It is a known fact that Payment Protection Insurance has been mis-sold to millions of customers across the country. After the recent court ruling in the favor of the customers, the banks have been asked by the court to put aside funds to compensate the victimized customers. The customers who have been wrongfully mis-sold payment protection insurance can now reclaim their money from the lenders, but there is a simple procedure involved of claim application. This can be easily done by the customers themselves. However, in certain cases when the customers find it too difficult or complex to handle the claim application themselves, they can use the help of the claim management companies.
They charge a fee in handling your claim application and after paying their fees, the amount you get can be minimized to negligible. So, it needs to be thought clearly beforehand whether to go ahead and hire the claim management company or not. The best way to decide that is to use the PPI calculator online and know what is the amount you are eligible to reclaim. Once you are sure about how to claim the PPI amount, you can go ahead and fill the PPI claim form yourself or with the help of the claim management company. The banks and the lenders can also help in filling the claim application form. In any case it is worthy of knowing how the payment protection insurance was wrongfully sold to millions of people across the country. Here are the top 5 ways –
- In many cases, the customers were never told that they are being sold PPI. While taking loan, mortgage or credit card, the PPI was slyly added to the agreement and the customers never knew about it. And, the customers continued to pay towards their monthly instalment without knowing that the premium of the PPI is also added to it.
- Self-employed, retired and people with pre-existing medical issues are not covered under the guidelines of the PPI. However, the sales staff of the banks and the lenders often sold the PPI to people who were ineligible for the cover. And, the customers were not able to use the benefits of the PPI when needed.
- The customers were never explained the policies of the PPI or were never told that buying PPI is optional, which can be considered as mis-sold.
- The customers were often told that to get the loan, credit or the mortgage approval, it is necessary to buy the PPI, which was actually not the case. The sales staff of the bank used to tell this just to make sure that the customers buy the PPI, and this can be considered mis-selling as well.
- If you were above 65 or 70 at the time when the PPI was sold to you, then it was mis-sold.
There are many other ways the bank representatives and the agents followed to sell the PPI to the customers, but the above mentioned ways are the most common mis-selling techniques used.
Author Bio – Mark Lingham is one of the noted authors on insurance and has widely covered the topic of mis-sold PPI by the banks and lenders across the country.