BANKS WHO PAID BACK £90M AFTER WE EXPOSED SCANDALS
AS WELL as campaigning on the big issues such as pension and mortgages reform, we’ve honed in on mis-selling scandals by banks and insurers.
That’s meant working closely with readers and whistleblowers to uncover wrongdoing.
In 2009, we exposed how Barclays misled 12,000 pensioners into gambling their life savings on risky investments. In January 2011, the bank was fined £7.7 million and ordered to pay back £60 million to customers.
We also exposed how HSBC had mis-sold investment bonds to elderly customers to cover care fees. The bank was fined £10.5 million and ordered to repay £29.3 million to victims.
Then, in 2013, we exposed how Lloyds advisers had between 2007 and 2012 lured cautious savers into fiendishly complicated investments called ‘structured products’.
Eventually, Lloyds admitted as many as one in four of these investments were mis-sold and paid out thousands of pounds in compensation.
But it isn’t just the big scandals we tackle. We receive hundreds of letters and emails from individual customers asking for help. Every week, a selection of these appear in Money Mail’s Ask Tony column.
Over the years, we’ve won you huge sums in compensation.
In March 2015, we helped 68year-old cancer sufferer Michael Brown and his family secure a £500,000 life insurance payment from Legal & General after he was refused a payout because of vague small print.
Michael Onyett was turned down in June 2012 under this same clause by Scottish Provident and with our help won £240,000.
We also helped Megan Ogden after NatWest refused her travel insurance claim in November 2014 following a terrifying assault in Thailand. The bank’s chief executive Ross McEwan intervened and it paid her £575 claim, plus £850 in compensation, having initially offered just £76.
If you think you’re a victim of wrongdoing, first complain directly to the company. It has eight weeks to investigate your case. If it won’t help, you can go to the financial ombudsman for an independent review.
Call 0800 023 4 567 or email complaint.info@financialombudsman.org.uk
But you can also tell us by writing to moneymail@dailymail.co.uk or Money Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT. To investigate, we need you to provide as much evidence as possible.
That means official letters, emails and policy documents. Also include a note giving us permission to talk to the companies concerned on your behalf and a daytime telephone number.