Mrs E originally came to us regarding an investigation into a likely mis sold Endowment policy. Due to the fact that she no longer held such information, and in order to ensure that she had a valid claim, we asked the firm in question to provide us with policy details. It was within the response to this request that we located evidence of an additional investment that she had made with Scottish Widows, in 2003. We noticed that this plan was cashed in after a period of only 5 years, which is a relatively short amount of time, and were concerned that this meant that she had been incorrectly advised. Consequently, we asked Mrs E if she would like for us to make a complaint about it and, having forgotten all about this plan, she was very happy for us to take a look into whether or not she had suffered a financial loss.
Before we lodge any investment complaints, and as part of our service, we complete a savings and investment questionnaire with our clients. This acts to support our view that the product in question was poorly sold by documenting the recollections the client has of the point of sale and of their personal and financial circumstances at the time. As Mrs E did not remember the investment or the meeting that took place in order to sell it to her, we built this case based on what she believed her reaction would have been in 2003. From completing the questionnaire with Mrs E, we were able to establish, amongst other things, that; our client had limited investment experience, she was risk adverse, there were no follow up meetings and that the product was ultimately unsuitable. Once we had this information, we were ready to use it to collate our “Reasons for Complaint” and then submit our bespoke Letter of Complaint to Scottish Widows.
Fortunately, it did not take Scottish Widows long to come to a conclusion after receiving our complaint and we were pleased to find that they had upheld it in Mrs E’s favour. The policy had been taken out for an amount of £5000, however Scottish Widows now agreed that Mrs E had invested too much of her capital and should have only invested a maximum of £2500. The resulting offer of compensation was for £780.37, the associated calculations of which we thoroughly checked for fairness and accuracy. When we were happy that the amount was acceptable, we advised Mrs E to accept and her £780.37 payment was released to her – an amount which Mrs E would never have received if it were not for our sharp-sighted office manager who spotted the investment in the first place.
If you think that you have personally been mis-sold an investment then we would only be too happy to help you.