Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

[di30]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

I need to get a new scanner Niddy, so I had hand - written it the other day lol...........

Here;;;;;;;

Current Decision as received today 21 November 2013.


Dear Mr & Mrs

Your complaint about Loyds Bank PLC (Lloyds)

I have considered very carefully the additional information you have sent us. However, I regret to tell you that my view of your complaint remains unchanged.

As I explained in my previous opinion, I am not pursuaded that you thought you had to have a fee paying account in order to bank with Lloyds, as you held a free account with them prior to the account upgrades.

You have provided me with the details of the loans you taken out with Lloyds from 1989 to present. I note that this information shows that in 2001 (around the time your account was upgraded to a gold service account) you took out two gold service loans.

I can see from the details of the loan agreements you have provided that you received a lower interest rate on the gold service loans than on the other loans you took out prior to the upgrade.

I note you have also provided details of a Special offer loan with you took out after the upgrade, and which had a lower interest rate than the gold service account loans. You have implied that you would not have agreed to upgrade on the basis that you could get a preferential rate on your loans, as you received a better interest rate on the special offer loan with was not related to your gold service account.

The term Special offer suggests that this loan rate was available for a limited time only. You took out this special offer loan in 2006 some years after you agreed to upgrade your account. There is no evidence to show that the special offer loan was available to you at the time you upgraded your account. I cannot reasonably conclude that the fact you received a better rate of interest on a loan you took out in 2006 would have influenced your decision to upgrade in 2001. As the gold service rate was the preferential rate available to you at that time - and from the information you have provided getting a good interest rate on your loans was something that was important to you - I consider it likely you agreed to upgrade for this reason.

You have also provided me with the evidence that you had stand alone extended warranty cover in 1998. The evidence Lloyds provided would suggest that extended warranty cover was a benefit of the gold service account in 2001, when your account was updraged. I note the evidence you have provided does not show that you had extended warranty cover at that time. In any event, I must reiterate that is some of the benefits associated with the account were not suitable for you this does not automatically mean that the account was mis sold.

In order to find that the account was mis sold I would need to be satisfied there were shortcomings in the sales procedure and also that had the shortcomings not taken place you would have acted differently. You have explained that at the time your account was upgraded you were made aware of both the account benefits and the monthly fee. I am therefore not persuaded that had Lloyds made it clear to you that the Gold Service account would be providing you with duplicate extended warranty cover, this would have made you reconsider the upgrade.

I would also note that the point of sale documentation you have provided would suggest that extended warranty cover was not a benefit of the gold service account at the time you upgraded.

In light of the above, it follows that I am still persuaded that it is more likely than not you chose to upgrade your account to a gold service account because you wanted to benefit from the preferential loan rate the account offered you. I say this because on balance I am not persuaded you thought you had to pay for your account in order to bank with Lloyds.

As far as the upgrades to the platinum and premier accounts are concerned, you were overdrawn during the time you held these accounts. As a result, you have saved money through having both the platinum and premier accounts as you saved more in overdraft interest through having preferential overdraft rate that you paid in monthly account fees.

Therefore, as I have explained previously, although there may have been some shortcomings in the way in which the accounts were sold to you. I am not persuaded that you would have done anything differently had all the requirements been met.

This means that I do not consider your complaint should be upheld. I know this is not the outcome you were hoping for. And I appreciate this will come as a disappointment to you.

If you disagree with this please write to tell me by 5 December 2013 - setting out your reasons and including any evidence that you have not already provided and that you think is important to your case. I would be grateful if you could let me know now. If you plan to reply fully but do not think you will be able to meet this deadline.

As we explain in our leaflet, your complaint and the Ombudsman, consumers have the right to ask an ombudsman to review their case - as the final stage of our process. But if we do not hear from you by 5 December 2013, we will assume that you have decided not to pursue further.

Yours sincerely

Adjudicator.
..................................................

[di30]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

Dear

Thank you for your email.

Both parties will be given 21 days to provide any further information then, if the case can be fast tracked, it will be passed straight to an ombudsman. If the case does not meet the fast track criteria it will be placed in a queue awaiting allocation to an ombudsman. The ombudsman will then need time to review the case.

If you have any questions please let me know.

Yours sincerely


Adjudicator
Financial Ombudsman Service

[di30]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

Just also to remind!

The adjudicator did originally uphold the complaint a few months back.

(Final decision 2 posts above).

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

But now you've authorised the adjudicator to send to ombudsman. You've really went arse over tit with this one Di. Sometimes it's best to only respond to the points asked. However you now need to type up an argument that best describes things ready for the ombudsman. If you can do that and send me a copy I'll then try and add to it for you but really the moment has been and gone now. If they ever give a deadline of less than 14 days you reply stating you don't accept it and need extra time.

She wrote last week and then demanded an answer Monday. You should have said get lost

anyway, let's try and get back on track. I'll try and read things properly tonight.

[di30]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

But now you've authorised the adjudicator to send to ombudsman. You've really went arse over tit with this one Di. Sometimes it's best to only respond to the points asked. However you now need to type up an argument that best describes things ready for the ombudsman. If you can do that and send me a copy I'll then try and add to it for you but really the moment has been and gone now. If they ever give a deadline of less than 14 days you reply stating you don't accept it and need extra time.

