Certainly, the recent discovery of PPI mis-selling scandal has led to the realisation, too that banks and other known lenders have been robbing people of their hard earned money for far too long. PPI claims have been made all over the country and news had it that there are still potentially millions of people entitled a PPI refund as a result of the High Court ruling over the scandalous ways of ripping off a staggering amount of money through selling the policy. Billions of pounds have been required to be allotted only to compensate those who were victimised by this horrid fiasco.
But how does PPI really came to affect anyone’s finances to a point that selling it became fraudulent? Well, you most probably have learnt that Payment Protection Insurance is meant to help you keep up with your repayments so your debt will not skyrocket if you suddenly become sick, meet an accident, or are made redundant at work. The policy will cover a percentage of the dues until such time you’re back on your feet or after 12 months, whichever is higher. This idea has been very well inviting to those who are worried about such situations.
However, in the recent years, banks and other insurance brokers found numerous ways to push people into buying the policy without educating them to it. A vast number of these policies were merely shoved down consumers’ throats even those who were ineligible. Imagine the disbelief and shock that these people went through when they came about the fact that they were not eligible for cover because they were underage, overage, had pre-existing medical condition, or were not employed on a full time basis. There are those, too, that were not informed that PPI was optional and was advised otherwise. They were made to believe that it will determine the approval of their application for any credit agreement.
In much worse situations, thousands of people have yet to find out they have PPI alongside their credit. And when they do… well, you could very well imagine how furious they can get. Yes, there were a lot of instances when banks simply signed their customers up to PPI without their knowledge and agreement to it.
Now if any of this happened to you, you should not let it pass and do not pass up the opportunity to claim your money back at the soonest possible time. All you need at the moment is a great deal of recall of what happened at the time PPI was sold to you, together with presenting as much relevant paperwork with reference to the policy to get the ball rolling.
In reality, there are people making PPI claims on their own but you have the option of hiring the services of PPI claims advisers, too. The process will be the same when the case is reviewed. Opting for the latter will only give you the advantage of the thought that someone is doing all the works for you. Nonetheless, the same amount of effort will be done by the bank when they did the review.
Putting the PPI claim in writing will also be very ideal as the bank will have to refer to as much information and proof as they can. They’ll look into the case for you for 6 or 8 weeks and then reach a decision based on how valid your presented evidence is. It should run generally within that time frame unless there are complications or proof was not sufficient to reach a conclusion.
Banks are legally bound to inform you of what happens to your claim as soon as you have presented your case. They cannot find any excuse not to contact you after their review and if such incident happens, do not hesitate to demand for an answer or make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. The FOS will take over the review and put your banks actions in question, especially if they were trying to evade their responsibilities of making it right.
Roughly 85% of these claimants have been successful int the past several years and you should not waste any time by hesitating. As long as you are sure that PPI was mis-sold to you, there’s no reason to delay the only thing to make it right – make a PPI claim now and get the money paid to it back.
