Seanj - I agree that its time to make a fuss and get the tables turned on Barclays & firstplus. Its important that we keep in touch and work together with any other FP customers to make a bigger fuss than we could as individuals.

Crocky - our loan is only over 5 years which is worse I guess as we are paying about £120 a month on insurance - they added the premium to the capital so I guess we are paying interest on that as well as on the capital we borrowed?

The more I think about this, the more I regret taking out this loan. We only wanted to tidy up our finances and have one single monthly repayment and we took it over the shortest term possible to get it paid back as soon as we could. I hindsight, It was a dumb thing to do. It was the times of 'easy credit' we didn't really think our options and the implications through very well, but at least this has taught us a valuable lesson for the future.

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On a crusade against Firstplus

Hi, whats done is done we all learn lessons in hindsight, I have to tell you that you have serious grounds for complaint re the PPI you are right you are paying interest on the PPI it is like you have taken out 2 loans, the fsa takes a very dim view of these contracts I don't think this was actually underwitten by Barclays as these are usually sold through intermediaries brokers, banks and secured/unsecured lenders but it is only on secured lending that they are still sold as a lump sum. I have access to most PPI providers and I don't want to tell you what you could have got this for as it will only cause more angst. It is advised by The FSA and advisory groups not to take out PPI with any loan as the true cost is buried in the monthly repayment and its like ''yeah you're paying out £600 a month on loans and credit cards with this plan you can halve your repayments and if you're sick or unemployed your loan is paid for you'' I would be interestd in seeing this contract as it has holes all over the place. i would take the issue up seperately on the ppi and if it says it is underwritten by Barclays itself I would lodge a complaint directly at them, that way you have a two pronged attack against this crap contract. Hope this helps! Mike

Welshdresser.

If you were sold the PPI as part of the deal you may have a case for mis-selling there are lots of cases where the FO [financial ombudsman] is making companies repay the ppi and interest. In some cases this amount is enough to redeem the loan!! did you also realise that on some of these policies there is a limit of one years claim so if you had someone paying say £600 pm on the loan and the ppi cost £7300 you would actually lose out and could have underwritten the loan yourself, another reason for mis-selling or for it not being sold in the first place as the advisor [Firstplus] would be aware of this. The other point if your ppi is limited to one year you are sometimes only limited to one claim so if you claimed in year 2 and then had another claim in year 3[4,5] then you wouldn't be covered, yet another reason for mis-selling I would think about how this was sold to you and have a look at the conditions of the PPI for any of the above!! Mike

Good grief mike you've opened a whole new can of worms! I'll have a look thru the terms & conditions later and let you know. Have to go run some errands first.... Cheers for the sound advice, Aly x

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On a crusade against Firstplus

OK, so looking through the smallprint, there appears to be a 360 day limit on disability & unemployment benefits. Without PPI insurance, we would be paying £600 -£ 650 a month (depending on the interest firstplus charge) so you're right! If we pay a premium of £7347 plus interst on this premium of £1480, the most we could get back from the policy is around £7800. Does this count as mis-selling? If so, where do I start to make a claim - do I write to 'Barclays Insurance Dublin' who are the underwriters, or Firstplus who suggested the policy alongside the loan.

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On a crusade against Firstplus

Firstplus customers - we are not alone, have just found a thread on Martin lewis's website about their refusal to lower the interest rate with several more unhappy customers!

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On a crusade against Firstplus

Hi Mike I've drafted a letter based on your points about the cost of the insurance & the fact they didn't make it clear that cover was for a maximum 360 days only. : If you have a chance, could I have your comments before I send it??

' I am writing in relation to the above payment protection (PPI) policy which I believe was mis-sold to me. I believe you have not treated us fairly for the following reasons;

Your salesperson did not give me full information on what the policy would and would not cover: for example that under the terms of the policy our loan repayments would only be covered for a maximum of

360 days in case of Disability or Unemployment.

Our premium of £7347 was added up front to the loan and charges of at least £1480 will be paid by the end of the loan. In total the insurance will cost at least £8827 (probably more as you have increased the APR on our loan from 7.7% at the start to 9.3% from August 2008)

Without PPI, I estimate our monthly loan repayments to be around £650 a month. Therefore over 12 months the maximum benefit we could receive under the insurance policy is around £7800.

By the end of the term of our loan the policy would have cost us at least £1000 more than the maximum benefit we could have received in the event of a claim. We could therefore have underwritten this loan ourselves.

Unless you can satisfactorily justify to me that the policy was fair and reasonable I am requesting a full refund of all premiums, interest, and subsequent interest on these payments, that I have paid to date. As I believe I have been deprived of this money I also expect 8% statutory interest, the amount a court would award, to be added to each payment made.