She wrote last week and then demanded an answer Monday. You should have said get lost

anyway, let's try and get back on track. I'll try and read things properly tonight.

LOL I know Niddy, my head been all over the place the last few months with other stuff, but too late now "doh" lol. So 21 days I have. Cheers Niddy, will put pen to paper later, it will take me a little time but shall post up a copy for you .

I lost touch with the FOS and their procedures but the way it looked was that was that with the adjudicator now its to the ombudsman. I need to get my concentration cap back on. (I seem to be messing things up for myself lately) lol.

Cheers.

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

If you sort your bit out then let me see it I'll try and help......

[di30]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

If you sort your bit out then let me see it I'll try and help......

Thank you Niddy.


Did I also mention that I did forward further info from the last decision? In July it was suggested to uphold, then later in July the bank did not agree due to preferential rates on OD, so despite the package products either not being suitable or we had another cover the same elsewhere, she never taken on these facts in the end just because of the bank with the preferential rates.
So its been through a decision 3 times already, so defo time to move on to the ombudsman now as I dont feel this is getting anywhere with the Adjudicator.

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

Ok you need to write one letter explaining all this - for the attention of the ombudsman - but email it me before doing anything else and then we'll try and get this silliness sorted once and for all.

As a last resort we can issue a claim for ppi redress....

[di30]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

Ok you need to write one letter explaining all this - for the attention of the ombudsman - but email it me before doing anything else and then we'll try and get this silliness sorted once and for all.

As a last resort we can issue a claim for ppi redress....

Thank you Niddy.


I just had an email from them now to confirm they will be fast tracking (due to my chronic illness) this was requested for, I have 21 days like Lloyds to forward any further info.

.................................................. ................
Dear

I have spoken to senior colleagues and they have confirmed that we will fast track your complaint. However, please be aware there are other complaints in the fast track queue, so your case may not be allocated to an ombudsman straight away.

I will start the ombudsman decision process tomorrow and provide you with more information about this. You and Lloyds will be given 21 days to provide us with any further information before the complaint is placed in the fast track queue.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Yours sincerely


Adjudicator

[di30]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

Firstly this was our response to our Adjudicator on the 5th November 2013 in regards of her decision October......


Dear (Adjudicator)





Lloyds REF:



We hope you received the further information sent to you by email attachment late last week, via loan agreements and details of insurance that we feel is also relevant to our case.



I note your email received Sunday 03 November 2013 (thank you) to confirm you think you have received enough information from ourselves and Lloyds and will need time to review. This was sent in correspondence to my email sent to you on 25 October when we said we will send the loan information if required.



Last week I mentioned about sending some written information as said on your opinion dated 30 October 2013 if we feel is relevant to our complaint. So hope your able to also take this into consideration as we do think it's important to our case.



In regards of your opinion dated 30 October 2013, we understand that Lloyds provided you with limited information, but you made your opinion on the evidence you did have from both ourselves and Lloyds.



Lloyds did however provide you with information of overdraft preferential rates, where they did not previously agree with your earlier opinion dated in August 2013, where you recommended to uphold our complaint as you were persuaded that we did believe that we had to pay for all accounts and not have the option of a free account.

With that Lloyds did not agree and said that we did benefit from the overdraft at a preferential rate.

(We note they did not at all mention of loan preferential rates). This was raised by ourselves where you said on your email you will ask Lloyds for the details, but unfortunately they were not able to provide these details to you. With that you made your opinion that with having a Gold packaged account we would have benefitted.



You have now received the information we have of some loan agreements from ourselves, where you will note they vary in rates. (Your email last week said loan agreements will be helpful in order to check the rates) The loans held under the Premier account are probably the highest rates, but there does not appear to be any special rates as such.



Going back to August 2013 your email states that with the further evidence we did send, you were hoping to discuss our evidence with a Senior Colleague, then on the 13 August you came to your opinion as stated above to recommend it to be upheld.



We agreed with your conclusion to your earlier opinion (as above) because we did certainly believe at the time that all accounts eventually came with charges. Despite the fact that the Classic Account was then based as a Fee Free account, this did come along with charges, even though it appears to be "Service charges" (we only provided you with 2 statements with the charges) previously but not every single one, if you require further statements to show charges applied regularly we can send you further if required). As these were just a small few we sent along with other various statements from here and there from Classic to Packaged Accounts.



We are not clear on why you said this it is reasonable to assume on your opinion that is why we agreed to upgrade, and would also like to remind you why you implicitly do not accept our reasons as to why we landed up with paid for accounts?

And did we "Actually" benefit for packaged accounts and not whether we would have done in "Theory"?



We also note from an earlier opinion that Lloyds did state that they informed you that we held fee paying accounts prior to 2001.



