It fills you with pride doesn’t it, the UK banking system allowing companies to mis sell financial products to elderly people in care, even worse; the products that were mis sold were supposed to fund care costs. A total of 2,485 customers of NHFA, a HSBC subsidiary, were advised to invest, with 87% being sold an unsuitable product.

The subsidiary has been closed down as "HSBC no longer feels is consistent with its main banking business"

The investments were sold between 2005 and 2010, to people with an average age of 83 who were already in care, or entering long-term care, each customer invested an average of £115,000 intended to fund future care costs.

“Contrary to everything we stand for”

Speaking about the mis selling, Brian Robertson, chief executive of HSBC Bank, said: “I fully accept that NHFA failed to give suitable financial advice to some of their customers”

He added: “This should not have happened and I am profoundly sorry that it did. We have high values here at HSBC and this runs contrary to everything that we stand for. That is why when we suspected something was not right at NHFA, we took action.”

Lets hope other banks are as honest

The most worrying aspect of this case, aside from a financial adviser taking over £100,000 each off around 2000 elderly people, all of whom need the money to pay for their care, is that if HSBC hadn’t fessed up to the mis selling it may never have been punished. HSBC said it identified problems at NHFA, closed the subsidiary to new business in July, and alerted the FSA. Let’s hope other Banks are as honest after they are so completely dishonest, otherwise they’re all dishonest and that is simply unthinkable.

HSBC will pay £29.3m compensation to the families of victims and will be contacting those affected.

Other Recent Fines (November)

- £6.3m: Private bank Coutts fined for describing AIG bonds as low-risk

- £5.95m: UK arm of Credit Suisse fined for advice failures when selling complex financial products

In accordance with their agreement with customers, banks were supposed to pay their customers within 28 days from the filing of a claim. However, these payments are not being made on time. The banks themselves are willing to acknowledge that they have failed to meet this deadline. At least four banks have acknowledged that they have failed to make payments within the 28 days specified in the agreement.

Customers from Lloyds TSB are particularly concerned. Despite the 28 day promises offered by Lloyds, their customers may be forced to wait months before they have the opportunity to get their money back.

The massive PPI fraud has caused millions of people purchasing PPI packages they either didn’t want or couldn’t use. Earlier in the year, banks ignored a number of PPI claims that came across their desks. As a result, they ended up creating a backlog of unpaid claims that needed to be resolved.

After a series of legal proceedings, the banks were ordered to work through the backlog by the end of August. Even though the banks set aside billions to deal with all claims that arose, they were not able to get their issues sorted out in that time.

Some of the banks satisfied the terms of the settlement. In fact, nearly 20 banks throughout the UK paid over 200 million pounds by the deadline. The names of these banks were kept anonymous. Many consumer protection groups criticized this practice as a clear attempt to protect the identities of the banks that failed to make their payments by the deadline.

Customer protection groups have filed a request for this information. However, regulators assert that turning over the names of the banks that failed to make their PPI payments on time would be unfairly prejudicial towards the banks and could damage their brand image.

The banks continue to insist they are doing everything they can to get the claims paid off. Although they acknowledge that they have missed their deadlines, they also said they are doing everything they can to pay them off within a reasonable turnaround time.

OK, the last one was one of ours but it’s completely true – Indian car manufacturer have made a jewel-encrusted version of their Tata Nano, the cheapest new production car in the world. Those crazy Indians have caked the Nano in 80kg of gold, 15kg of silver and heaps gemstones, worth over £3 million.

Tata's cheap Nano has a seriously pimped exterior, but never judge a book by it's cover

Obviously it’s a publicity stunt, cheapest car becomes the most expensive and all that, and it’s worked – clearly. But that doesn’t change the fact that once you get in it you’re still surrounded by an interior distinctly lacking any kind of ‘bling’.

Which takes me onto the moral of, and reason for, this blog (you know I can’t get away with writing about this without a link to PPI claims somehow, so here goes…), there are many PPI claims companies out there offering a cheap %fee and a full refund package but once you sign up, the jewels are taken off and you’re left with a standard, very basic and sometimes over-priced service.

We’ve seen this in the news recently with companies charging too much up front, plus the Watchdog investigation into PPI companies that were found to be mis selling PPI claim services. So, how do you know which company will genuinely give you a great service, with a full PPI refund and a fair fee? Use these 10 points and you’ll stand a good chance of choosing one…

The 10 best ways to ‘see through the jewels’ when choosing your PPI claims company:

1. Check their website for an MOJ Authorisation number, they must have one by law, if you can’t see one – click away

2. Make sure they have a freephone number, it should be completely free to enquire about a claim

3. Check that they don’t charge an upfront free, you should be able to enquire about and start a claim for free

4. Confirm that they work on a No Win No Fee basis, this way there’s no fee to pay if your case is unsuccessful

5. Look for testimonials on their website

6. Look for lots of free information on their website as well, if they’re the experts they say they are, then they should provide you with lots of advice and FAQ’s

7. The company should clearly display their fee structure, for example ours is: No fee up front, 25% + VAT if successful, No Win, No Fee

8. Ideally they should provide you with a dedicated case handler, this isn’t essential but it helps you get answers quicker when you call in

9. They should also include unfair charges on your loan or credit card in the claim as well as mis sold PPI, we do

10.  Finally, and importantly – they should never push you into anything and should be happy for you to take as long as you like to think about starting a claim

So there it is: why a cheap car is like a poor PPI claims service and 10 ways to make sure you get the best claims advice and legals without paying over the odds.

