The figures surrounding the PPI scandal are already staggering. What’s arguably more staggering is that many thousands of people still haven’t claimed what they’re owed. The total amount paid out since January 2011 has already gone well beyond £21 billion.
By the time the whole mess is tied off, it’s estimated the total bill will be closer to £35 billion.
That goes to show that while many people have got their money back, a great deal more still haven’t.
One reason so many people still haven’t claimed is simply because they don’t know they have a claim. One way that PPI was routinely mis-sold was to add it on to the finance agreement without the customer’s knowledge.
When that happened, the customer was unknowingly paying out for the product month after month. They believed each repayment was purely for the loan or finance agreement when in fact a portion of it was repaying the PPI as well.
The team over at http://ppiclaimsandadvice.com have been helping many people get back money they didn’t even realise they were owed. For some people, that refund
has been in the tens-of-thousands of pounds.
With a deadline for claiming imminent, it’s important you double check your records to make sure you aren’t due a refund too. Once the deadline hits, there’ll be no route for recourse after that.
Uncovering Hidden PPI
It’s quite normal to discard old paperwork when the finance agreement has run its course. So how can you find hidden PPI if you no longer have your records?
One way is to run a credit check on yourself. A credit check will pull up your financial history, showing you what loans and finance agreements you’ve had in the past and with which lenders.
There are a number of firms that offer such a service. One well know firm is Credit Expert, owned by Experian. They offer a free trial period to use the service, after which there’s a monthly fee (cancel the trial before it ends and you won’t have to pay).
Another similar service is by Noddle, which is free all the time.
Sign up for the service, follow the instructions and download your report. Print it out if you have a printer and then go through it — carefully, of course — to locate any PPI you weren’t aware of, or which you’d forgotten about.
PPI often went by other names, hence the reason for going through the report carefully. It may have been sold as ASU or something similar. Whatever name it’s listed under, if you find instances of PPI that are a surprise to you, then it was almost certainly mis-sold and you should be due a refund.
No Account Numbers or Paperwork
There’s much debate about whether you should claim PPI by yourself or have a PPI claim company do it for you. As with many things in life, there isn’t a right or wrong answer. It’s largely a personal choice based on your own circumstances.
One area where it can make more sense to use a company rather than handling it alone is if you no longer have your paperwork and/or account numbers. Some companies, like the one mentioned at the top of the article, have negotiated special agreements with many of the main banks and lenders.
These agreements allow them to get claims started without account numbers and without paperwork. It’s an agreement specific to some companies and isn’t available to individuals claiming by themselves. For many people, this not only makes a slow and laborious process quicker, but it’s also far less stressful.
Whichever way you decide to claim your money back, just make sure you do it soon. Once the deadline is official, the clock will be ticking and it will count down to zero much quicker than you probably realise.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2015 at 4:32 am and is filed under PPI. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.