Welcome, Mis Sold PPI, now trying to claim liability (help needed urgently)

[Kat2507]

My partner got a car on HP from Welcome,

he was mis sold ppi on the grounds that he was never told that it was optional and not mandatory back in 2008,

 

in Nov 2010 we cancelled the HP agreement, handed the car and cancelled off in writing to the branch of the termination and to cancel the insurances,

both letters were received as they came and took the car as we had reached the half way termination point of 24months,

 

we were to pay approx £4903 to be able to terminate we actually paid over that.

We never received a termination letter, but were contacted by the FSCS to state that we may have been mis sold the policy,

turns out we hadd and they awarded us £1500 but they took off £1446 and paid it to welcome,

i called the branch back in Sept 2011 and they informed that it was for PPI liability.

 

Surely if we cancelled the policies and the agreement by writing, they came took the car then they will have received the cancellation of both.

 

What i dont understand is,

is it legal for them to charge us the remaining 24 months of the 48 month agreement for an insurance thats been proven to have been mis sold

on the grounds that if it had been made aware that it was optional,

my partner would NOT have chosen to take,

therefore there should be no liability,

my understanding of the claim and award is my partner if being compensated and given back the money he had paid to a policy that he did not need,

want or require but was forced to take,

 

so how is it they can state and keep this £1446 thats due for a policy that was mis sold,

there can be no liability due to the fact that if he had been aware it was optional,

then he wouldnt have taken it and therefore there would have been no further charge.

[dx100uk]

sorry so welcome are now asking for more money!

 

haha

 

go swing welcome

 

dx

[Kat2507]

sorry so welcome are now asking for more money!

 

haha

 

go swing welcome

 

dx

 

 

They havent asked for more, they have taken it and are saying we arent entitled to it, somehow i find this hard to believe

 

Can anyone please help us, were literally going round in circles with them and have been for months cos the branch is now closed

[ims21]

Hi

 

You say they took £1,446 and said it was for PPI Liability?

 

Don't follow that myself.

 

Have you ever sent a Subject Access Request (SAR)?

 

ims

[Kat2507]

I was informed today earlier also, it was for PPI and Shortfall Inssurance Liability by Welcome itself but that was after i had to argue with them to say and i have it recorded also

[Kat2507]

No i havent done that, can we request that even though the acct is settled?

[ims21]

Hi

 

Yes a SAR is fine. Its a CCA request that has no effect on a settled account.

 

Regards

 

ims

[Kat2507]

OK so what do i do and what is this SAR thing? Can you explain it to me

[ims21]

Hi

 

Sorry I assumed too much didn't I?

 

SAR -> Subject Access Request made under the Data Protection Act for an organisation to provide you with all data they hold on you. In your case the important stuff you are after is the transaction history and/or statements plus any other documents that will give clues as to how the account has been operated by the lender.

 

There is a template for a SAR in the CAG library, the link to which is at the top of every CAG page in green. There is a statutory fee payable of £10 which is best done by postal order and they will have 40 days to comply.

 

Send recorded and address it to their Data Compliance Manager at their head office address.

 

Wait and see what is in the information they send back.

 

ims

[Kat2507]

They have stated that they received the termination letter regarding the car, but conveniently they cant seem to locate the policy termination letter, but logic would dictate that if we are handing the car back to them we wouldnt want to continue on with two policies that pertain to a product that we no longer have. Would i be correct in assuming they are trying to pull a fast one here, as the way im viewing it, is they have taken £1400 of our money for a policy that was proven to be missold so what is it we are paying for actually?

[ims21]

Well my advice is to never trust a bank and especially Welcome.

 

You really need to dig deeper into what has gone on with your account in my view and the way to do that is get a SAR off to them.

 

You only have to read some of the threads in the Welcome forum to see what I mean about them.

 

ims

[dx100uk]

can you explain 'how ' they have taken this £1440 ?

 

do you mean they have just raided your bank A/C in one lump?

 

dx

[Kat2507]

DX, the FSCS (financial services comp scheme) made the award to us of £1500+ cant remember the full amount, when filling out the forms it asked for a specific bank acct for it to be paid into we gave that, when the letter came thru to us, it stated the awarded amount but given their rules

 

FSCS sent this to us today, via email after two weeks of investigation

 

Thank you for your email on the 22nd November 2011.

