I can confirm Account Cover Insurance consisting of price, payment and purchase protection was added on 4 July 2004, when we received your signed credit agreement and opened jour account. I have enclosed a copy of the application form for your records.

I have considered the points set out in your letter and I have detailed below our response to each of the points that you have raised:

I note that your policy was set up on 4 July 2004. As this was prior to January 2005, the FSA’s decision is not relevant, but all complaints alleging that insurance may have been mis-sold are taken very seriously and I have therefore fully investigated all aspects of your complaint.

I note that you say that you were not told that the policy was optional when it was taken out in 2004, but I also note that the process that we had in place was to make clear that it was not compulsory. I can confirm that on the agreement you signed, it asked you to sign if you required the Account Cover, which you did. Therefore it appears that it was made clear that the policy was optional and that you elected to take out the insurance.

Once a customer has decided to take the product, a policy summary and policy document is mailed to the customer for their review. We also offer a 30-daj no- quibble guarantee where the product may be cancelled, and an premiums refunded (subject to no claim being made). This allows time to compare the policy to that of any other insurance companies.

In relation to your reference to the sales process in store, and your comment regarding GE Money being in breach of paragraph 8.6 of the Banking Code. There was no requirement upon us to record the sales process and so we have no way of knowing what took place on 4 July 2004. However, if any of the matters that you suggest took place, you would have been able to call at any time in the first 30 days and we would have removed the insurance from your account.

Since you opened jour account, this insurance has been clearly shown on jour statements, when a balance has been outstanding, and could have been cancelled or a claim made at any time.

I can find no evidence of mis-selling this insurance; therefore I am unable to refund the premiums applied to jour account.

Regarding the default charges applied to jour account. I understand you are of the opinion that GE Money are not entitled to charge the fees specified in jour credit agreement.

When you were issued with your Frasercard Account Card, you agreed that your account would be subject to GE Money’s standard terms and conditions of business. Those terms included fees, which would be applied to jour account for two types of default: late payment or a returned payment (cheque or direct debit).

The fees you refer to in your letter have been applied to your account in accordance with our standard terms and conditions. They are a core part of the terms on which we provide credit and are highlighted in the summary box contained in our marketing material. This material is provided to prospective customers before they make an application for credit.

We have reviewed the OFT’s publication of its findings into default fee charges along with our cost base. Our view remains that we are entitled to charge these fees (which is consistent with the OFT’s view).

The OFT ruling deemed that a £12.00 fee would be a reasonable charge for costs incurred as a result of breaching the Terms and Conditions of your credit agreement. Our charging structure now supports this ruling.

I have agreed on this occasion, and as a gesture of goodwill, to refund the proportion of charges that you have incurred that exceed £12.00. A refund of £21 has been processed in full and final settlement of this matter. This amount has been credited against your outstanding balance held with CL Finance.

I trust that I have addressed all of the concerns that you raised. If you remain dissatisfied with our response you may refer the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. To do this jou must refer the matter within six months from the date of this letter.

I enclose a copy of the Financial Ombudsman Service’s explanatory leaflet.

Should you require any further information, please contact me on my number below.

Yours sincerely

I wrote back to them;

I refer to your letter dated 5 August 2008.

Regarding the charges applied to the account, you have failed to refund the full amount of those charges applied, which is £105, plus the contractual interest applied to those charges. While I will accept your partial refunding of £21, as a partial settlement of my claim, I will seek to continue with my complaint relating to the remainder of those charges.

To clarify, your response relies on the OFT recommended amount of £12 – while it is fair to say the OFT may consider that amount as “fair”, it is evident in your letter that you have not fully considered my view that these charges are contractual penalties and/or are unfair under the UTCCR and that only a Judge can consider them as being fair, in this case. You have also failed to provide any evidence of the actual cost to GE Money of managing my account in each instance that a charge has been applied – it is for this reason that I still contend that the charges represent unfair penalties that are recoverable under contract law. If you are so minded as to present me with that information, that satisfies my query, rather than dismissing the claim completely, I may reconsider taking further action on this issue.

Regarding the insurance fees applied to the account, you have failed to refund the full amount of those fees applied, which is £76.02. You have also failed to refund the contractual interest applied to those fees.

