Thread: FirstPlus PPI misselling claim

Hi all

Have been try to reclaim my PPI from FirstPlus for a while and they keep denying any misselling but will not give me a final response. This is my next letter can anyone take a look and please feel free to add or change it. Specifically can someone beef it up abit concerning differant laws and guidlines.


Dear Peter,

Thank you for your response about the mis-selling of your Payment Protection Insurance product. Frankly we are rather dismayed at your findings.

As most of your letter is about the 18 minute telephone conversation your Accounts Manager, P*** S****, had with my wife, let us deal with it first. During this telephone conversation my wife at three separate times answered Mr. S****s questions with the response “I don’t know”. He then proceeded to rephrase the question until he got the response he required. I was the one in the best position to answer questions about my earnings and work benefits.

This especially happened when he was discussing the Demands and Needs form. As he stated that, I as the highest wage earner in the household, was the only one covered for the Accident, Sickness and Unemployment part of the policy. You would think that I would be the one to answer the questions. But this would have slowed down the process of getting us to sign up quickly.

Mr. S**** asked my wife “Do you have payment protection insurance to specifically pay off this loan if your husband couldn’t work”. Well of course we did not. Who buys insurance to cover a loan if you don’t have the loan yet? This was the time Mr. S**** should have told us your PPI was not the only option for us.

As for the Demands and Needs form itself, it proves nothing except that your Accounts Manager filled it in. It certainly does not prove that your Payment Protection Insurance was the right policy for us. It has been well documented by official bodies like the Financial Ombudsman Service, that these types of forms are lender created forms not to actually understand anything, not to gain an insight but a form designed to be used as a means to an end and that end being “should the customer complain about mis-selling then we at least have the D & N on file”.

The D & N is all about box ticking and "being seen to do the right thing". Once let loose on the customer it was then all about getting the customer to sign. If anyone complained, you can then say "isolated incident", such and such is trained and qualified, this is our procedure etc etc . You missed the point - it was a chance to sell ethically, sell properly, not set up procedures to cover tracks when the real truth about Payment Protection Insurance came out.

Also at what point did the FSA, the OFT and the Competition Commissioner decide that a filled out D & N form was enough to make the PPI value for money and in the best interests of the consumer.

The telephone conversation proves nothing in First Plus’s favour other than you use a very subtle sales technique designed to confuse the customer and benefit your company. An example of this is that the repayment of the premium (£6735.75) is mentioned often, but the true fact of the insurance loan incurring massive amounts of interest over a 15 year period is quietly skirted over.

Also in this telephone conversation can you please pinpoint the time Mr. Smith told my wife that we could buy PPI insurance for this loan elsewhere, not just from First Plus. Can you also pinpoint the time that Mr. Smith told my wife about the 70% commission that First Plus received from our policy and we had to pay for and are still paying for through very high interest rates. If you cannot then First Plus could be in potential breach of law.

The average time across the PPI industry to recover the PPI premium would be well below the First Plus figure, so it was clearly designed to yield a profit at an unreasonable price.

The very fact that Payment Protection Insurance that was front loaded onto another loan was banned in May 2009, proves this sale in January 2007 of PPI is very questionable.

Simply put your PPI policy is worthless to me but very profitable for First Plus. The fact that First Plus have 99% of complaints to the fos upheld also proves that your company is implementing a policy of “deny everything, always”.

I would like to thank you for highlighting specific points in the copies of your terms and conditions that you sent with you letter. May I take this opportunity to say that they were very helpful in finding the important parts of you T & C’s. It is just a pity that at the time you sold us the PPI your company sales department were not as conscientious and implemented an easy way to understand your T & C’s. This could have saved First Plus a great deal of money in mis-sold repayments.

All of the above clearly point to a badly advised sale of payment protection insurance and a continued damage limitation exercise on the part of First Plus.

Finally I request that you reply with either a final response or confirmation that you agree that you mis-sold the PPI. If you do neither then I will assume you do not wish this matter resolved and will therefore be submitting a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

We believe 21 days is more than enough time to respond for a company as well rehearsed in dealing with complaints as yourselves.

Yours sincerely

Hi bankfodder

I think your right. They want me to get bogged down and get tired of it all. I think I am into my 7th week so will just wait and see what transpires in the next 2 weeks

Mac