We also held house insurance with Lloyds TSB on a separate policy from 1996 to 2003 continous products, which appears to include a list of products included in the Gold Package Accounts (We have also emailed you with details of these policies). As customers, we were naive back then, and no financial knowledge of how financial packages worked. This is the job role of bank managers and advisers to explain products and packages to customers as part of their role and not the customers.(not the other way round).
The Welcome Booklet of the Gold Account was not exactly the same one you emailed to us, although we understand a Gold Package is a Gold Package but this arrived in the post some-time later after Lloyds upgraded the account to Gold Account that was not processed with us in branch, we were told it was standard practice and all accounts came with a charge from now on. The benefits of the upgrade were not discussed with us as we were not at the branch as stated.



We have not literally implied that the account prior to Gold Service upgrade was a "packaged account", we are implying that charges also applied, and applied to "all accounts" as charges seemed to occur with all accounts we held, also the classic account eventually came in with charges, so it was thought charges now apply to all accounts. (Despite it being a classic fee free account).



We note you said that we did benefit from an overdraft preferential rate as we were significantly overdrawn.

It was explained to you previously that we fell into financial difficulties. However eventually, we did go through a dispute with the bank to request they freeze the interest/charges, and it was only agreed they do this once it was resolved by an Adjudicator at the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

We also feel if the accounts were not up-graded, then we would not have gone into an hefty overdraft, why did Lloyds allow this to continue?



We can recall on me ringing Lloyds TSB to question the packaged accounts, although nothing was explained to me in products, I can recall on being told it's down to Income eligibility (the amount wasn't told to me) but I'm sure it was not to upgrade, we never knew much about them in the first place. As it was assumed that we had to have an account that we had to pay charges for, a Gold welcome pack does not express fee free accounts, and was sure that the classic account had the same inclusives as the gold account as standard.

If these packaged accounts did come down to Income from year 2000 onwards, then as explained on an earlier email, if they did take these into account, my earnings certainly would not have met the category for both Premier and Platinum.



I would like to remind you of the final Premier package that was added for us without us requesting for this, we were having trouble with our debit cards at a local DIY store (despite the account had available funds, although overdraft), the manager said he never understood why it happened but went upstairs at our local branch, he came back down and said it should be okay now because he updated us to Premier. Of course if we had known then this should not have happened and that he should not have just done that without our authorisation, we would have questioned this further, but there was never an explanation on why that occurred with our debit cards.



In regards of the above, we would have raised issues up earlier, years earlier, even at the time the Gold Account was applied to us and would never have known if this was not raised in the financial media previously, so because of that we do believe we have a genuine case here which is why we raised this with the bank, then on to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) as Lloyds did not agree, but in our opinion the bank benefitted from selling these products as part of their services, but we do not feel it was in our best interest when it comes down to where we eventually ended up.



We did not hold mobile (pay as you go phones) until gone the mid 2000's. We also had protection cover in place separately on many of the products as stated to you on our complaint. Again if discussed to us in details, and that you had to sign up to benefit, maybe then it would have been realised they were not beneficial for us (not when we were already paying for cover elsewhere as well).



We will appreciate that all these details are taken into your review, as we do feel is important. If we did not think we had genuine grounds, we would not go through wasting your's or our time in sending large amounts of information.



I will appreciate you letting me know this is received and thank you for your time in this matter.



Yours sincerely

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

Di, Di, Di...... what have you done!

Ok, this could be salvaged, however you need to spend some time and try to collate all that's happened into a letter that you would send the Ombudsman, but don't send it, instead send it me and then I'll get to grips with it and change your version to help you win. The problem here is that you've inadvertently been 'too' honest and thus allowed the FOS to take into account what you gave them, regardless that it shot you in the foot, because they became aware of it they have to consider it. It cannot be ignored, even after a prelim decision has been issued.

So based on what I gather so far, they found in your favour in August then Lloyds appealed to which you sent additional information from which gave away something that suggested you had preferential rates thus the Adjudicator changed their decision? Is that about the gist of it?

I will pdf this thread and read it at work tomorrow so I can get fully to grips with it, but basically you're going to have to play dirty to win this now - so just go with the flow and don't worry too much, you still have options....

p.s. in the meantime STOP emailing that bloody adjudicator will you

[di30]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

I know Niddy

Oops (yep) good point you said Niddy lol!!

Okey dokey lol Adjudicator too, think I made the matter even more complexed!!

Yeah that will be fab cheers again Nids lol.

[di30]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

Jusy wanted to add this as well, from when she contacted us in August about the recommendation to uphold (so that you know) lol. It was actually 08 August 2013 we received this.

Dear


I can confirm that having reviewed the evidence provided it did persuade me that you were under the impression that you had to pay a fee for your Lloyds TSB account.

I have written to Lloyds TSB explaining this and recommending that the complaint should be upheld. I am waiting to hear whether Lloyds TSB accept my recommendations - if it does not it may provide further information for me to review.

I will update you again once I have received a response from Lloyds TSB.

Thank you for your continued patience.

Yours sincerely


Adjudicator

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

As previously explained - the moment you told her otherwise she was compelled to take what you provided into account which sadly shot you in the foot.

[di30]

Re: Not too good news with my packaged reclaim/FOS

Yep, and it was from that letter Lloyds had refused to agree due to preferential rates, so as you said it was from here it all went downhill, everything went wrong from here.