back to article Loads of mis-sold PPI, but WHO will claim? This man's paid to find out

When the opening line of a conversation starts, “I read an interesting number the other day”, it’s fairly safe to assume that you’re talking to someone whose business it is to know about "interesting numbers". Perhaps unsurprisingly, these words were uttered by an economist whose ability to find god gold in the numbers is the …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Ian 62

    Rhetorical Question really

    But why do people have to 'claim'?

    The banks clearly have the data, and the analytics to decide if you've got a valid claim. So, err.. Why dont they just hand over the cash that they took during the mis-selling?

    Oh thats right... It's profit if it doesnt get handed back.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Rhetorical Question really

      But why do people have to 'claim'?

      That's what I was wondering. If I understood things correctly, the authorities have learned from the lessons of banks like Barclays making PPI claims as difficult as possible. The credit card companies were recently found at fault for misselling PPI, and are having to hand over the dosh to customers in a much more proactive manner.

  2. Lloyd
    Coat

    “I read an interesting number the other day"

    Was it 5318008?

    1. Captain DaFt

      Re: “I read an interesting number the other day"

      8675309 most certainly!

  3. The BigYin

    "balls up"?

    Surely "fraud" would be a better word.

  4. BigAndos
    Thumb Up

    Really Interesting Case Study

    This is a really interesting case study, more articles like this please!

  5. Zimmer
    Happy

    SAS and R

    Thanks for that. The heads up on R (on Linux) will make me investigate it again. As a ( early) retired SAS programmer I have often missed the tools necessary to muck about with data in the way I used to at work.

    :)

    1. keithpeter Silver badge
      Linux

      Re: SAS and R

      R (not the poshed up one) is available on almost any Linux distro

      RStudio (desktop front end rather than server) that features in the screenshots is a bit choosy with its dependencies. Can be installed from an rpm on CentOS 6 with a bit of googleing for libraries needed from EPEL. Should 'just work' on Debian and Ubuntu.

      Good article all round, plenty to discuss with students here (e.g. "what similarities in a profile would you look for if you were trying to predict loan defaulters" and "if I buy all my fresh fruit and veg from a market and pay cash, but buy my oil, snacks, ready meals and sweets from a supermarket and get Nectar points, what inferences might be made?")

  6. Big_Boomer Silver badge

    How long the data is held.

    I recently claimed for the PPI paid on a credit card account. I was told that the bank only had data back to 2006 so they would pay back as far as 2006, which they did. However, it sounds to me like they have ALL their data back to year dot so someone was lying to me. I had my CC and was paying PPI since the mid 1990s so there is at least 10 years worth to claim back there. At over £100 per month that's a LOT of money.

    1. SkippyBing

      Re: How long the data is held.

      As I understand it, as someone who briefly processed PPI claims for a big bank, they only have to keep the data back a certain number of years (six I think off the top of my head), however they may have kept it back longer. The policy where I worked was that they'd use the data back as far as they had it and then for any gap assume a linear growth rate from 0 when the account was opened to whatever the first record showed. Additionally if the customer had statements they'd accept those for the calculation, which would imply some people are a lot more rententive than I am.

      To answer an earlier point, where I worked they were intitially dealing with PPI claims for people who applied, which were coming in faster than they could be processed, however there was the aspiration to subsequently deal with everyone else. I've no idea if this happened as I left after two months to work in flight safety. Although not before I'd sucessfully made my own claim against the bank, which I almost ended up processing...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Facepalm

        Re: How long the data is held.

        @SkippyBing,

        That's why YOU keep details of your contracts/accounts/policies until 10-15 years after their settlement. That way YOU provide the information that goes back further, and the financial institution won't have a choice but accept that because YOU were more judicious with your information, they have no option but to pay up.

        Martin Lewis from the MoneySavingExpert site has made it clear that just because the statutory limit is only 7 years does not mean you should stick to it, and in fact, you shouldn't. You should keep your stuff for longer for precisely this reason. :-)

        P.S. I have had PPI in the past, but I'm not claiming. Why? Because I know what I was letting myself in for.

        1. SkippyBing

          Re: How long the data is held.

          @SP, there's what I should do and then there's the reality of moving several years worth of credit card statements with a balance of £0 on them. So I took the easy route.

          1. Danny 14
            Stop

            Re: How long the data is held.

            That doesnt work though.

