Hi all

After months of wrangling with Lloyds my two claims for refund of PPI are now with the Financial Ombudsman. On paper they look cut and dried in my favour but the Bank have raised a number of issues in defence. The last letter from the FSO says " We have now received your file from the insurer. From our initial assessment your case is one that needs to be considered in detail by one of our adjudicators." So progress is being made but there is apparently a backlog of cases.

I'm going to try and put together a strong legal case for the court in case the FSO finds against me. Even if not then the work might be useful for others.

Hi Keith

Any chance you could post a few more details we're all really interested as there are a few of us just starting out. Good Luck with the FSO.

Koko

Hi Koko,

Yes - this concerns PPI on two business loans. In the case of the first loan the matter of PPI was never discussed in any shape or form - I just assumed that it was part of the loan. The second case was similar but the loan was arranged over the phone and again PPI was not discussed. Earlier this year I was talking to my business manager about another matter when insurance was brought up. I have a number of long term medical conditions which he pointed out would cause a problem with the existing PPI. He got me a copy of the agreements I had signed ( I was only ever given the last page to sign ) and I found that the tick boxes on the form, including the one about pre-existing conditions had all be filled in by the bank without my knowledge. Effectively this means that the insurance was pretty useless.

Amongst the gems I have had from the bank when I tried to claim a refund:

"We feel it is unfair of you to make a claim having had the benefit of the insurance for so long."

"We agree that insurance should be discussed with clients but it is so long ago that we don't know whether we did or not but we feel that we probably did!"

There is some useful stuff on the FSA web site which is about how companies should approach the sale of PPI FSA and also the FSO Financial Ombudsman Service

Basically Lloyds seldom refund premiums whithout a fight although some people have been successful. You will probably have to look for some evidence of misselling. This incudes the Bank making sure that the insurance was fit for your purposes, not making it a compulsory part of the loan etc etc

Do you have a copy of the orginal documents you signed? If not you should ask for copies - beware that this is not straight forward for Limited Companies if you are a business.

I think the terms and conditions if you do not have them are on their website Welcome to lloydstsb.com

Thank you so much. I'm already a frequent visitor to the FSA website, I'll reread the FOS one during daylight hours. My first loan was taken our in 1997 then refinanced a further four times. I have the last agreement but not the third which is the one I'm particularly interested in so have already done a cca request (as well as SAR). The terms and conditions on their website now will be different to the ones applied to all my agreements as the FSA so helpfully point out PPI policies before 1995 were unregulated products so I'll have to wait and see what they come up with. I'm lucky in a way as I'm already at the court stage for reclaiming unlawful charges from Lloyds which will give me enough to get into the black anyway. Going after the PPI is a personal thing, I want them to admit they took advantage of me and treated me unfairly so I'm in it for the long haul. Lloyds in particular seem to fight even when it's blantantly obvious to all that they are in the wrong as in your case. They will be in default on Friday if they haven't complied with the CCA requests at which point I will notify them that all my accounts are in dispute, but like my Bank Manager once said to me they really don't care about small people like me, unless you owe them hundreds of thousands or you deposit hundreds of thousands you're off the radar, so I don't think they'll care enough to want to settle they'll just drag me through the process. One question: What made you go down the FOS route instead of taking them straight to court? Koko

Hi

I too want Lloyds to pay for all the distress and heartache they have caused me plus all the damage to a successful business so lets get em!. My claim for unlawful charges is also underway but as it is for Limited Companies there are slight differences to take into account.

The reason I have gone to the FSO first regarding the PPI is that I thought it might be worth a shot and its free! Court proceedure won't be as cut and dried as reclaiming charges which thanks to this site follows a well defined pattern. i.e. Case Law etc.

I think we will have to do some considerable research to establish a method or points of law that can be adapted for individual scenarios with PPI. I'm not too sure where to begin which is another reason why I went to the FSO although it has to be said that they don't fill me full of confidence.

