Finlander V Firstplus

[finlander]

Ok this is the reply I'm going to send to FP...

 

 

ATTN; Russell Green

 

Customer Care Team

 

FIRSTPLUS Financial Group Plc

The Avenue Business Park

Pentwyn

 

Cardiff

CF23 8FF

10th June 2008

Ref ; XXXXXX

Account Number ; XXXXXX

Dear Mr Green,

Thank you for your letter of the 4th June 2008 .I am replying in email but shall also be sending this letter in hard copy. You may reply if you wish by email or letter.

I have considered your response and reject your offer in its entirety even as part settlement to this complaint.

I had delayed any further action in response to Mr Mullins letter of the 28th May 2008 until I received your final response. Now that I have received this I shall of course be referring the matter to my solicitor and the FOS.

I would like to thank your for your easily rejected derisory offer which will probably allow me to expose your companies practices in a court of law.

Yours truly,

FINLANDER

Short and sweet

[alanalana]

1.At no time was I told that PPI could be purchased elsewhere to cover the loan

 

 

2. It was not made clear that the insurance was only valid for the first five years of the loan - in fact the first time this became apparent was on receipt of the information requested about the account under the Data Protection Act.

 

3. I was led to believe that Payment Protection Insurance was compulsory and indeed was misled into thinking that I would stand more chance of getting the loan if I took the Payment Protection Insurance

 

4. It was not explained to me that there were certain exclusions within the policy that could affect me.

 

5. The Payment Protection Insurance was added to the loan balance at the outset and at no time was it explained that there were PPI policies where one could pay monthly for substantially lower premiums and which would cover my clients for the whole term of the loan.

 

6. The terms & conditions of the insurance were not fully explained

 

7. At the time of taking out the insurance I already had in force, and had for a number of years, a insurance policy from my work to cover me against, accident, illness or death. The agent selling the insurance made no enquiries into this. The agent also made on enquiries into previous medical conditions, which might render the policy, invalid. I have suffered with an injury to my back sustained at work and documented by my doctor.

 

8. The agent told me that the insurance policy was in fact a very good way of saving, as half the premium would be refunded in five years. He did not explain that this was the term of the insurance. He did not explain that the entire premium was added to the loan and that no refund would be available if settled early. They also misrepresented the ‘saving’ potential as they would pay no interest on the premium but I would have to pay interest to them. This was outrageous miss-representation as this could no way be described as ‘a good way of saving’

 

9. As a serving XXXXXX it is not possible for me to be made redundant by law. I do not believe that the insurance sold had any relevance to my situation.

 

10. First plus have failed to provide me with copies of the audiotapes of conversations between their representatives and me. However they have stated in their response that they were not regulated by the FSA at this time and therefore had no need to ask or enquire if the policy was right for my needs or I was disqualified from cover by a previous medical condition. It does however seem that first plus where governed by the CGIS code which does require them to make these enquiries.

11. Despite assuring me that they had listened to the tapes of my conversations with their representatives and that if I required them that I would be provided with a copy by return of post, they have now stated it will take a further 40 days to comply with my request. I believe this is a deliberate attempt to delay and frustrate my complaint.

12. As a member of The Consumer Action Group I have shared my experience with others . It appears that the letters I have received from First Plus are ‘standard’ letters. Although they claim to address my points they are in fact uncannily the same as those sent to other people. This would seem to indicate that their complaints procedure is a sham.

13. As shown in the attached ‘final response’ First Plus have now offered a goodwill sum in order to end this complaint. I believe that this is a derisory sum bearing in mind my premium was £5979.00p. I wish this returned plus interest at 8% a grand total of £7462.72p

 

If your complaint is about a mortgage endowment, you will need to complete our special mortgage-endowment questionnaire, as well as this standard complaint-form. You can download the special questionnaire off our website – from the

frequently-asked-questions page (FAQs) at Financial Ombudsman Service. Or phone us on 0845 080 1800 for help.

 

 

From my thread...

alanalana PPI claim against RBS (looking for some help) please

 

7. Unfair attachment of PPI with no competition involvement

I now believe that the single premium PPI policies attached to the loan accounts were both extremely unfair and totally unreasonable and offered me very little, if any protection value whatsoever. Furthermore I believe in light of the preliminary finding by the Competition Commission that the PPI was unfairly attached as there was no opportunity for me to seek competitive Insurance. I am therefore requesting a full refund of all costs including all single PPI premiums that have been paid, the interest added to these premiums and the PPI proportion of the direct debit payments, that I have paid over the life of the account agreement.

This has been included in light of the preliminary findings by the Competition Commissioner .... and therefore I believe a new player in the game of PPI reclaiming.

aa

 

 

[finlander]

okay... complaint form and copies of all letters being posted to FOS tomorrow. Reply above being posted to FP in the morning. Lets see where it all goes..

[finlander]

actually I have an idea... why don't we all scan our letters from FP and see if they do match.. If they do then surely it can only help our complaints to the FOS and show they arent taking complaints seriously.

 

[finlander]

recieved a letter from Mr Green telling me thanks for my rejection of their offer but that is their last response. fair enuff...FOS complaint sent today by recorded delivery...hopefully they will investigate..if not its court time

[alanalana]

hello finlander,

 

it will now be a waiting game. Good luck with your complaint to FOS.

