As a result of the mis-selling Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) scandal the country has recently found itself caught up in, the leading high street banks, and lenders, have been forced to pay out a whopping £557million in refunds.
Banks and lenders have been taking their clients money for PPI in some cases, without their knowledge. Some have either been given the product without any warning, or have been sold the product after being mis-lead into believing it is what they needed.
After the scandal was finally uprooted, hundreds of consumers nation wide have complained to their banks, lenders and even to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) to find out exactly where their money is and when they can expect to have it back. In simple terms, seeking the refunds they are rightfully owed.
In recent months, the FOS has seen the amount of mis-sold PPI claims soar, with approx. 3000 a week. Additional staff have been employed to join the FOS team in order to help deal with the amount of claims flooding through. The leading banks are now being forced to reconsider their generous bonuses to top executives, in order to pay up the refunds owed to clients.
Sally Bowyer, Managing Director of financial claims specialist BrunelFranklin.com says that the public are slowly becoming wiser to the tactics of mis-selling, but that a lot of the damage is already done: “It is important to realise that we may all unwittingly have taken out PPI during the years when lenders were offering a seemingly endless line of credit in the form of loans and credit cards in particular. It costs nothing to check your paperwork for insurances that you may not even know you are paying for. PPI per se is not a bad product, however the onus is on the vendor to ensure the product is the best for your needs at the time of sale. If the best product for your needs was not offered, or if you were unaware of the true cost, for example, you may have grounds for a refund.”
Learn more about PPI refunds and find out if you could apply for a refund today! Visit the website www.brunelfranklin.com or call Brunel Franklin, free, on 0800 051 54 51.