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October 1, 2014 
Daniel Lee One of the many questions we get asked on a daily basis is ‘how long will my claim take?’.
The simple answer is that banks and lenders are allowed up to 8 weeks to investigate a complaint before giving their final decision on the matter.
Generally lenders will take this 8 week period when dealing with a PPI complaint, but we’re finding that banks are taking much less time when dealing with a Packaged Bank Account complaint.
Nevertheless, the speed in which Halifax dealt with one of our more recent complaints regarding a Packaged Bank Account, took even us by surprise.
Our complaint was launched on 18th September 2014, on behalf of our customer who we will refer to as Miss C. On 23rd September we received a call from Miss C advising Halifax had placed a credit into her account for over £600 in relation to the mis-sold Packaged Bank Account.
That’s 5 days from launching the complaint to having the money in her account. Unsurprisingly this has now become our quickest Packaged Bank Account claim so far. As far as we are currently aware, this may be the quickest Packaged Bank Account claim anywhere.
Even we were impressed by the speed in which this claim was settled, so we asked Miss C if she would briefly tell us her thoughts on the claim, which she very kindly did.
Your Money Claim: Thank you for sharing your experience with us. This is our quickest Packaged Bank Account claim. Are you happy with the result?
Miss C: I’m over the moon with the result. Thank you to everyone at Your Money Claim for your work. I was hopeful of getting some money back but I never dreamt it would be so quick, and so much.
YMC: Do you have any advice to give to people who have a claim, or are thinking of making one?
Miss C: Apart from the obvious which is MAKE A CLAIM! I suppose the best advice I could pass on would be the advice that Your Money Claim gave to me, which was not to discuss the case with the bank. Halifax did try to call me to discuss the complaint but I remembered Your Money Claim stating not to enter into discussions. I politely told Halifax that Your Money Claim were dealing with it, and they paid the compensation that very same day. Goodness knows what Halifax wanted to try and discuss but they obviously had all they needed in order to deal with the complaint.
YMC: Thank you, this is excellent advice. It is our opinion that Halifax would have used the discussion to try and trip you up in order to avoid paying the compensation. What made you think you may have been mis-sold the Packaged Bank Account?
Miss C: To be honest, I always knew I had a Packaged Bank Account as I saw the monthly fee coming out on my statements. However, I didn’t realise I had a choice and that I could have an account without these products and extra cost. Also, I didn’t drive at the time I took the account, yet one of the insurances I was paying for was Vehicle Breakdown Cover! Also, I had mobile phone cover elsewhere so I didn’t need that either.
YMC: It’s a pretty common occurrence we see every day. Banks simply didn’t tell you the account was available without the insurances, nor did they make sure you were suitable for the insurances they sold as part of the package. So, do you have any plans for your new cash windfall?
Miss C: Well I’ve not long ago had a baby boy so there were a few things I want to buy for him. Also, I’m really interested in photography so I may treat myself to some new equipment.
YMC: Sounds like the money has come at a perfect time. Well thank you for choosing Your Money Claim, and thank you very much for your kind words. Happy spending!
If you wish to join Miss C and our thousands of other satisfied customers then it couldn’t be simpler. Our experts are on hand to answer your questions via telephone, email or our live chat facility. Start your claim today.
Quickest Packaged Bank Account Claim
May 19, 2017 Daniel Lee You may recall I recently published a blog regarding a recent victory against Lloyds Bank regarding a bank charges complaint.
Well it appears the media have finally caught hold of the story too. Come on media, get with it!
Following on from the court ruling regarding the unfair terms in contract, which led to a customer of Lloyds receiving a refund of all of his bank charges we have been keeping a close eye on proceedings and seeing what move the bank will make next.
It’s a difficult position that Lloyds find themselves in. If they appeal the decision and it’s heard by a higher judge then they may get the ruling overturned, although quite how we do not know as it appears to be a pretty solid ruling.
By appealing though, if the ruling is upheld and the appeal is lost then this would inevitably lead to a deluge of claims from the estimated 12 million people affected by these bank charges.
Instead, although rather unlikely, Lloyds could decide against appealing the decision and hope that the media frenzy doesn’t fully kick in about this story.
Your Money Claim have launched a couple of test cases against two of the biggest UK banks, and we will be keeping you updated regarding these over the course of the next few days, weeks and months, depending on how the cases unfold.
In the meantime, if you have any questions surrounding the recent court ruling or if you wish to discuss the PPI and Packaged Bank Account mis-selling scandals, our experts are on hand to answer your questions via telephone, email or our online chat facility.
Your Money Claim are financial claim experts, recovering MILLIONS in compensation for our thousands of customers. We’re used to beating the banks on a daily basis, so if you wish to make a claim, we can’t think of a better place to place your trust than with Your Money Claim.
