There’s not much time left to make a PPI claim! We answer your top 10 questions.

06/09/2018 There’s not much time left to make a PPI claim! We answer your top 10 questions.

On 29 August 2019, the deadline for making a PPI complaint ends and after that point the biggest mis-selling scandal in UK financial history will be officially over.

It’s estimated 64 million PPI policieswere sold – and only a fraction of people have made claims so far.

If you’ve taken any loan or credit card out over the last two decades, chances are the lender will have tried to sell you PPI. Huge numbers of people who refused were signed up anyway. Which is why you should at least ask the lenders if you were signed up too.

It only takes 5 clicks to make a PPI claim through Resolver. It’s free, simple and straightforward. If you’ve not made a PPI complaint, make one now! Commission is already included in PPI compensation if your case is upheld, as is interest.

If you don’t know if you had PPI you can find out more using our free PPI checker tool. You don’t need lots of info either.

If you’ve made a PPI complaint but been turned down you can make another complaint about compensation already – these are known as ‘Plevin’ complaints (after the court case that previously said excessive commission on PPI was unfair). It’s dead easy to make a complaint with our special tool.

1. Surely everyone should know about PPI by now?

Lots of people make this assumption, but the simple fact of the matter is PPI policies were mis-sold on a massive scale. Estimates suggest upwards of 64 million policies were sold but no one really knows for sure. Many people were never told that PPI had been added to their loans or credit cards, which is why so many people potentially don’t know if they were affected.

2. I don’t know if I was mis sold PPI, what should I do?

If you’re not sure if you had PPI, then you’ll need to contact the business that sold you the loan or credit agreement and ask them what documents or information they have on file. They business has to tell you the truth, but the older your policy, the harder it may be to track things down. Resolver can help you make contact with the business so get started here.

If you can’t remember who you had loans or credit agreements with, then you’re out of luck. There’s no ‘central database’ for PPI sales, so you’ll have to cast your mind back or raid those drawers stuffed with old paperwork.

3. I’ve not got my documents; can I still complain?

Yes, you can, but you’ll need to note down all you can remember about the sale or your circumstances. Get in touch with the firm through Resolver and ask them to check their records. They may have file notes, scans, copies of original documents or other references to your loan or credit agreement, all of which could indicate if PPI was sold with the policy.

4. What if the business refuses to give me my documents?

If the business is being difficult, you can make a request under the Data Protection Act for the information. This is known as a ‘subject access request’ and the firm is obliged to comply with it. They can charge you up to £10 to do this. Here’s some information from the Information Commissioner’s Office on how to get started.

An easier way around this is to ‘escalate’ your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. The business has to give the ombudsman the documents they need to investigate the complaint, so you’ll get them anyway. We’ll pass your full complaint file to the ombudsman if the firm refuses to help.

5. How do I find out who to complain to?

You’d think this would be simple and in many cases it is. But things do get tricky sometimes because of the way PPI sales were subcontracted to various other businesses. So complaining about PPI on a storecard can be very complicated at first glance, because loads of businesses might actually be responsible for the sale, depending on the date you were sold the card.

In simple terms, if you have the rough date you took out the credit agreement and the name of the company you bought if from, it’s possible to search a database of regulated firms to find out who should deal with your complaint. This isn’t always easy to do so you can call the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). They can check the database for you.

6. How does the complaint process work?

It’s so easy to make a complaint, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it before. Fill in our simple online form here: www.resolver.co.uk. It’ll take a few minutes, but we’d encourage you to write down as much as you can remember – every little bit helps.

We then send the information to the business at their head office and they’ll investigate your complaint. They have a maximum of eight weeks from the moment we contact them to resolve your complaint. If they don’t respond, you can automatically appeal to the financial ombudsman.

If you’re not happy with the response from the firm, you can automatically go to the ombudsman too. The ombudsman is free, so you don’t lose out by taking it further.

7. The business says they don’t have any records because it was over six years ago, what can I do?

As a general rule, a financial business will keep documents and records for up to six years after the loan or credit agreement has ended. But that doesn’t mean that after this point nothing will remain on file. Financial businesses often have documents kicking around from much further back – and we expect them to thoroughly check.

If nothing turns up you can still go to the ombudsman – they might unearth more information. But being realistic, if ultimately no evidence can be found, your claim is likely to fail.

8. What if the business that sold me PPI has gone bust?

If the firm that sold you the PPI was regulated at the point it sold you the policy – and if it has formally filed for bankruptcy – then the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) can potentially look at your case. The FSCS was set up to help people in exactly this situation and they can pay out up to £85,000 from a fund to cover bust businesses. But they still need to investigate your situation as a complaint – so you’ll need to explain why the policy was mis-sold to you.

9. What do people complain about?

Mis-selling. In other words, the firm sold you something inappropriately. Check out our rights guide on PPI [link] for more information but just to get you started, most people make the following complaints:

• “I didn’t know I had been sold PPI”.
• “I was told I had to take out PPI in order to get a loan or credit”.
• “My circumstances meant that the policy was unsuitable for me and a claim would not have been successful”.
• “I didn’t know how expensive it would be”.
• “My claim has been turned down”.

10. How do claims managers know how much money I will get? And how can I get out of my agreement with them?

*Takes deep breath* They make it up. Yes, you heard that correctly. That text telling you you’re entitled to £3258.25 compensation. Total fabrication. How do we know this? It’s impossible to know how much compensation you might get until your case is investigated, the kind of PPI and how it works is assessed and interest is added. We can’t say this enough – don’t trust claims managers.

Once you’ve signed a contract, there’s not much you can do – even if the firm does precisely nothing to get you your money back. We’re sorry to say that we’ve heard some horrible stories from people who’ve given up on their claims managers, made their own claims, won – then been threatened with legal action by the claims manager for their share of the money. This is absolutely unacceptable and is one of the many reasons why you should never use claims managers.

To be fair, not all of them are so disreputable. But in the last few years hundreds have been banned from carrying out claims manager services by the Claims Manager Regulator. So always report poor service.

You can make a complaint to the Legal Services Ombudsman about claims managers so if you think you’ve been misled in to signing a contract, carry on with our PPI complaint but make a complaint to the ombudsman as soon as you can.