insurance News
Consumers caught up in the PPI mis-selling trap can now claim against the banks
Natalie Ceeney of the Financial Ombudsman Service has encouraged people to look into claiming mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance.
She has told consumers to look on all the banks websites and they will have details of how to claim.
Also people who have had Hire Purchase Agreements and Leasing Agreements are also entitled to claim for being mis-sold PPI (payment protection insurance).
This is great news for consumers as their claims can now go back as far as 2005 and beyond to claim against mis-sold PPI policies.
Consumer focus have said that the “entire episode as an embarrassment to the banks” Lloyds, HSBC and Barclays have all now put money aside to pay back to consumers.
PPI known as Payment Protection Insurance is set up an agreement to cover for unemployment and sickness.
Many organisations would encourage their staff to sell these polices to consumers and in some cases be very heavily pressurised to do this.
Over 16 million have been sold since 2005 and it has been claimed that a lot of these policies have been mis-sold.
There have been reports of Payment Protection Insurance being sold to self employed people who would be unable to make a monetary claim. Some consumers were wrongly told that PPI was a condition of the loan and others didn’t know that they were purchasing Payment Protection Insurance.
Sales staff selling loans would often hide the Payment Protection Insurance away within the quote by giving a choice of prices and length of loans. They would show three prices and then ask which one they prefer hey would not mention that the loan would have or have not PPI in the payments.
The Banking industry was told In April 2011 that they had to adhere to the rules of the (FSA) and will have to review every case where PPI has been sold to look to see of a customer has been mis-sold PPI.
It has to be remembered that Payment Protection Insurance is a good product and is suitable for certain people. The Regulator has been looking and making sure that the policies are sold correctly and the customer has not been misled.
If you do feel that you have a claim and have not been contacted then the advice is to get in touch with your Bank first with details of your complaint. When the bank has contacted yourself and if you are not happy then contact the Financial Ombudsman Service and they will be able to assist you with your claim.