In 1998, because of the bank charges that were being taken of my account I was about 3000 in the red and one of the assistant managers in the bank agreed to give me loan to pay that off, but only if I took out their insurance(PPI). I had never taken nay of those out in the past because I was in tenured position at university. I think this managers insistence was against the law. He had young girl in the office with him and when he went out, she said she was sorry for me being put into that postion. I am attempting to get details of that loan to raise case against them.

Even their own staff think there is miselling. Have a look at the survey in this document.

http://www.ltu.co.uk/includes/downloadmedia.php?id=342&mediaref=0&method=view

Sorry link doesn't seem to work I'll try again

Hi Keith,

Thanks for sharing your info, Im going for PPI & ERC with London Mortgage Company and probably a few other when Iv got statements etc.

Like you I had my loan aggrement ticked by some one else and only signed the back page of the agreement.

Please keep your thread updated, will be following you with great interest.

Good Luck

Lynn

PS Great link

One of the problems seems to be that Lloyds treat every case differently and they do not have a consistent approach. Some people seem to have got refunds relatively easily but the great majority are left struggling. I'm trying to put together a mammoth post with all the references and bits and bobs I have found. I'm not a legal expert of any kind so I'm hoping that others will chip in with anything they have. Hopefully between us all we can the refine the info into a comprehensive list so that others can dip into it and extract what they need for their own particular circumstances and claims.

I also notice that there are threads regarding PPI dotted all over the forum. I wonder whether it is worth asking the owners of those threads to consider asking the mods to move them into this PPI section so they we can more easily help each other and keep track of progress.

Hi,

I did manage to get PPI refund from Lloyds TSB and to be honest they gave up without too much of a fight..I was surprised to be Honest. Then again I have seen cases that they just dont want to give in to customers for some reason.

Not so easy with Purpleloans/GE Money though, the policy and loan were from Firstplus, at that time Purpleloans were acting as agents for Firstplus.

But never mind they are about to be named and shamed in the Daily Record next Thursday..lol ( Inside Info..lol in fact they are using my case as a base for the story as i have been working closely with one of their Journalists and have supplied her with lots of information etc. Got the Photographer from the Paper comming on Tuesday to take pics..) and of Course ConsumerActionGroup.co.uk should also be mentioned as a good source for information and advice.

Ian

Hi all,

This is the time scale for my complaint to the FSO:

Original complaint sent to FSO October 13th

Aknowledgement October 20th.

Initial assessment and passed to adjudicaor October 25th

Acknowledgement from adujuicator November10th

Letter from adjudicator Nover 17th asking for copy of company accounts to check turnover was less than £1,000,000!!!

Phoned adjudicator November 20th to check requirements and posted accounts same day.

I have received a letter today (22/12/06) from the ombudsman (quote) "I have received the bank's papers in relation to your complaint and having reviewed them I consider that the policies were mis-sold to you in 2004 and 2005. I have sent my assessment to the bank and now await its response."

This is progress but I suppose I now have to wait and see whether the Bank accept the recommendation or want to escalate the complaint to the more formal process with the Obudsman.

Total amount by the way is around £3.9K plus interest.

Keith

Good luck!

Like you I am taking on Lloyds for mis-selling. You seem further ahead in the process than me but I'm going straight for the Courts I have little faith in the FSO particulary as my claim dates back to 1999 and I assume the FSO will simply say that they have no jurisdiction prior to '95 I have drafted a prelim which is in this forum. Any comments gratefully received!

Bicester1!

Hi K & All

Can I throw my hand in here?

LSTB 3ppi's on same account over 3 years just started correspondance and have had standard sod off letters(2)

My alledged debt of £18k is prob at least £8k of miss-sold ppi

Hi Capitulator and welcome.

The sod off letters are pretty standard but don't give up - some people here have succeed in getting refunds just by being persistant. It looks as though you are going to be in the same long battle as the rest of us. I think the way forward is to establish exactly why you think the policies were mis-sold to you and then try to find some supporting evidence. For example in one of my cases the actual application form for PPI had been filled in incorrectly and this had happened without my knowledge! You will also need to go through the Terms and Conditions with a fine tooth comb. Once you have got it all clearly sorted out it puts you in a stronger position. You then have the option of the CC or the FSO once Lloyds have sent you the final response.