 

I am sorry you disagree and for your frustration.

 

On review of your case, our decicison to set off against your loan will remain the same.

 

The application form you signed does state that compensation will be used as set off, and we draw your attention to:

 

Section H (1)

 

"I will accept the offer of compensation in full and final discharge and settlement of the obligations of FSCS, under the relevant rules and laws. I understand that any redress due may be fully or partially setoff against monies owed to the Firm. I understand that any compensation is payable by FSCS to fulfil my entitlement to compensation from FSCS in respect of the Claim."

 

This process is also explained in the 'Frequently Asked Questions' section of the application form, under the heading 'How will be compensation be calculated?' namely:

 

"The rules under which the FSCS operates set out the basis on which we are required to calculate compensation. Our rules are contained in the FSA handbook.

 

Under the FSCS rules claimants will be entitled to 90% of the value of their claim. Amounts of compensation payable will be first set off against any outstanding loan balances you may owe to WFSL, which could mean that you do not receive any compensation."

 

You have received a refund of the payment protection insurance policy you purchased after 14 January 2005 plus interest on the payments you have made in respect of that policy. You have also been awarded a further amount to compensate you for the payments you made, because you could have put the money in a bank or building society to earn interest.

 

As your compensation has been calculated in accordance with FSCS rules for payments, we are unable to change this. The amount payable to you has now been deducted from the outstanding balance of your existing liabilities with Welcome Finance.

 

As for the other insurances you state as missell, we are currently collating all policy details and co ordinating with the FSCS in order to ensure that these will be dealt with in the quickest and most appropriate manner. The FSCS will write to you once a decision has been taken on how these will be handled. Unfortunately I am unable to say when this will be.

 

I do apologise for the inconvenience this causes,

 

Yours sincerely

 

Lucy Ash

Eligibility Team

FSCS Operations

Welcome Finance

 

Which prompted my call direct to Welcome, where they proceeded to tell me it was for PPI liability

[dx100uk]

ah i get it now sorry

 

you VT'ed and paid off the loan

 

then latterly reclaimed PPI

 

FSCS then took it of the outstanding balance of the 'supposed' closed car loan it came from

 

Nice ploy.

 

can you check your CRA file please

 

 

dx

[Kat2507]

I can, if i knew what it was lol, Sorry im new to all this, whats a CRA file?

[dx100uk]

credit ref agency

 

creditexpert site?

dx

[Kat2507]

Interesting reading this is! We requested the SAR and filed a written complaint with them, we got this back from them today but no SAR

 

 

[Kat2507]

What is even more interesting is this

 

[dx100uk]

what the hell are they up to?

 

1446!

 

they have really screwed up on the whole account from day 1 it appears.

 

dx

[Kat2507]

It would seem that way but noone seems to want to listen us

[Kat2507]

Ive just done a redress of the complaint over the phone, told them that their complaint handler has completely missed the point of the complaint, im now going to follow it uo with an email and special next day delivery letter, so some inept eejit signs for it.

[Kat2507]

My email and letter to them, a monkey could understand

 

With regards to my complaint, dated 01/12/11 and several calls before this.

 

 

I have spoken to your Business as Usual department today, due to the content and lengthly nature of my complaint, Rupert has asked me to put this into my own words of what my complaint actually consists of so you can understand in simple terms that the complaint is NOT a redress of the PPI rebate, but consists of the failings of your company to me as your consumer.

 

 

November 2008, I attended your car showroom at Newbridge, Edinburgh, to look at possibly obtaining HP finance on a vehicle. A vehicle which i may add was not of satisfactory quality when purchased from you (complaint upheld by Financial Ombudsman, to an extent). I was forced into also purchasing 3 policies by your sales representative, PPI, Shortfall and MBI. After 24 months of having the vehicle, we decided due to the fact that it spent 16 months of the 24 off road, unable to be used and sitting in Garage lot awaiting repair to Voluntarily Terminate the agreement.

