Yes, but treat the PPI and charges separately. You can address them on the same letter, but treat them as two different complaints. Charges are being contested over their legality and as yet, no bank wants to be the first to go to court. PPI is being contested as it has often been miss-sold. The legality of the cost of PPI is not however in question. Whether the policy was appropriate for you and whether you were given all the information about it (including costs) in order to make an informed choice, is another question.

If I remember rightly, they had Platinum, Gold and Silver cover, but these were for an Accident Cover policy. It's what's known as "specialty" insurance. It's still a general insurance policy and the premium will have been financed by your loan and of course, interest charged on top. This policy would pay out to you in the event of a serious or disabling accident (loss of sight, limb, hearing etc). PPI on the other hand covers your loan repayments when you're off work (usually for more than 14 consecutive days). Whether it was PPI or Specialty insurance, they are ALL optional and not a condition of the loan. It was a fairly common practice in Household Bank and Beneficial Finance to tell customers it was compulsory. If you saw the Whistleblower programme about Barclays' selling techniques, well that's just like HFC. Obviously, these are just my opinions based on my experiences whilst working there. Claiming back the PPI is different from claiming back bank charges. I've seen other people in other threads state that it's just the same, but it's not. Charges are being contested on the grounds of the legality of the charge. PPI is being contested on the grounds that it was miss-sold. In order to start the ball rolling, your SAR should detail how they established that the policy was suitable for your needs. You cannot sell a policy to a customer unless you have established that they have a need for it and that they have no other cover or funds they could use. There have been a lot of high profile cases recently of big companies failing to treat customers fairly when selling PPI. Capital One is a prime example - FSA fines Capital One for PPI sales failures First off, I would make a formal complaint to the bank about it's sales practices and that you were told it was optional and you've only recently found out that it wasn't. They will bat it off and say you signed for it, blah blah blah. But don't give up - you can then take the complaint to the 2nd stage where it is reviewed by a senior manager. They will try to bat you off again but when you write back to say you are still dissatisfied, they will then need to issue you with a final response. At this stage, they will make the decision whether to risk losing the case with the Financial Ombudsman Service or just pay up. You can only take your case to the Financial Ombudsman Service once they have issued a final response, or if they have failed to resolve the complaint to your satisfaction within 8 weeks of it being received by them. The FOS is a free and impartial service and any decision from them in binding upon the bank. Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.

I have to disagree - HFC are just sabre rattling with those letters about not recognising the OFT review. They are just hoping that some customers will back down if they take a firm approach. But with a site like this that is informing the public of their rights, about how to take legal action, about how to use the Financial Ombudsman Service, more and more people are getting what's owed to them. I can practically guarantee (as I had the misfortune of working there for a number of years!) that HFC will not have the balls to be the first bank to take the issue of unfair charges to court. I don't think I've even seen a case go as far as the FOS yet either. Anyway, good luck to ukaviator!

Hi Cheiro PPI is entirely optional with Beneficial Finance. If anyone told you it was compulsory, I am afraid they lied to you. I used to work for Beneficial and this practice is not uncommon. Unfortunately, Beneficial Finance (which is a trading name of HFC Bank Ltd, which in turn is a division of HSBC) is a highly incentivised sales force. They were targetted to sell PPI to 85% or more of their customers. High pressure + big incentives = non-compliant sales practices. Beneficial Finance is regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). One of their statutory objectives is to provide adequate protection and redress for consumers and they do this through the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). In the first instance, you should make a "Subject Access Request" for all the information they hold about you. You will need to send them a cheque for £10 for this. In particular, you want a copy of the branch file that shows how they established that the PPI policy was suitable for you. Then you should make a formal complaint to the bank. If they are unable to resolve your complaint within 8 weeks (by refunding your PPI), you have the right to take your complaint to the FOS for adjudication. Insisting that a policy is compulsory when it is not, is technically a fraudulent claim. Proving that will be the hard bit. If you make a fresh post in the PPI or HFC Household section, I'll do whatever I can to help. Good luck!

They don't - it's pure economics to them. Some customers will settle at this stage and that's money saved to the bank.