Good luck - keep us informed

Hi Keith & Capitulator,

I think we need to be prepared for a long drawn out battle with some of these companies. I know I have been fighting with GE Money / Purpleloans since September, Many a time I have thought, is it worth the hassle..Yes of course it is ,Win or loose at least it may make them sit back and actually think about how they behave with Customers complaints.

I am just about to HIT Ge Money with court claim in the next week or so, What you really have to do is gather as much information as possible, I have used discrepenceies in their correspondence etc as part of my evidence too. In one piece of correspondence a document was reffered to by the manager handling my complaint, no such documment was produced under my SAR , so someone is telling porkie pies or they have failed under the Data Protection Act. Just little things like that may help in any court case..Hopefully the Judge will get some idea of how these companies try to fob off complaints re mis selling etc.

The more complaints that are raised about this issue may eventually get word to these companies that we are not going to accept their hard selling, Mis selling and deceitful way that they sell these grossly overpriced policies any longer. Especially when it has been revealed that commision / Bonus paid for the sale of some of these policies can be as high as 65% of the cost of the policy. I think this may be a major factor on how they use the above tactics to sell this product, but thats just my view..lol

Good luck Guys and keep up the fight. and remember to watch Tonight with Trevor McDonald on 17th January. ..

Ian

Hi Reidnet and all,

Sorry about the length of this post!

My particular claims are against Lloydtsb so I don't know much about any other companies. To put matters in context I first started investigating my PPI one year ago next week so anyone considering this should be prepared for the long haul.

I have learnt a few things during my long journey which might be helpful (or not!) to others but most importantly there does not seem to be much consistency with Lloyds reactions to claims. I am aware of PPI refunds which were obtained fairly easily after just a few letters and in some cases based on what seemed a very flimsy case for repayment. Yet I know of others, mine included, where there is absolute evidence of mis-selling and yet the Bank have dug their heels in and refused refunds.

For anybody thinking about taking on Lloyds I can make a few points. Firstly as far as I'm aware their PPI has a single premium which is added on to the cost of the loan. Recent application forms for loans have any PPI split out and interest quoted separately but this has not always been the case. The T & C's seem pretty standard and are they same as far as I can tell despite which underwriters the Bank uses for the PPI. My two lots of PPI are with different underwriters not that this makes much difference. These T & C's spell out how much refund you will get in the case of early settlement of the loan (or if by some miracle you can get the PPI cancelled) Be prepared to be shocked by how much you will lose under these circumstances.

The T & C's also have a standard 30 day get out clause and the Bank will often try to use this as a way of getting out of a mis-selling claim. They will tell you you had 30 days to cancel if you were not satisifed with the arrangement. IMHO this is nonsense. The 30 days are a cooling of period, they are not there to give the client time to discover that the Bank has mis-sold the policy. Following on from this in order to stand any chance of a refund from Lloyds you have to prove mis-selling - just to complain some time later that you don't like the interest rate is not going to cut much ice.

The most common reason for mis-selling seems to be that the client was forced to take out PPI in order to obtain a loan. The lender obviously has a duty to consider how its money will be repaid in the event of the borrower becoming ill or passing away and if they are not satisfied then they should refuse the loan - PPI cannot be made a condition of the loan. Unfortunately in many cases I have come across there is little evidence on either side of what was said at the time. This makes proving things very difficult. Asking for SAR may disclose something but often it will be the client's word against that of the Bank. In these circumstances t is vital to try and remember how the original application proceeded. I wrote down everything I could remember and went back to the notes many times and each time found that I could add little bits I had forgotten about.

If you go to the CC and it is your word against the Bank remember that the case will be decided on the balance of probablities so information about the Bank's onerous target system for its employees may be helpful.

There are several other reasons why a policy may have been mis-sold most of which I have had to explore over the last year but I've probably gone on too long as it is. Feel free to contact me if I can help and although I can't guarantee a speedy response I'll do my best!

