If you bought a card protection or identity fraud protection insurance policy from a bank, a credit card company or a firm called CPP, you may be entitled to compensation.
You may have bought these policies when you first registered or activated your debit or credit card. These policies were often included when you took out a new credit card, or opened a new bank account. It’s probably worth checking through your records to see if you took out a card over the last few years, to see if one of these policies was included.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has said that these policies were often mis-sold. Many of the companies involved have now put money into a compensation fund. You can check the FCA website to see which banks and other companies are part of the scheme.
If you have been affected, you should have received a letter from CPP, asking you to vote on the proposed compensation scheme by 3 January 2014. If the majority of people who are affected vote in favour, you will receive a payout from February 2014.
Special care to make sure you are contacted might be needed if you have moved, and as a result a bank or credit card company has lost touch with you.
It is also difficult sometimes to avoid the letters and texts from claims companies, which many of us just ignore.
If you think you were affected, but haven’t received a letter, the FCA website gives you details of who to contact. It’s worth checking your original policy paperwork, to see if you bought a CPP policy, this is because the compensation scheme only covers CPP policies.
If this applies to you, you won’t have to prove you have been mis-sold, and you won’t have to use a claims management company to claim. You will receive your compensation automatically, as long as you complete a claim form that you’ll be sent in February 2014. You’ll get the money you paid in premiums, less any money paid out by the policy. You’ll also get interest, calculated at 8% a year.
More about the CPP compensation scheme from the FCA website at www.fca.org.uk.
If you think you were mis-sold these kind of policies but they weren’t CPP products, you won’t be covered by this compensation scheme. You’ll need to complain to the company who sold you the product instead. If this doesn’t work, you can take your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). This is fairly straight forward to do, and not something that most people would need help with.
Beware! There are quite a number of claims management companies looking to take a cut of any compensation you might be entitled to, when the process for claiming should be simple.
For help from Salford Citizens Advice visit your local bureau in Eccles, Irlam and Cadishead, SalfordCity, Swinton, Walkden or at Salford Royal.
Telephone our advice line: 0844 826 9695 (if calling from a landline or if calling from a mobile 0300 456 2554).
For Irlam and Cadishead please note that our bureau has moved into Cadishead Library.
Good Luck!
Tom Togher.