98% of all PPI claims that are initially rejected by Lloyds TSB are later refunded after intervention from the FOS.
This is a shocking fact, Lloyds are becoming increasingly difficult to deal with, they are rejecting more and more cases each day that are actually legitimate.
The FOS are called in by customers who continue to chase their claims after being rejected, which isn’t a lot of them because they assume the lender is telling the truth (first mistake). They investigate on behalf of the consumer to see if they were in fact mis-sold the controversial policy, 98% of the time the customer is paid out.
This begs a number of questions:
Firstly if they are legitimate claims why is Lloyds rejecting them?
Secondly how is the average consumer supposed to get their money back if they are told by the lender they are not eligible?
Thirdly how is this justice to the consumer and why do the banks make it increasingly difficult for claims management companies to help out these consumers?
Sadly, there is one answer to all the above questions, money.
Lloyds, and other banks by the way, may be rejecting claims knowing that the customer has a valid claim because they know a proportion of them will later drop their claim, believing the lender is being honest. Lenders make it difficult for CMC’s because they know we fight our client’s corner and we know who is owed a refund.
Hypocrisy
One starts to wonder wether lenders, governing bodies and industry ‘mentors’ are in cahoots with each other.
Lenders blame CMC’s for clogging up their workload, watch dogs blame the banks but never mention how difficult lenders make it for consumers to claim and consumers are being told to avoid CMC’s who offer a good service to those who wouldn’t get money back going it alone.
Believe it or not we have actually been told and I quote from a major High Street bank “Yes, we are trying to make it difficult to make a claim”.
One bank in particular are taking the stance of saying customers and CMC’s are not sending in the full information, even when it goes by recorded delivery and is checked several times.
Others are more helpful but most are making it increasingly difficult for consumers to claim compensation for a product that they were ripped off with by the bank in the first place.
Even though lenders are paying back multiple billions in compensation they no doubt still made a shed load of money out of PPI.
It always shocks us the amount of hypocrisy in the payment protection insurance arena, most of the blame is pointed at claims management companies for no other reason than it costs the banks more money when we are about. The main point with PPI is if the banks didn’t rip off their customers and sell it to people who didn’t want, need or ask for it in the first place this mess wouldn’t exist.
Offering the consumer a choice
Claims firms like us do get slated in the press by the lenders who we claim money from for our customers and all firms have been tarnished with a brush that was cast by a few ‘dodgy’ outfits that have now been closed down, of course in every market there are good and bad suppliers but you dont see Vovlo trying to close down mechanics when they fix faults on cars.
Choosing a service provider to get your refund back is consumer choice, just like when you decide to use a car wash rather than get soaking doing it yourself.
Lenders seem to forget that we are helping their customers, we are actually helping support their customers financial positions. Our clients get refunded more than the average, this money will no doubt be put in to a bank account, used to pay off debts or credit cards that the lender provides. Some of these may have been lost as ‘bad debt’ in the future.
The cold, hard truth of the matter is that banks are trying to make it more difficult for customers to get their money back, 98% of the claims rejected by Lloyds are later repaid by the lender, I wonder how much money they have not had to repay because the rejected parties do not follow up with their case to the FOS, billions I imagine.
Industry averages state that people are owed £2750 on average for mis-sold PPI, our customers are compensated closer to £4000 on average, so even with our fee’s included each customer is getting back more money on average than if they were to go it alone. Factor in how many of those would not follow up their case if they were rejected and you can see the added value we have in helping customers get the money they deserve!
If you have been mis-sold PPI by your ‘trusted’ bank then its time to get that money back, PPI is not a scam, nor is it something that you should feel guilty about doing, lenders are doing everything they can to put you off claiming back the compensation that is rightfully yours. Don’t let them have your money for free, the chances are if you have had a credit card, loan, mortgage, car finance, store card or any other form of personal finance you are owed compensation averaging between £3000-4000, we have had claimants get back tens of thousands and in some rare cases hundreds of thousands are paid to individual customers who were mis-sold payment protection insurance.