Tonight with Trevor McDonald The date for the screening of this program has now been changed to 1 week earlier..12th January 2007.

I had film crew etc here this morning..

Ian

I haven't heard from the Ombudsman yet ( according to their letter I should hear around 20th of January) but my business manager phoned today to say that he has had an internal email to say that both lots of PPI are being refunded to my loans forthwith. Looks like I'm on the right road at last.

Well - a partial victory. Checking my accounts today I have found a refund of PPI premiums on each of my two loan accounts. Nothing heard yet from the Ombudsman or the bank. So just under £4000 of PPI has been refunded to the loans but no refund of interest. One lot of PPI dates form April 2004 (Interest rate 8.65%) and the other from April 2005 (Interest rate 14.6%) and this represents a fair amount of interest. I fully intend to chase this but I had better wait until I get the Ombudsmans offical letter to see what they say - This looks like the Bank trying it on to avoid the decision of the Ombudsman by making a partial refund in the hope I will accept - well I won't!

Hi keith,

Looks like the ball is rolling on for you then, thats great.

You had answered my forums recently, last time i checked out was before xmas. (maybe on a different forum) !!

This was regarding my mis sold ppi, which was sent finally to the ombudsman in early Nov 2006, and we had one feedback from them in the middle of Nov to inform us that our case was being passed on then for further consideration and that they will contact us asap to inform us of the progress. That letter was then sent from the Consumer Consultant.

We are aware this can take time, but as we did not hear anything after that one letter, we emailed them a few times before and after xmas to ask of the progress as we had no further updates since.

Then we received a letter dated 3 January 2007 to inform us that due to the volume of cases they are dealing with at present which has meant that they have not yet been able to allocate the complaint to one of their adjudicators so that it can be assessed.

However, they then stated they will do this asap and contact us again within 4 weeks to keep us updated on the progress of the complaint.This letter was sent by the Team Administrator.

We know it can take 6 mths or more, but to be told in Nov 2006 that our case was being passed over then and that we will be kept informed of the progress asap, then now to be informed it has not yet been allocated we are obviously disappointed, as this is really still at the beginning of the stage-process almost 2 mths into it since our complaint has been received by them.

This is putting us into difficulties financially too, so the quicker they deal with it the better as they are aware of the all the background too.

They have all evidence possible including a recording disc to listen to that should help..........hopefully !!

Hope all continues to go well for you, it just shows there is hope !!

Please keep me informed of your progress-cheers.

Many thanks, and look forward to hearing from you.

Hi Di

Glad you are still fighting. I'm sure something will happen soon for you. I always avoided email to the FSO and made contact by telephone. I found them to be helpful whenever I rang. Good luck with your claim

Reading through all the posts regarding PPI the sheer variety of complaints and circumstances is amazing and finding common ground between them is difficult. One thing I would always advise is to try and write down as much of the circumstances as possible. Dates. names, times etc all help to build up the background. It in the end it often comes down to the clients word against the bank. I know how difficult it is to remember events that happened years ago but I have seem some claims which are so vague that they will be difficult to substantiate in the CC or with the Ombudsman.

HI KEITH

MANY THANKS FOR YOUR REPLY.

YES I'M SURE WE WILL HEAR SOMETHING VERY SHORTLY FROM THE OMBUDSMAN REGARDING THE COMPLAINT.

WHEN WE DID COMPLAIN TO THE LOAN/INS COMPANY THAT DID NOT RESOLVE ANYTHING FOR US REGARDING OUR POLICY BEING MIS SOLD WE SENT ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING IN EVIDENCE, EVEN COPIES OF LETTERS WE SENT TO THE FOS.

ME AND MY HUBBY NOTICED THAT WHEN WE RECEIVED THE RECORDINGS OF THE TELEPHONE CALLS, MAINLY THEY WERE ALL FROM THEM, AND WERE NOT IN ANY DATED ORDER, BUT THERE WAS A GOOD ONE ON THERE THAT SHOULD HOPEFULLY HELP US OUT, AS THIS WAS PROVED TO BE PUSHED ON US WHEN WE INFORMED THEM WE COULD HAVE A CHEAPER STAND ALONE POLICY ELSEWHERE-AS THIS ONE WAS FORCED ON US, AND WAS NOT ACTUALLY GIVEN ANY CHOICE IN THE MATTER.

