The Endowment Diary

Welcome to the Wild West

I received an interesting letter today, from the complaints company handling my claim for compensation the mis-selling of my pre 1988 endowment mortgage.

It seems that in the last few days another company has been writing to some of their clients. This “interloper” claims that the complaint cases have been transferred to them.

In other words, the “interloper” is trying to poach the business of the company that is meant to be handling the endowment complaint.

My complaints company points out that it has not transferred any cases to another company, and has not agreed that this company may contact its clients.

Their letter then goes on to ask me if I have been contacted, and to forward any details that I may have, I have not.

I rang to ask them how it was that this “interloper” had managed to get hold of their clients’ details. I was told that they do not yet know, they are conducting an investigation to find out.

This rather sad, and disturbing, tale shows how unpleasant and poorly regulated the whole endowment industry has become. In my view it is more akin to the Wild West, rather than a well regulated financial system in the 21st century.

Not only are 6 million endowment policy holders facing an expected £40BN shortfall on their mis-sold policies, they are now subject to dirty tricks by unscrupulous sharks seeking to bleed them dry of even more of their hard pressed funds.

In my view, the FSA and insurance companies need to get their act together and sort this disgraceful situation out once and for all.