Trumpo looks at the Claims industry and discovers that 6 million people are entitiled to financial services compo.

For the last 12- 18 months, Trumpo has been bombarded by claims companies wishing to advertise their financial claims services on the Trumpo.com website. At first we refused, but following recent investigations by many highly regarded financial journalists, we discovered that this is a £30 Billion miss selling time bomb that can’t be ignored or brushed under the carpet and needs to be tackled head on.

Martin Lewis, of website money saving expert.com  should be congratulated for championing the miss selling tactics of the banks, credit card and finance companies, paricularly when in connection with the sale of useless payment protection insurance and now illegal excessive bank charging to the most vulnerable.

At first I thought that this side of the claims sector was another unfair and rusty nail, in the already half dead financial services industry and similar to the endowment miss sellings scandal that transformed the industry. But looking at the actual statistics and wading through the banks and finance houses very weak justification for selling it, Trumpo has discovered that they haven’t got a bloody leg to stand on.

Trumpo spoke to a senior person currently working in the Financial Ombudsman Service and when asked what percentage of payment protection miss selling claims referred to the ombudsman scheme had he actually found in favour of the Banks ? guess how many he said – NONE!

I couldn’t believe it, so I asked that why, when nearly all the claims made are found in favour of the general public are the banks and finance houses refuting the claims as valid and referring the cases to the ombudsman scheme ? – it’s a scandal!

On further investigation, it seems like a dirty delay tactic. Trumpo has discovered that LLoyds TSB turn down approximately 90% + of all complaints made directly to them and they then refer them to the ombudsman, who now cant cope with the massive growth in genuine and justifiable complaints. Each case costs at least £500 to be referred to the ombudsman, and as these banks are now state controlled, that means basically that you and I are footing the inital fee for these complaints, multiply that by 6 million people and thats a scary number just for the initial ombudsman referral fees ! let alone the awards which will be made in favour of the consumer – this is a HUGE issue.

Maybe im missing something here, but this seems like dodgy economics, if the claim success rate is north of 90% (which we belive to be the case) what’s the point of the state owned banks, or any other bank for that matter paying £500/£600 to delay the inevitable pay out ? When I asked the question to my man in the ombudsman service he stated that “delay tactics” where very much at the heart of the Banks methods, how on earth can this be deemed to be treating customers fairly!

It seems that all will become clear in the coming months as the Financial Ombudusman Scheme is to name and shame the banks who are not treating customers fairly, or correctly, when it comes to the complaints process. They have announced that all firms that have more than 30 complaints againts them will be published and their claims handling record and percentages payouts also disclosed – OUCH!

Here are a couple of objections from certain parties when this was announced to be released in autumn 09, these objections are actually published on the Financial Ombudsman website;

“Some industry respondents said that we should not publish until we had conducted consumer research to confirm what consumers would find most useful and informative, and we should then pilot the data with financial businesses and the consumer sector before publication.”   
“Some respondents said that any aim to publish the first data in autumn 2009, and possibly for the first half of 2009, was ambitious and arguably premature. They questioned whether this would allow sufficient time for the systems to be tested, verified and audited”

The data is already their and it will be the biggest red face day for these financial institutions when published.

I wonder what odds we can get at Ladbrokes for the baddest boys ?

This one will run and run. Your Trumpo.

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