I ACTUALLY MADE A CALL TO THE COMPANY AFTER THIS CALL THAT WAS NOT PICKED UP ON CD DISK RECORDING, I HAD QUESTIONED THE COMPANY ABOUT THE POLICY, ABOUT WHY DID WE REALLY HAVE TO ACCEPT THEIR POLICY COVER AND NOT GO ELSEWHERE AS IT WOULD BE CHEAPER ??

TO BE HONEST THEY WERE READY WITH ANSWERS. AND THERE WAS NO GETTING OUT THEN !! AT THAT TIME WE ASSUMED THEN-'AH WELL WE HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE BUT TO TAKE IT' !!

I AM ANNOYED WHY THAT RECORDING WAS NOT ON THE DISK, BUT HOPEFULLY IF THE OMBUDSMAN DEPT LISTEN VERY CAREFULLY ON THAT ONE AS STATED ABOVE AS IT IS PRETTY QUIET ON THAT ACTUAL ONE, THEY WILL KNOW WHAT WE MEAN !!!

WE NOTICED ON THE RECORDINGS TOO, LIKE AS IF IT WAS JUMPING AND MISSING !!

WE ARE TALKING OF APPROX £8-£10K WITHOUT INTEREST OF INSURANCE !!

I WILL KEEP MY FINGERS CROSSED FOR YOU, AND EVERYONE ELSE IN THE SAME POSITION, AS I BELIEVE WE CAN GET THROUGH THIS, BUT I THINK I JUST NEED TO BE PATIENT !!

WILL KEEP YOU INFORMED !

AGAIN MANY THANKS. DI XX

Hi Keith & all

Firstly well done Keith partial victory I am sure you will get there in the end.

I thought I would give a little background to my future claim.

A £2,500 buisness loan (not LTD) has risen to a £14,000 loan over 3 years, in 3 stages. Each stage had a new PPI forced on it, I have not completed the spreadsheets as yet as I am still working on the unlawful charges platform of approx £5k + interest. my plan is to get that to court stage and then press the button for the PPI as at that point I will be earning interest on the unlawful charges and if they wish to take six months working out if I should get a refund or not -I dont really care. I should mention that they have closed my account even after I gave them a log number of my complaint with the FO, and also agreed to freeze overdraft interest applied to the account, i.e. if they take their time I won't owe anything anyhow. I know I was missold as I also was self employed with a history of stress disorders, I even refused to sign one PPI and they asked me to take it home and think about it. I did and then posted it back saying no (kept a copy) then 2 weeks later I needed the loan even more for buisness expansion so went back with my tail between my legs and signed up. 30 or so days later I phoned the underwriters and asked to cancel and they said no "I would have to contact my bank they said"

Anyhow I have gone on enough

What do you guys think- has any one a plan I could follow?

Looking forward to TMcD Friday

regards

Hi Capitulator,

Were these loans with Lloystsb? Do you have copies of the application

forms for PPI, Terms and Conditions or policy documents you can refer back to?

Hi Everyone - just put the phone down after talking to the adjudicator dealing with our case at the FSO. She was really surprised that the Bank had refunded our premiums without adding the the interest. Like me she has heard nothing from the Bank so she ringing them later to ask for an explanation - and so it goes on. I have to say that I have found her to be most helpful.

And.... how about this. Whilst checking through my statements to make sure that I had the corrrect sum refunded for my premiums I actually discovered a third lot of PPI that I had forgotten about. This was for commercial overdraft insurance for which I paid 14 monthly payments of £47. This actually took place between the dates of the PPI I have been claiming - and guess what. It was mis-sold to me for exactly the same medical reasons as the PPI and in the same manner by the same Bank Manager (I used to think he was a good bloke - don't ask what I think now!). The ombudsmans office have taken this on board for me as well.