I look forward to a full and prompt response to this letter and for the matter to be concluded within eight weeks or I shall be contacting the Financial Ombudsman to investigate my complaint.

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On a crusade against Firstplus

Hi Aly, make sure you keep a copy of all correspondence with Firstplus as evidence that you have been trying to sort it! I checked out Martin Lewis's web site that you mentioned and was shocked at the amount of people that look like they heve been stung with the PPI, i'm so glad that i didn't take it out myself, but feel for the folk that did, i hope that you don't have to wait too long to get it all back.

Out of curiosity, when did Firstplus last increase your rate?

Hi All

We too are Firstplus hostages! We took out a secured loan in late 2005 and have regretted it many times - every time they wrte to us with a rate increase in fact!

We also took the PPI in a lump sum at the front end of the loan but now believe that we would not be able to claim on the disability element of it anyway even though hubby is now disabled and has been pensioned off at 39 as unable to fulfil his contract due to illness. We are now wishing our lives away for the next 4 years in order to claim the premium back.

We made the first steps into complaining to Firstplus about the PPI a few months ago and lo and behold were quickly contacted by the broker who sold us the loan and PPI and then the financial adviser rang us to "lean" on us, against taking this further as it would jeopardise his business with the broker.

We were quite upset at this approach but Firstplus apparently have the transcript of the telephone call and wrote to us detailing it, but we believe we also had telephone conversations with the broker. Since receiving the phone call from the adviser we have not taken the case any further.

Incidentally, as their rates have consistently beeen increasing, we would join the throng of customers in lobbying them to reduce rates.

Surprisingly, Barclays had always refused credit with them as otherhalf had obtained a creditcard under age and ran up a debt over 20 years ago (which was paid back in full)

Hi with all complaints you have to give the company the opportunity to

A reply and state their case

B recognise and take action

Depending on their response you can then

A accept their case/settlement

B Negotiate [ I rarely do this]

C if you feel that they are ignoring you or haven't addressed the problem then you can take the necessary steps through the FO, FSA or any other regulatory body that they are in compliance with and of course you have a complaint you have the figures there !!

Be sure to set out the exact complaint with the figure you have and don't pussy foot with the language I have been mis-sold this product and I expect redress in full or words to that effect

I have just taken on a complaint for quite a large sum with a leading bank and the client told me she didn;t want to get the nice lady [advisor] in trouble, it was settled in 10 days with a full refund and lost interest [it was an investment] and compensation

I would send a letter to both with a CC ask who their trade/professional or other body that regulates them {i know but this always puts the bejabers up 'em] is if you are not satisfied [they have to tell you this] and await a reply But always give them a time frame to reply 10-14 days is normal from receipt of letter[send recorded] if you're unsure of where to send it ring them and ask them ALL companies have a compliance team who deal with complaints never accept we don't have such a thing!!

Never get into a long correspondence with them they may try to baffle you in the hope you'll go away give them the chance to respond and if you're not happy tell them and give them one chance for full redress if they still don't act then take it further AND don't deal with them any more let the ombudsman sort it out

Don't take this blarney, if you had a pre=existing condition that you couldn't claim on whats the point of taking out PPI!!

That is just a stalling tactic to fob you off!!

Welshdresser

Sorry didn't see your letter until I posted the above. I would leave out the 8 weeks and replace with 'I expect a reply within 10 days of receipt of this letter' The 8 weeks allows them to get into a correspondence with you,

You could finish with ''I expect the matter to be expedited forthwith or I am prepared to pass the matter to the Financial Ombudsman'' or words that you are comfortable with

Apart from that it is a very good letter. Let me know!!

Regards Mike

Many thanks for your feedback Mike, I'll amend and send recorded delivery on Monday - will keep you posted.

Seanj - our last interest hike was in August 08. It increased 0.3% to 9.3%

Night all!

Aly

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On a crusade against Firstplus

Aly, i think Firstplus have shot themselves in the foot with the way they work their interest rates, as i was loking on the Martin Lewis site and noticed that someone had a rate rise twice this year in Feb and Sep and a decrease in Apr! i havent had one myself but only got the loan in Jan 08, i honestly think now that they will wait till i have had the loan for a year then increase the rate! there is no normality to the way that they are running!

Good luck with your claim for all your PPI money. Keep us informed

Hello fellow crusaders. Its 3 days since I got a bee in my bonet about this and I have found 9 other FP customers so far who feel the same way about their refusal to lower their interest rates. I've been on this website, Martin lewis's site and the Financial Mail's site. I'll leave this for a week or so and see how many other responses we get. If anyone has any other suggestions to throw into the pot, please do. In the meantime, we need to decide our next move and the best way to try and put pressure on FP to review their stance on this.

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On a crusade against Firstplus