In your reply, you seem to contend that your processes and practices, generally speaking, at the time of the contract taking place, was in all ways complaint with your legal and ethical responsibilities regarding the sale of this product to me. This is something that is outside of my knowledge and experience, so I am unable to comment on your response. I do, however, have personal knowledge and experience as to how this product was sold to me, as an individual, by your representative. Regardless of how your processes and procedures were compliant, you have, therefore, not taken any notice of the issues that I raised in my letter. As such, I do not consider this complaint resolved, for the following reasons;

§ The agreement that you have provided shows a box, which is ticked, stating “Account cover (only sign this box if you require Account Cover)”. I put it to you, that the box was signed in error, as I clearly didn’t require this insurance. I also put it to you that your representative breached a fiduciary obligation, by been required to act in good faith, which is crucial between the parties when taking out such an agreement which includes this type of insurance – as such, the selling of this product, which I was lead to believe was compulsory, should I wish to be accepted for the credit applied for, was unlawful.
§ Can you show that the individual that sold me this policy was fully trained and competent in selling this insurance, as you suggest?
§ Can you show that the full policy information was indeed sent to me after the insurance was taken out?
§ You will see that the insurance was indeed cancelled when I realised that I wasn’t sure what I was paying for, had contacted your customer service team who cancelled for me and that I had explained to them that I didn’t want or need the insurance policy. At no time did your representative query the amounts paid already – had I known I had paid over £76 for insurance that I didn’t require, I would have queried this much sooner. I only realised that was the case when I made a subject access request. Why does your customer service team not look at the reasons for cancellation, as it was clearly stated to them, and offer to refund the payments made in error? Perhaps this is because you make a hell of a lot of profit out of such sale of this product?

To clarify, your response relies on the fact that you were fully compliant and legally right to sell me the insurance that you did. I dispute that, for the reasons above, and my complaint remains unresolved. You have also failed to provide any evidence of the facts that you rely on in your response, such as showing that the individual I allegedly purchased this policy from was actually compliant. This leads me to believe that you haven’t taken my complaint seriously at all. If you are so minded as to present me with that information, that satisfies my query, rather than dismissing the claim completely, I may reconsider taking further action on this cause.

If you are so minded as to leave the partial refund that you have already completed, I will continue to claim the remainder of the amount in dispute via the small claims court. If you reverse the amount already applied, I will seek to recover the full amount of charges, as previously outlined. I am prepared to wait a further 7 days from your date of receipt of this letter before issuing a small claim county court action against you, to allow you to consider your position and reply to this letter. If you fail to reply, or fail to refund the full amount of charges applied to the account, I will start these proceedings against you without further notice. In any case, I would appreciate your full and final reply to my complaint, within 7 days, also.

Yours faithfully,

Next reply;

I write further to our letter dated 5 August 2008. I understand your concern is regarding Account Cover Insurance and late payment charges.

As previously advised, Account Cover Insurance was added on 4 July 2004, when your account was opened in store.

The insurance was added to your account because you chose to do so. On the agreement, you signed the relevant section to say you required the insurance. However, you still had an opportunity to change your mind, as after a product is taken out a policy summary and policy document is issued to the customer for their review.

We also offer a 30-day no-quibble guarantee where the product may be cancelled, and any premiums refunded (subject to no claim being made. This allows time to compare the policy to that of any other insurance companies. In your letter you have requested us to show that these documents were sent. Unfortunately, they are not issued recorded delivery and so we are unable to do so. However, I can assure you they were sent in good faith.

This insurance and its cost were also clearly shown on your statements when a balance was outstanding.

As you did not contact us until 21 December 2005 to advise that you did not wish to proceed with the insurance or did not understand the policy, the cover was not cancelled and whilst it remained on the account, the relevant insurance premiums charged monthly.

As set out above the insurance was cancelled on 21 December 2005 as requested. As the policy is an optional insurance our Customer Service agents will cancel a policy if requested by a customer. I can find no evidence of you raising any concern regarding the sale of the insurance at that time. Therefore, there was no necessity to confirm the amount you paid unless you had specifically asked us to do so.

In relation to your reference to the sales process in store, there was no requirement upon us to record the sales process in July 2004. This is a requirement of an advised role under the FSA’s ICOB regulations and our insurance sales have a;ways been non advised We have always given the customer the details of the policy and let the customer make an educated decision if the policy is suitable for them.

I must also advise that at the time of the insurance sale in 2004, there was no requirement for financial training to sell this insurance. However, all of our staff were trained to give the features and benefits of the product.

I can find no evidence of mis-selling the insurance, therefore our decision remains the same and we are unable to refund the premiums applied to oour account.
In relation to your comments regarding the default charges applied to the account, I am sorry that you remain unhappy with a our previous response. Your additional comments have been carefully reviewed.