            Back in 2004 when there were rumours of this sort of PPI mis selling I filed a complaint with halifax over PPI from a product in 1999. I was self employed in a partnership at the time. Being not as savvy with money I didnt think self employment wouldnt count hence when I learnt in 2004 I filed the complaint.

            I got a ream of paperwork through from halifax who basically said the salesdrone at the time was correct and no case to answer.

            Fast forward to 2011 when the brown hit the fan and I tried again. Halifax refused to accept the ream of paper and refused to backdate to 1999. In fact since I had already cancelled the PPI back in 2004 they didnt pay a penny back.

            so bank records - even from them - are irrelevent it seems.

            1. sleepy

              Re: How long the data is held.

              It's called "running interference". Eventually the punter will give up, because it's not worth it. One reason to use one of those companies that do it for you. The good ones will have taken Halifax all the way to bailiffs at the head office wanting to distrain their goods, and Halifax will be paying up rather more readily. Having said that, the banks hate those companies and want to make life hell for them too. Another factor is the correct calculation of interest charges. If at any time since, you became overdrawn, but wouldn't have done if your account balance at the time had been correct, that's also a consequent loss they owe you, with 8% interest ever since. The difference between what they give you voluntarily, and what you can get by carefully analysing the financial consequences ever since the PPI can be huge. Very frequently they are unable to produce the document you originally signed, or they only scanned the signature page, so they have no basis in court to justify the money they took at all.

              Of course no rational person ever signed up for PPI in the first place, so it's all academic.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: How long the data is held.

                And the fun part of the running interference bit is that if you can prove how long you've spent chasing this, the Financial Ombudsman will sometimes even make the bank pay that time/those charges too.

    2. nsld

      Re: How long the data is held.

      Did you file a subject access request for all the records?

      If not do so and specify storage in all media forms and see what you get.

  7. Dave Ross

    Interestingly, my bank contacted me and asked if I wanted to make a claim. Somewhat a rhetorical question if you ask me, so several weeks later I got a nice fat deposit in my bank account :)

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    While they are at it

    I've never bought any PPI , so could they find a way to stop all the robo-bastards ringing me up and texting to ask if I want to make a claim?

    1. Danny 14

      Re: While they are at it

      sure, next time they ring chat for a minute whilst pressing the doorbell.

      "hang on, i'll just answer my doorbell then get all my loan information out for you"

      then see how long you can keep them on the line.

  9. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

    I'm sulking

    because I never spent enough on the credit card to make it worth claiming the ppi back

    Or took out enough of an overdraft/loans either...

    "eee Mr Boris.. if you take out £2500 loan for your heating system you can pay it back over 3 years in small sums"

    "But if I blow all my savings and use a 700 quid overdraft paid back in 4 months, I pay 150 quid in charges vs 450 quid in interest and ppi..."

    And I wonder why the banks describe me as a deadbeat

    1. Danny 14

      Re: I'm sulking

      indeed. plus people who have "rainy day funds" but pay 29.9pct apr "tv loans" claiming they keep the savings for interest purposes....

      We use our flexible mortgage as a "savings fund" too. We dump all our free cash into it knowing we can withdraw in blocks of £500 with 7 days notice. Thus "not losing" 3.5pct interest on the amount (rather than gaining a pittance interest elsewhere).

  10. bex

    according to the text messages I keep getting I am due a rebate, I think they lie

  11. Sooty

    >“You’d be surprised to see how many unknown genders there are. That’s interesting.” says Cole

    The majority of things companies do have no need to know someone's gender for the service they provide, and so they aren't supposed to collect it.

  12. Karlis 1

    Could this article be a more obvious ad for SAS?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      To take your claim, seriously ...

      At time of writing, IBM adverts are, in the UK, displayed beside this article, which is about a bank and the analytics methods and technologies it is using to deal with a financial scandal.

      We have never run SAS adverts anywhere - not sure if they even advertise in UK tech pubs - but of course we would gladly accept their advertising.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can we please all stop using the word the FS industry made up so they can pretend they aren't thieves.

    How about changing the titleof this to "Loads of fraudulent PPI, but WHO will go to prison?"

    OED, he say:

    Mis-selling: The action or practice of selling a product (esp. a financial service) on the basis of misleading advice.

    Fraud: Criminal deception; the using of false representations to obtain an unjust advantage or to injure the rights or interests of another.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like