 

 

Approx time due for the 24th payment to be made, I contacted my local branch of Welcome, which was Bathgate, to check whether we had reached the half way return remit of payments to Voluntarily Terminate. I was informed by a customer service agent, that my account was not in arrears, or dispute and therefore with Novembers payment I will have reached a point in which i can safely terminate with no further amount being due from us, however this would have to be terminated in writing and sent in. Next contact made will be to arrange a time and date for the vehicle to be recovered by Welcome. I did as was advised by your company, but i also enclosed a second letter stating that i did not want the PPI nor Shortfall Insurances any longer to terminate them also as we will no longer have the vehicle in which they pertained to and on 23rd November 2010 the vehicle was inspected and recovered in a Good/Average condition (considering the car was in a better state and quality when it was returned to you than it was purchased, due to the amount of repairs carried out in the 24 months, you did essentially recover a brand new equipped car).

 

 

From the 23rd of November 2010 we were of the assumption that we had upheld our side of the agreement and it had been settled in full as we had not been informed otherwise. Only to receive a letter from your office in Nottingham, NG7 to state that our account was in arrears for a sum of £1419.60 and Shortfall for the purpose of that notice was £561.95. This naturally prompted a call to our local Branch at Bathgate to be informed that the branch was now closed and that all calls concerning customers of the branch were to be directed to Kilmarnock. My partner informed Stephen of that branch that the account was in dispute with the Ombudsman due to the faults with the car and that we were not aware that we had any outstanding amounts on the account as we were informed that the account was settled back in Nov 2010. Karen my partner was informed that the amount on the account was for liabilities for PPI and Shortfall insurance and something called Guardex £299.00 (no idea what this is, or why we are paying interest on ti), the branch was informed that we had sought legal advice and we were informed that we had been mis-sold the policies and that a claim was with the FSCS.

 

 

We then receive a further letter from the Kilmarnock branch dated 19/07/11 stating that the account was behind with payments for the sum of £1446.19 for PPI and Shortfall insurances, to which prompted another phone call and letter being sent on July 24th stating that the account was in dispute for these liabilites as we were advised they have been mis-sold, I was informed that it was satisfactory and that no amount is due for payment that the account had been settled, as the outstanding amount was for 2 further years of policies that pertained to a vehicle that we no longer had and that would be cancelled off and the account would be closed as settled.

 

 

However this has not been the case, when we received our compensation in September 2011 for PPI, the FSCS is legally bound to allocate any compensation to any open outstanding amount on an account, which they have done due to your company`s failings and blatant incompetence by NOT cancelling off the remaining two years of policies which was stated that had been done.

 

 

Since July we have now been running around in circles with your company, each and every person failing to take responsibility for this error and have now been deprived of £1446.19 for a further 5 months.

 

 

The entire point of Compensation up to 90% of the total amount paid is to alleviate the deprived consumer of the money that you have obtained illegally by misselling the policy in the first place, our total compensation was for over £1500, you have allocated yourself £1446.19 of that to yourself for a policy that should never have been sold to me in the first instance as it was neither, wanted, needed nor required, your salesman imposed it on me by not making me aware it was optional but infact led me to believe that if i didnt take it then my application would be rejected. If it had been made aware it was optional i would not have taken it, therefore no liability would have existed.

 

 

The policy was unsuitable for me in many health and injury aspects and therefore would have been of no benefit to me, so what is it i am and have paid for exactly? Why has your company NOT upheld your side of the agreement in which it states on the credit agreement;

 

 

"You have the right to end this agreement. To do so, you should write to the person you make your payments to. They will then be entitled to the return of the goods and to half the total amount payable under this agreement, that is £4903.32. If you have already paid at least this amount plus any overdue installments and have taken reasonable care of the goods, you will not have to pay anymore"

 

 

I am now given you, not your standard 8 weeks given by the FSA but 30 days to return the £1446.19 to me by the means of cheque or bank deposit, or I am left with no other option to take this to court and proceed with legal action against Welcome Financial Services. Given the recent publicity your company has had in the finance industry, I dont think further bad press would be advisable.

 

 

Regards

[Kat2507]

I wonder, you know how before its stated that if the acct is settled i cant request a CCA ? According to CRA is not settled, can i now request this?

[dx100uk]

worth a quid!!

 

dx

[Kat2507]

Ive received a copy of our documents that were signed at the onset, what will I do with them, scan and upload here?