Bank charges complaint
September 26, 2014 Daniel Lee Barclays bank is one who is known for their part in the PPI mis-selling scandal and the total Barclays PPI bill has now hit a grand total of £5bn. An extraordinary amount of money, but a figure that doesn’t even come close to the total amount of money that was made by the banks by mis-selling the insurance; an insurance that wasn’t needed by a vast majority of customers.
You’d think that Barclays and other banks would have learnt when it came to being fined for misconduct and various other things; however it would seem that none of them do. As we’ve continually brought you different PPI news stories about the banks being fined for things left, right and centre.
Barclays bank has been fined £38m for failing to keep its clients’ money safe. This isn’t the first time that they’ve been fined for this same thing. In 2011 they paid out a measly £1.1m for the exact same thing, making it two in three years now.
This fine comes as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) slapped the bank with a large penalty for the “unacceptable” failings when it came to separating their client assets worth £16.5bn from their own assets.
Speaking about the scenario, the FCA said that this put Barclays’ clients at risk of incurring extra costs, lengthy delays or even worse, losing their assets altogether if Barclays was to become insolvent.
FCA director of markets, David Lawton has said that Barclays’ lack of focus on the rules and regulations was totally unacceptable. The fact that they were willing to risk putting their clients at risk like that goes to show the lengths banks are willing to go to in order to try and make a profit.
The financial crisis has meant that the regulators have all stepped up their scrutiny when it comes to the behaviours of the banks. Client asset segregation is one that has been under increased scrutiny from the regulators and that’s understandable.
In January 2011, the predecessor to the FCA, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), has come out and said that they believed up to £752m of client money and assets had been at risk with the funds being tangled up with Barclays Capital’s own assets between 2002 and 2009.
The regulator has also said that they are happy that no clients had suffered any losses but that the client’s money was placed at “significant risk”. The FSA also fined JP Morgan £33.3m in 2010 over the exact same issue which was the biggest penalty at the time related to asset segregation.
If you think that Barclays may have mis-sold you PPI, why not fill in our online form and we will start the ball rolling with your claim. If you have any questions, we have a live chat facility on our website so if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask, one of our claims experts will be on hand to assist you.
Barclays Fine
October 1, 2014 Daniel Lee Egg banking was established in 1998 when it hatched from the Prudential’s banking arm, becoming the first internet bank. They quickly gained more than two million customers as it launched the very first internet bank attracting over £6 billion of deposits in the first 10 months.
Within the first 12 months of being established they launched their first online credit card. 12 months after that, the dot com boom led to hints from Prudential that they were looking at floating Egg and analysts predicted that the business could be worth £4 billion.
The floating of Egg valued it at £1.3bn and there was also the launch of La Carte Egg in France which was quickly closed with losses of £150m.
In 2006, six years after being floated, the business is valued at £973m compared to the £1.3bn that it was valued at just six years previous. Citigroup then bought Egg from the Prudential for £575m, even less than what the business was actually valued at.
Citigroup sold off Egg’s UK credit card business to Barclays for an undisclosed amount but in a statement it said they expected to make a net profit from the deal. The deal saw an estimated 1.15m credit card accounts with £2.3bn gross receivables.
Prior to this sale going through, in 2008, Egg group were fined £721,000 for mis-selling payment protection insurance to approximately 40,000 customers. They were fined for persistent mis-selling of the insurance on their credit cards and the policies that they were pushing on their customers, as many others have done too, was in most cases, useless.
They were found to have forced the insurance upon their customers and in some instances, any customers who were asked if they wanted any insurance and replied “hmmm” were actually signed up anyway.
Citi no longer hold any part of Egg. Barclays, as mentioned have control of the UK credit card business and the Yorkshire building society have control of the savings and mortgages part of Egg.
Barclays aren’t angels either when it comes to the mis-selling PPI. They have been found guilty of mis-selling PPI on a number of occasions and the amount of money that they’ve set aside, known as the Barclays PPI bill, has hit a grand total of £5 billion.
Barclays also offer a number of paid for bank accounts. Like a number of other big banks in the UK, they offer a range of paid for bank accounts that come with a variety of benefits. Here is the page that lists all of the different ‘packs’ that they offer.
If you think that you may be owed money either for mis-sold PPI or a mis-sold packaged bank account, you can start a claim with us today by filling in our online form and we’ll send a claim pack out to you with a pre-paid envelope so that you can get it sent back in to us as soon as possible and we can start your claim. If you’ve got any questions, the live chat feature on our website is a fantastic way for you to talk to one of our claims experts who will be more than happy to help you.
Egg PPI
September 26, 2014 Daniel Lee Barclays bank is the most complained about bank of 2014 according to official figures from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
This comes in what hasn’t been a great week for the bank as it was revealed that Barclays was the most-fined financial institution in Britain after recently paying a whopping £38m fine for failings over the protection of their client’s assets.
It was revealed in the official figures released by the FCA that they received just short of 280,000 complaints in the first half of this year and the vast majority of these complaints came about payment protection insurance.