 

aa

[finlander]

cheers for that.. I suspect it will be ...have just sent this to MR green by email

 

 

 

Dear Mr Green,

 

Thank you for your response of the 11th June. Please be aware, that as of today,this matter is now in the hands of the FOS.

 

Please also be aware that I am claiming back my original premium and 8% interest, as previously stated, and now all interest paid on the premium to First Plus while the loan was active.

 

I hope the rejection of my claim by your company is not simply a delaying tactic in the hope that I will 'go away', but sadly suspect it is.

 

Can you please note that I will continue this claim and whilst I do so the interest of 8% will continue to accrue until the date of settlement.

 

Should the FOS fail to investigate this due to the date of the transaction or offer anything less than the amount I am claiming I shall begin legal action against First Plus immediately.

 

I shall also be making enquires into a formal complaint with the CGIS of which your company was a member when this policy was taken out, and whose code of conduct your company is in clear breach of. Can you please provide me with a contact address for this organisation.

 

Please also note that I will be sending a formal complaint to the Information Commissioners Office tomorrow regarding the SAR I made and your companies delay in sending me the audio tapes of conversations with your representatives. My original Data Protection request asked for ALL records held by your company regarding my account. This would have included any recordings. They were not sent. Mr Mullins then said in his letter he would send them by next day delivery if I required them. I said I do require them and now I have been told it will take 40days!

 

Thank you for the promptness of your reply and I regret that the above actions have become necessary.

 

Your Truly

 

 

The waiting begins.................

[Goldlady]

Excellent letter Finlander - best of British - or should that be best of Finnish?

[finlander]

british.... finlander was the name of my first dog....gsd:)

[finlander]

problem !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I have just got a letter through from the FOS.... Thank you for your complaint ..however..we are overwhelmed with complaints at the moment so might be a while before we get back to you.... rang them up...could be 6 months if FP don't give in before the complaint is dealt with:mad::mad:

 

What now?... wait six months or court?... FOS man said court will be quicker........

 

:mad:

[Braveheart Bear]

It's your decision to make Finlander, you need to weigh up the pro of getting possibly a quick result for some cost, or waiting longer and getting the result for free. Not sure if the possibility of a win is any more likely one way or the other ? (might the FOS remember the number of complaints they have against FP??)

If you are in a position to wait it out then that's what I would do. That way you still have the court route to fall back on.

 

(Obviously they would say its quicker if it means they get some cases off their list and onto someone elses, or maybe I've become to cynical!! )

 

 

Best of luck which ever you decide.

 

BHB

[alanalana]

Hello finlander,

 

I would agree with braveheartbear's post. The FOS route will undoubtedly take longer and if more people go the FOS route then yet even longer. If you go down the FOS route I would also whack in complaints to the FSA, OFT, Trading Standards and any others you may wish to add. The more complaints about these companies the sooner more fines will (hopefully) be flying their way. Once they have a fine against them from the FSA then it should make claiming a little easier for the thousands that have yet to make a claim.

 

Your shout, but good luck which ever path you choose.;-)

 

aa

[finlander]

I'm gonna stick with the FOS i think..

 

because

 

1. I still think it will be quicker ( 6 months is if they take it all the way)

2. It's free.. £210 in court

3. It costs them lots of money

4. It heaps up the presure on FP and the FOS

5.

 

 

so there.........

[johnnyjohn]

Good morning Finlander,

 

My claim against First Plus is now in adjudicationa awaiting a result, I believe that this should be resolved within the next month. I had a £50,000 loan that i settled within 7 months. I was charged £9,700 for the privilage of the insurance some three years ago.

 

As soon as the result is known I will happily post here to give you a steer on the case. Does anybody know how interest is applied as I should be entitled to 3 years worth.

 

 

Thank you.

[finlander]

tanks Johnny that would be very helpful...

 

[finlander]

letter from the fos stating they have appointed an investigator and will be in contact with me again soon:)

[tinkerbell20]

interesting thread:p

[matsinlondon]

Dont hold your breath with the FOS, Finlander. Unless you accelerate your complaint (after passing the hurdles) you'll probably be dealing with an adjudicator who, whilst having an excellent grasp of the English language, doesn't have as strong a grasp on legal principles. If you argument is based on legal principles they will likely expect you to disprove the creditor's response regardless of its farsical nature and the nature of the legal obligation - ie. creditor innocent unless you can prove otherwise which may require you to produce documents that may be the crux of your complaint - ie. you have asked the creditor to produce and he is legally bound to produce the document under CCA.

[JackieOxon]

Hi Finlander, what was the outcome of this, did they cave in? Just starting my FP claim and found this thread very useful indeed! Thanks!

[Suzyhall9024]

I too am having an awful job with FP and am very interested in outcome of this, I have a complaint which has been with FOS for 2 years as they are so busy, my problem is that I had a loan with FP, in aug 2003 a couple of months later got a call from who we believed to be FP asking if we wanted a further advacne so we took a new loan ouit with added PPI we were told we had to have, it turned out 3 years later when I first started trying to reclaim PPi we spoke to a broker Central Trust who FP had given our details to and who pretended to be FP to get our business, Central trust were not regulated, First Plus say even though they gave them our details we bought it through Central Trust as so we are going round in circles and getting nowwhere so any advice greatly appreciated x