In the summer of 2022, Mrs M responded to an advert regarding Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) that she may have paid alongside her NHS superannuation pension.
After speaking to one of our experts, it was soon established that she had not made AVCs but had in fact made a number of Investments with Lloyds Banking Group. Mrs M asked us to investigate these Investments to see if we believed they had been mis-sold.
In line with our normal procedures, we started by sending an information request to Lloyds to get all the information about the Investments such account numbers, start dates, investment amounts and payment histories as Mrs M was unsure of the exact details.
A month went by before Lloyds responded to us but unfortunately, they only provided details of a Life Assurance policy. A day later, we did receive some information on a Guaranteed Investment Bond (GIB) taken out in November 2004.
A further discussion was held with Mrs M who said she thought she held Investment ISAs and more than one GIB.
A further 3 months went by where there were numerous letters, emails and phone calls to Lloyds to try and trace the missing Investments but eventually we received everything we needed.
Mrs M had made two investments into GIBs in 2004 but there were no Investment ISAs.
A further discussion was held with Mrs M as despite her not losing any capital, the GIBs are not always appropriate for inexperienced Investors. One of our experienced team did not believe Mrs M should have been sold two GIBs in such a short space of time and built a suitable mis selling complaint based on Mrs M’s circumstances in 2004.
On receipt of our complaint, Lloyds are allowed 8 weeks to investigate the issues and despite sending an initial acknowledgement letter, within days, they came back to us to advise that the complaint had been successful.
They had found that they had sold the first GIB in February 2004 correctly and that Mrs M had made a 16% return on her £2,000 in the 6 years that she held it to maturity.
They further found that when they sold the second GIB in November 2004, that they had advised Mrs M to invest too much of her savings into risk-based products. So, despite the guarantee that she would not lose capital, it was deemed an inappropriate product for the inexperienced investor that she was.
Mrs M was extremely happy to receive a compensation payment of £2,335.39 and was thankful that we had persevered chasing Lloyds for all the information needed.
If you think that you have personally been mis-sold an investment then we would only be too happy to help you.