Both Barclays and Santander received the most complaints about their current accounts from customers in the first half of this year from January to June. These were the second most complained about product as they saw a 3% rise compared to the last half pf last year.
The Spanish bank, Santander weighed in with the most complaints, 91,158 about their banking services in the first half of the year and hot on their heels was Barclays with a grand total of 88,792 complaints.
Both of these banks were way out in front of some of their biggest competitors when it came to the amount of complaints. HSBC were the next closest bank having received 65,865 complaints and it was NatWest with 62,175 and Lloyds on 42,245 who brought up the rear.
These banks all offer a paid for bank account and with the estimated 10 million of these accounts active today, and the number of complaints about these accounts now hitting 400 a day, it’s estimated that 146,000 complaints will be made about packaged bank accounts by the end of the year. That’s a staggering increase of 870%.
Coming as no great surprise is the fact that PPI remained the most complained about product in the first half of this year. The amount of complaints according to the FCA, were down by 11% compared to the last half of last year.
The figures though, show that there have been a total of 2,493,729 complaints about all financial firms in the period from the start of the year to June. Payment protection insurance is a financial product that has been widely mis-sold by all of the big banks and numerous lenders in the UK.
If you’re unsure whether you may or may not have been sold PPI by a bank or lender, check out our comprehensive list of the main culprits when it came to mis-selling. Here’s where you can find out who sold PPI.
If you know that you’ve been mis-sold PPI and you would like to start a claim today, fill in our online form and we’ll send out a claim pack to you complete with a pre-paid envelope so you can fill in all the documents and send them right back to us so that we can start the ball rolling with your complaint.
Barclays Complaints
October 23, 2014 Daniel Lee Santander is a tree of multiple building societies’ and banks that have merged or been bought out over the years. Originally founded in 1857 in the town of Santander, Spain, it’s recent aggressive policy of growth has seen it become a big figure in todays banking world.
The danger of rapid expansion is that focus is set on profit and growth, and not on ensuring things are done compliantly, ethically or for the needs of it’s customers, which inevitably has resulted in fines and scandals, including the millions of Santander PPI claims that have been made.
Perhaps three of the most notable UK parts of the Santader Group are Abbey National, Bradford & Bingley and Alliance & Leicester.
Formed in 1944 following a merger between the Abbey Road Building Society and National Building Society, Abbey National as it became known was the first building society to demutualize, meaning it went from being owned by its members to a becoming a public limited company.
After a merger between Bradford Equitable Building Society and the Bingley Permanent Building Society in 1964 Bradford & Bingley Building Society was formed.
Alliance & Leicester had its roots firmly into Leicester Permanent Benefit Society since 1852. Leicester Permanent Benefit Society became Alliance & Leicester in 1985 following a merge with the Alliance Building Society.
Santander as it is today has definitely played a huge part in the recent UK and global scandals that have come to light in recent years. The biggest financial scandal ever to hit the UK, the mis-selling of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI), and the more recent Packaged Bank Accounts scandal have cost UK consumers in excess of £60 BILLION according to our stats.
With a far from clean record, Santander have never really been able to obtain the respect that Abbey, Bradford & Bingley and Alliance & Leicester once held. Indeed, between 2007 and 2010 Santander where ranked the high streets worst bank for customer service, in the J D Power UK Retail Banking Satisfaction Study.
That’s not to say that the banks that form part of the group have faired any better…
In 2005, Abbey was fined £800,000, for mis-handling mortgage endowment complaints raised by over 5,000 customers.
Alliance & Leicester had a bad year in 2008 due to being fined £7 MILLION for Payment Protection Insurance failings, as they did not consider the customer’s needs. This remains the largest fine handed out specifically for the mis-selling of PPI.
Santander’s past two years have been particularly bad for their ever decreasing levels of trust by it’s customers. In 2012 they were fined £1.5 MILLION for failing to clarify Financial Service Compensation Scheme (FSCS) on structured products.
Only this year in March, Santander have been caught out in another scheme, they were fined £12.4 MILLION as they failed to advise customers suitably and failed to ensure that their financial promotions where correct and the customers understood them and they were not mis-leading.
When will they learn?
With all the fines Santander and it’s subsidiaries have had to pay out over the years, it’s somewhat unsurprising they’ve set aside almost £1 BILLION for compensation for Santander PPI claims by those who have been immorally sold PPI policies they didn’t need, want, ask for or even know they had.
With numerous Santander PPI claims still on-going Santander are continuously being haunted by their bad past. Furthermore, with an estimated 7 million people yet to stake their claim, it’s clear the bill will continue to rise.
As Santander have previously been voted the worst bank to handle customer service, would you feel comfortable with dealing with their customer service department? Your Money Claim will take the stress and hassle away for you by dealing with Santander throughout the entire claims process.
Start your Santander PPI claim today with the industry experts. Our No Win No Fee* policy insists that you get the best experience possible in claiming your compensation. Furthermore, our claims form takes less than two minutes to complete.
So why not start you claim today.
Santander PPI Claims
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