Mr and Mrs C from Yorkshire came to It IS Your Money in March 2017 regarding an investment policy they had been sold by TenetConnect Services Ltd back in 2006.
Mrs C had received her inheritance from her late Mother and wanted to invest it wisely and safely. Due to the source of the capital, Mr and Mrs C did not want a risky investment that could potentially lose them a lot of money. During a meeting with an advisor at TenetConnect, they were pressured into taking out an investment plan that did not meet their attitude to risk.
Over the next few years their investment not only underperformed, but lost them a considerable amount of their original capital.
After speaking to Mr and Mrs C and going through their documents with them, our experts came to the conclusion that they believed our clients had been mis-sold their investment policy and subsequently we sent our letter of complaint to TenetConnect Services Ltd.
The response we received to our complaint was a time bar letter. This means that the firm believe too much time has passed since the policy was surrendered and they will no longer look at any complaints for the policy. Usually firms will try to time bar cases that have been surrendered for over 3 years.
Usually this is the end of the road for complainants, but fortunately for Mr and Mrs C, our investment department are very skilled in getting time barred complaints overturned and set to work.
We appealed the time bar with TenetConnect Services Ltd, arguing that we do have the right to complain about this policy, but they came back to us with their final decision on the matter; stating it was still time barred.
Our next step in the process was to take the time barred case to the FOS (Financial Ombudsman Service) to get an independent review on whether this case should be time barred. The adjudicator that looked at the case agreed with TenetConnect Services Ltd, this policy should be time barred from complaint.
We escalated the decision to above the adjudicator and made our appeal with an Ombudsman.
When we received the decision from the Ombudsman on the case, we were glad to hear that their decision agreed with our view; this case should not be time barred, the policy has the right to be complained about.
As TenetConnect Services Ltd had already given their final decision on the case, we could no longer complain directly to them, so we submitted our complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service once more. This time with our issues regarding the policy sale itself, not the fact that TenetConnect Services Ltd had time barred the ability to make a complaint.
The response we received from the adjudicator was that the policy was sold to our clients correctly, with no issues or mis-sale. We disagreed with this decision and knew Mr and Mrs C were wrongfully sold their investment policy, so we escalated the complaint once more to an Ombudsman to review the adjudicators findings.
The Ombudsmans’ decision revealed that they agreed with us, Mr and Mrs C had in fact been mis-sold their investment policy and compensation was due to the clients in this case.
We received the following offer for compensation from TenetConnect Services Ltd:
| Losses Refunded: | £46,803.96 |
| Gross 8% Interest: | £27,758.87 |
| Total: | £74,562.83 |
We successfully obtained a suitable offer of a comparison to more suitable investment funds: £46,803.96.
TenetConnect Services Ltd also had to pay 8% of the compensation amount for every year since the policy was surrendered to reimburse Mr and Mrs C for their losses. This took the total compensation amount to £74,562.83.
Without our passionate and highly knowledgable investment and time bar experts, this case would have fallen at the first hurdle and no compensation would have ever made it to our clients. Even though it took over 2 years through all the formal processes, our experts knew that our clients had been wronged and fought back at every step of the way on their behalf, ultimately ending in the right outcome; financial justice for our clients.
If you would like our experts to represent you for your complaint, please use the form below or call us on 01803 500608. We offer financial complaints services on the following products: PPI, Endowments, FSAVCs, Investments, Whole of Life, Pension Mortgages, Packaged Bank Accounts and Payday Loans.
Remember, It IS Your Money.