GE Money have reviewed the OFT’s publication of its findings into default fee charges along with our own cost base. Our view remains that we are entitled to charge these fees. This is also consistent with the OFT’s view.

The OFT ruling deemed that a £12.00 fee would be a reasonable charge for casts incurred as a result of breaching the Terms and Conditions of gour credit agreement. Our charging structure now supports this ruling.

Having reviewed our charging policy we have also reviewed our refund policy. As of 9 July 2007, GE Money will only refund the proportion of charges that our customers have incurred that exceed £12.00.

Our decision to refund £21.00 in full and final settlement of this matter remains and no further adjustments will be made.

Whilst I appreciate that this moo not be the outcome you were expecting, I trust that I have addressed all of the concerns that you raised. If you remain dissatisfied with our response you moo refer the complaint to the Finance & Leasing Association at the contact details provided below:

FLA
Imperial House
15-19 Kingsway
London
WC2B 6UN

Should you require any further information, please contact me on my number below.

Yours sincerely

My last response, sent Friday gone, is this;

I refer to my previous correspondence with regards the above account.

Regarding the insurance fees applied to the account, you have still failed to refund the full amount of those fees applied, which is £76.02. You have also still failed to refund the contractual interest applied to those fees. You have also failed to respond to my satisfaction regarding the contents of my latest letter to you dated 9 August 2008.
After your failure to comply with my requests, I have done some further research and I have discovered the following, which I would like you to consider prior to replying to this letter. I am enclosing;

§ A copy of the GISC guidelines for Private Customers. This is from their Rules which were operative between 03/07/2000 and 14/01/2005 and which this transaction would have been subjected. I have highlighted the paragraphs that I would like you to consider;
§ An extract from the FSA’s website regarding their “treating customers fairly” requirements regarding the sale of this insurance policy. Please note the elements of “poor practice” that the FSA has already found as part of their study in to the subject. You will also note that this extract shows “action [the FSA] have taken on PPI” – of particular interest to me, considering my complaint to you, GE Money, as part of GE Capital Bank, is the action that the FSA has taken against you already. I note from the extract that you were fined £610,000 on 30 January 2007 for “for failing to have adequate systems and controls for selling insurance which includes Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) and for failing to treat its customers fairly”. For your ease of reference, I am also enclosing an extract from the FSA website with regard this action, along with the “Final Notice” that was issued by the FSA, which outlines their decision, your failure to reach the requirements of good faith and outlines the Statutory Provisions that you have failed to comply with. I particularly would like to point out;
“1.3 The penalty is imposed for breaches by the firm of the following Principles for Businesses in relation to general insurance:
§ (a) failing to conduct its business with due skill, care and diligence (Principle 2);
§ (b) failing to take reasonable care to organise and control its affairs responsibly and effectively, with adequate risk management systems (Principle 3); and
§ (c) failing to pay due regard to the interests of its customers and failing to treat them fairly (Principle 6).”

I look forwarded to hearing from you with regards to this information, outlining how exactly you have treat me fairly and how the FSA decision to fine you (which I note that you choose note to appeal) applies given the contents of my previous correspondence to you.

I believe that you have had ample time to address my concerns, as I have outlined, but have failed to do so, which I find extremely unreasonable. It is for this reason that I intend to issue a small claim action against you in the County Court within 14 days from the date of your receipt of this letter, should you fail to refund the amounts in dispute. I will, of course, be bringing all this relevant information to the Judge’s attention – I am very confident that he would, on the balance of probabilities, especially given the FSA’s decision regarding your systems and procedures, would decide that these amounts should be returned to me. I, therefore, look forward to hearing from you within 14 days of the date of your receipt of this letter.

I think I'm on a loser with the default charges, so I'm only going after the PPI now. We'll have to see what happens.

BTW, the reason I haven't stuck to my timescales of going to Court already is that I haven't had time to manage this as closely as I should have. That's changing now, as I'm furious they are still claiming they won't refund the payments made - I now want my money back, thank you!



Similar Threads:

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Originally Posted by car2403

After spending a lot of time on my GE accounts (mainly because I've had loads of other threads on the go at the same time) and failing to get the default they registered against my CRA file removed, (that thread is here; http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...pial-bank.html) I've decided to come at them from a different angle - that's PPI...

This is what has happened so far on the PPI issue.

