My view is that far too many of the people who we come across asking for help from our site are people who really didn’t want to have a with-profits investment in the first place. They were normally sold on the idea by their bank or a representative from the insurance company, and often, on the basis that this was a safe house almost akin to a deposit account (but with a better return). This is rubbish, always was rubbish, and we believe that anyone in this position should be able to go back to the company and/or the adviser that advised them and ask for their money back in full.”
“Is this ambulance chasing? No, not at all, it is simply saying that if the process which led to a with-profits investor getting into the fund was flawed then the investor has been mis-sold a product, which should be compensated. It is clear that with-profits (in particular with-profit bonds) were hugely profitable for banks and building societies in the past. If someone walked into the bank in 1999 with £100,000 to deposit imagine the difference in earnings to the bank that putting that in their high interest deposit account (were the bank might have a margin of 0.5% per year) would make compared to persuading the same person to putting it in a with-profits bond (which often produced an upfront commission to the bank of upto 8%). Now call me a cynic but I suspect that many banks encouraged their staff to steer investors towards with-profits bonds almost regardless of their situations and/or requirements.”
“Indeed I even know an ex bank employee who was charged with doing this and have seen many victims of this across our site, so I know this is relevant. Fortunately our financial system now reflects this by allowing and entitling anyone who feels this sort of situation was relevant to them to make a claim through the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). However whilst this is great we urge caution, the FOS is a very specific service which requires a lot of documentation and argument, evidence and presentation. Many a potentially successful claim fails simply on grounds of bad presentation. Remember the companies defending any claims have whole departments that do nothing else so an individual claimant can often be up against it simply through a lack of requisite skill in presenting and managing their claim.”
“We have linked up with a specialist, properly registered and regulated, firm of compensation advisers to help potential claimants. They are able to tell in one call if a claimant has a valid claim which is worth taking to the Ombudsman and then they are able to manage this claim on the claimant’s behalf. They do not charge for this other than on a no win, no fee basis, giving with-profit investors who think they have been mis-sold a plan a chance to have their claim professionally presented and managed without any worry about fees if they fail.”
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