Need some cash or a job? Worry not – the banks have got it covered. There was us thinking that they mis sold PPI to make billions of profit from useless and expensive insurance cover that would never pay out if you needed it, but it turns out they were just helping the UK get back on it’s feet.

This week saw the 300,000th PPI complaint land on the Financial Ombudsman’s mat and with only 300 people dedicated to handling them, the regulator is on a recruitment drive. The thing is: if the banks didn’t reject so many claims then the FoS wouldn’t have to then investigate them and employ more people to uphold 9 out of every 10 cases referred to it.

Speaking in the latest FoS newsletter about the number of complaints received, Natalie Ceeney, Chief Financial Ombudsman, said: “These numbers are pretty unsettling for us.”

She goes on to say “If all this means we’ll need significantly more resource and capacity to handle ever-higher numbers of PPI complaints, then we need – now – to build this into the plan and budget we’ll be consulting on in the new year.”

And now for a high-end graph containing some PPI refund stats:

Over 6000 jobs could be created by mis sold PPI claims, as this extremely technical bar chart illustrates.

With only 300 members of staff working exclusively on PPI claims recruitment is essential to prevent a backlog of claims developing. Add these positions to the estimated 6,000 created by the banks to handle PPI complaints and the mis selling of PPI may well be able to claim one positive impact.

With £557m being paid out to victims of mis sold PPI in the first six months of the year, 2011 is set to be a record PPI payout year, topping £1 billion and significantly contributed to by August, which saw £230m paid out in compensation alone.

Take our PPI claims service – when you make a PPI claim through our team, we’ll request a full refund of all your unfair payments and we’ll also request interest at 8% on the amount you are refunded. We request the interest as well because had you not spent the money on the unfair PPI policy, you could’ve earned 8% interest on it in a savings account.

It’s the interest repayment that is the issue, because although your PPI payments refund is tax free, the interest repayment amount is taxable – just like all savings.

Tim Henman dressed as a taxman, right?

How do I pay the interest?

The Interest should’ve been taxed at source by the lender before being refunded to you but not all banks have taken care of this. HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds and the Co-operative Bank have said that they will not be deducting the tax at source, while RBS/Natwest said it will. All loan companies are required to deduct the tax.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4′s Money Box programme, a spokesman for HM Revenue & Customs said: “No tax is generally due on the repayment element of compensation paid to those mis sold PPI. However, the additional interest is taxable – in line with other compensation claims.”

When asked what refunded customers should do to find out where they stand, the spokesman commented: “Customers should check with their PPI provider as to whether tax has been deducted at source.”

Extra Hundred Million In Tax

So, the advice is to ring your bank, lender or PPI provider to confirm whether or not you owe the Taxman anything. As usual the banks have already tried to shirk their responsibilities by writing to their customers explaining that they need to contact HMRC themselves to discuss what tax is due on the interest payments.

If all £6 billion worth of refunds are handed out, the government could expect to see a few hundred million pounds extra in tax revenue.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) ruled that most lenders wrongfully sold these ppi policies to their customers.  They have begun fining banks and lenders for selling policies that are expensive and offer little protection to the customers.  This is good news as policyholders who were wrongfully sold can make their ppi refunds and they may be entitled to excess payments to their lenders.

You may be eligible to make ppi reclaim for many reasons.  The most obvious is if you felt you were pressured into taking out ppi when you applied for a loan.  In many cases, you could not get your loan approved if you did not take ppi from the lender.  Other reasons may include:  you were not aware of the real cost of the policy or you thought it was included in the loan.

Trying to claim for ppi refunds is not easy.  Banks and lenders tend to deny any ppi claims made against them especially if they know one does not know their rights.  So, it is advisable to seek the help of a specialist claims management company in making ppi claims to be able to obtain the right compensation for having been mis-sold a ppi policy.

When looking for skilled individuals or experts to obtain your ppi reclaim, you may contact your local firms or assistance agency who offers this kind of service. There are a lot out there and you may have the chance to get your amount in a quickly manner once started. To give your PPI reclaim the best possible chance of succeeding, give one of our friendly experts a call now on 0800 840 7292.

Claim back ppi with assistance is an easy way to do things. You can get the full amount with a small fee or sometimes free service from them. You can ask basic information or an all throughout guide to the activities. To give your PPI reclaim the best possible chance of succeeding, give one of our friendly experts a call now on 0800 840 7292.

Try to get started with just simple tips on experts? PPI claims specialist may help you gather the necessary information and amount if you want. They may help you supportively or actively. Yes they can work on your claims alone and all you have to do is authorize them. Of course they only ask service fee if they successfully succeed in getting the claims. To give your PPI reclaim the best possible chance of succeeding, give one of our friendly experts a call now on 0800 840 7292.

To claim back PPI you should be able to identify factors that makes your complaint valid. Some factor may include uninformed consent upon selling of the product, they may mention lacking information, or you may have asked to sign up for the account for it is a must to do so when you sign up for a mortgage. All these are lies and you should take note of these. To give your PPI reclaim the best possible chance of succeeding, give one of our friendly experts a call now on 0800 840 7292.