The debt was sold by GE to CL Finance. (It was an absolute assignment of which I have a copy of the original deed - not notice - of assignment, thanks to my CCA request) Originally, I started writing to CL about this, but they just washed their hands of it and said speak to GE, as they sold me the insurance and any issue with that would have to be dealt with by GE, not CL. Lesson 1 for anyone attempting to claim PPI back, then: go for the company that sold you the insurance, not the company that has been assigned the debt or a DCA collecting it. This little nugget could have saved me a few weeks of wrangling with CL.

Anyway, the correspondance between GE and me starts here;



GE's reply;



I wrote back to them;



Next reply;



My last response, sent Friday gone, is this;



I think I'm on a loser with the default charges, so I'm only going after the PPI now. We'll have to see what happens.

BTW, the reason I haven't stuck to my timescales of going to Court already is that I haven't had time to manage this as closely as I should have. That's changing now, as I'm furious they are still claiming they won't refund the payments made - I now want my money back, thank you!

Hiya Car,

Nice to see you over here

Well ge money, what can I say They are very rude and defensive. Not very good on the customer relations side are they
Just keep at them.

I have the same issue regarding the penality charges and them paying them to cl finance. They acquired my account from creation finance in 2004 with a balance of 550, paid a big chunk of to clear the balance, they then applied interest, which escalated with penality charges of £90 and eventually transfered the account to cl finance with a default balance of £54.

I have ca creation, who don't have the ca, but sent me an application form to show me what I would have signed. yeah right.

Ge Money do not have the credit agreement and neither do cl finance.

So I am after the 3 of these companies for some sort of resolution to my dispute. All deny doing anything unlawful. We will see.

I have sent a letter asking for all payment and interest they received from me,, plus contractual interest to boot, as they have never made me sign anything, they just mis-lead me into believing everything was legal and above board.

I have further demanded that they pay me the penality charges back, plus interest as well, as they have never had a credit agreement to allow them to do this. They are looking into my complaint yet again.

Anyway I am rabbitting on a bit now. Just wanted to let you know and will keep you up to speed on any developments.

I presume you have seen your credit agreement from them???????

Originally Posted by hellhasnofury

I presume you have seen your credit agreement from them???????

Yeah and it's all enforceable...

Originally Posted by car2403

Yeah and it's all enforceable...

Well Car. I must admitted to be truely speechless for once, what a bummer

Other ways to get them though:grin:

Originally Posted by car2403

BTW, the reason I haven't stuck to my timescales of going to Court already is that I haven't had time to manage this as closely as I should have. That's changing now, as I'm furious they are still claiming they won't refund the payments made - I now want my money back, thank you!

No reply...

I still haven't had time to properly manage this claim as it should have been - my bad. I will only be waiting another 2 weeks before going to Court, so I'll be preparing the case for issue later in November.

Originally Posted by car2403

No reply...

I still haven't had time to properly manage this claim as it should have been - my bad. I will only be waiting another 2 weeks before going to Court, so I'll be preparing the case for issue later in November.

Good for you, I think after xmas I won't be far behind you They have just sent me their final, final response and say they will not talk to me anymore.

Well at least you have shown that you have been more than patient with them, before you issue your N1 You offered them an olive branch and they snatch it and battered you about the head with it

They are the rudist company I have had the misfortune to deal with, well maybe apart from the nastywest, eh hfc, MBNA, etc etc jeepers they are all as bad as each other

Sorry Car

I am as you know gunning for ge and cl finance

Thought this might be a bit of information for you, you may know this, so bear with me plus it might not be of any relevance

I have been searching the OFT site regarding licensed debt collection companies, who must hold a credit license.

It appears that cl finance are not registered anywhere with the OFT.

There registered office which is Kingston House, Centre 27 Business Park, Woodhead Road, Birstall, Batley WF17 9TD is run by Lewis Debt Collection and no mention of cl finance under their aliases.

Wonder if the OFT know this Have a look at the link, if you type in cl finance no results, but if you type in lewis debt collection and the post code, there is no mention of cl finance anywhere

Public Register

I'm sure the OFT will consider CL as operating under Lewis' license, though.

Car can you make room for a pm please

Done

This little lot are taking the mick now... Still, never mind, I won't wait, claim from issued already...

Merry Christmas, me!

Hey Car, no fear any dust settling on this one Good for you.

On another note can you have a bit of input with this thread please, only if you have a spare minute of two

Sygma Bank, Jjb Mastercard PPI.

I do believe that they are truely taking the mick and the poster needs to take them to task over this.

Your help as always much appreciated

Claim acknowledged

Claim coming to an end, on the right basis