Regulator ponders guillotine on PPI complaints
The Financial Services Authority has opened talks on introducing a time limit for payment protection insurance (PPI) complaints. In a statement released this afternoon, the FSA admitted there had been ‘initial discussions’ to consider the merits of a limit.
The talks followed an approach by the British Bankers’ Association, whose members have had to set aside an estimated £10bn to cover claims for mis-sold insurance.
The FSA stressed that a time limit would be allowed only if banks funded a sufficiently widespread advertising campaign to ensure consumers are aware of the PPI issue and how to complain.
The statement said: ‘We have had initial discussions and are prepared to consider the merits of this and other options. A key consideration will be the potential to get compensation to more consumers, more quickly.’
It added that any changes to existing FSA rules would not take place without a full public consultation.
Banks and financial institutions received complaints about PPI worth £2.2m between January and June 2012, an increase of 129% on the previous six months.
Comments
A limitation period for
A limitation period for fraud-just because it was fraud by banks and insurers?
Presumably next they'll be granted droit de seigneur over the entire female population of the UK
Fraud
Whether the mis-selling was fraud or not is open for debate. I suppose if you extend the description of fraud to this type of behaviour then I guess submitting speculative and false PPI claims by CMCs and speculative invoicing and scattergun libel actions by lawyers is fraud too.
Nevertheless, in this case there has been much publicity about PPI and I think you have to reach the stage where people have had adequate chance to complain. A line has to be drawn under this at some point.
Fraud
No the two are not analogous (though I know you are always anxious to weave in speculative invoicing and scattergun libel into every one of your posts - I wonder if there is a subject too remote that would preclude it?).
Can't see what the debate is by the way. Last time I looked fraud involves an intentional deception made for personal gain. Seems to sum up the banks perfectly.
Misleading a person into
Misleading a person into buying something which is not in the slightest able to benefit that person by saying it will is, quite simply, fraud.
That will most certainly apply to the self employed and non employed who were conned into buying PPI. So some PPI sales were straight fraud-not "mis-selling".
I am unaware of there being a limitation period for any criminal offence in this country. Why on earth should there be one for fraud just because the banks and insurers want one?
Having said which it is beyond me why the directors of certain banks were not prosecuted for allowing trading whilst insolvent.
How can this not be fraud?
I do not understand the view that because the concept of "claim" is involved, it must be the "claimant" who is in some way in the wrong, and the company who sold the PPI is in some way aggrieved. I was sold PPI insurance, when I had no need of it, although at the time I didn't realise it. It was years ago now, but I still remember the conversation as if it were yesterday.
The man I spoke to asked me if I received sick pay in the event of illness at work, and I replied that I did. It was only later on that I realised that at that point he should have told me I had no need of the cover, but instead he told me that they had 3 types of cover, bronze, silver and gold, and that whilst I could choose whichever I liked, it was in my best interests to go for the gold cover. I don't now remember which I went for (it wasn't bronze, the cheapest), but when the PPI issue erupted, I made a claim and my finance was reduced as a result by some 10k+.
I am frankly tired of reading articles about "claimant" bashing, whether PI or PPI. These people have been misled and defrauded. PPI is a very straightforward issue - they were either sold the insurance or they weren't. They either told the company they were paid for time off work at the point of sale, or they didn't.
Why is everyone so anxious to give banks and insurers a break?
Limitation for this is 6 years. Why is anyone wasting any time or thought on this?
The salesman wasn't working
The salesman wasn't working for Barclays Life was he?
I went for a job interview with them some years ago during which it became apparent that every "lead" had to be "converted" by high pressure sales techniques whether or not the "product" was of benefit to the client or not.
Needless to say, my views on advice and theirs were incompatible.
Fraud
If the intention is to dishonestly and knowingly obtain money which one is not entitled to then this is fraud. If this applied to the banks and staff on each sale of PPI, that is fraud. I suspect fraud could not be proved in all cases though. In the latter example, knowingly demanding money one is not entitled must surely be fraud also - and in some of the cases the means of extracting that money, attempted extortion.
One example of where the judge agreed.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100190533/hacking-claims-against-me-were-attempted-extortion-says-high-court-judge/
Perhaps you are right that the two are not comparable. This type of conduct in the legal profession and officers of the court is far more serious.
PPI
I have a simple solution, just force the banks to send payments to the customers they missold to in the first place - simple, quick and no-one misses out, and absolutely no need for a long drawn out process that banks make the customers go through when they intimate a claim against them.