New lows
Bankers stooped to new lows when it came to missold PPI as they fooled customers into buying what essentially turned out to be a worthless policy. Not only were customers told it was mandatory in order to avail a loan, credit card or mortgage, some officials actually incorporated the PPI costs into the loan quotes.
There has been bad news all around with PPI as it has been revealed that a whopping 85 percent of PPI claims have been rejected, often on obscure grounds. Banks have found their reputations severely affected and several big names in the industry have also been found to be involved in the whole mess.
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has slapped heavy fines on ten of the errant banks and issued reprimands. The banks have fought back saying the FSA has overstepped its authority and a war of words has broken out. Bankers have also hit back at the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) which has revealed that it has been swamped with PPI-related complaints, most related to clients being cheated. Banks on the other hand have countered and said the complaints are more on so-called technical issues than anything else.
But the fact remains that banks deliberately cheated customers into buying policies, even though they were ineligible. PPI was meant to pay for monthly installments that may be missed in case a policyholder became seriously ill, had an accident or lost their job. But the ineligible policyholders found to their dismay that PPI did not help them in any way even though they may have met with an accident, were ill or had just lost a job.