Agreed - go for the full amount. They are offering half because they know some customers will settle early, which is money saved for them. They will try this with everyone and to be fair, they are a business, not a charity afterall. So it's no surprise, but it's hardly about Treating Customers Fairly is it?!

Oh my God - that BT call is hilarious!!! I loved the way the sales guy still tried to make a pitch despite the torrent of abuse, only to get shot down again! As for your letter, I'd try to keep the speel to the bare minimum. Being in breach of any of the Principles for Businesses is bad enough. The FSA has had a huge clamp down on Principle 6 though - Treating Customers Fairly. Several big name firms have been fined over their miss-selling of PPI. Some examples of these are: GE Capital - £610,000 FSA fines GE Capital Bank Capital One - £175,000 FSA fines Capital One for PPI sales failures Just some food for thought

Complain, complain, complain!! If someone threatened me or my wife over the phone and said they were going to put a charging order on my house, I'd be fuming! Obviously, it all depends on the context in which it was said, but I imagine it was a threat to get you to pay money you simply do not have. These tactics are in breach of the FSA's Principles for Businesses and the Banking Code of Conduct and you should complain on this basis. They are in breach of Principle 6 of the FSA's Principles for Businesses (A firm must pay due regard to the interests of its customers and treat them fairly) and also contravene the 4th Key Commitment of the Banking Code (We will deal quickly and sympathetically with things that go wrong and consider all cases of financial difficulty sympathetically and positively). In order for an application for a charging order to be successful, HFC would have to prove that you have no intention of repaying the debt. If you make at least token payments, that proves your intent to repay. Ultimately, if you don't have the money to pay, you can't pay. Then you should seek advice from the Citizen's Advice Bureau or from the Consumer Credit Counselling Service - both of which are free. If you use a debt management company, they will charge you a fee, which in my opinion is outrageous considering you have enough financial pressures already. If HFC have defaulted you twice, they have likely charged you £50 for each default (this should show up on your SAR). They classify the charge as "Legal Fees" yet no legal action has even commenced at this stage. I would question the legality of a fee where no obvious cost (other than postage) has been incurred.

Hi All Rachel Daramola-Martin works in the Winkfield office (HFC Bank's registered head office). The reception number there is 01344 890000. If you call Birmingham, you will only get put on hold til they transfer your call.

I know Martin - he's a big Hartlepool United fan (don't hold it against him!!). He's actually quite good with his customers and usually deals with complaints fairly and quickly. If you don't get the response you want, Martin will have to refer the complaint up the line for a final response. If the final response is not what you want, then take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman (Financial Ombudsman Service) Keep us updated

Ok, the store DOES act as an agent for HFC Bank and therefore HFC does have responsibility for the sale of it's product. Also, just because you signed the agreement at point of sale, does not automatically mean is was not miss-sold. HFC employ National Account Managers who look after the various retail stores which HFC provide finance to customers through. Part of their job is to ensure their retail partners have sufficient knowledge and training in order to sell HFC's products. Also, HFC are the ones who received the premiums, so ultimately they are the ones you are looking to get it back from. I think they may be trying to deflect your complaint to the retail store, as the retail store is not regulated by the FSA. Your complaint is about the sale of an insurance policy on a regulated contract where the store employee acted as an agent for HFC Bank. The buck stops there - period. The sale of general insurance, whether it's done at a bank, a retail store, over the phone or online, is all regulated by the FSA. I would certainly continue your action for the charges. For the PPI, I would write back and explain that you are not satisfied with the response. They need to issue you with a "final response" on the matter, then you can refer your complaint for the FOS to adjudicate. I personally doubt it will get that far - it will cost them £360 for the case fee alone. But sometimes they can be stubborn so stick to your guns! I'm more than happy to help construct a letter - I'll need more facts about what happened, but make sure you leave out and personally identifiable information; this is a public forum afterall!

Good luck Ian - keep us updated

Miss-selling of PPI is not really a matter for the courts in my opinion. In order for it to have been miss-sold, the bank would have had to make a mistake when assessing your suitability for the policy. Or if they didn't make you aware that it was optional, how much the loan would cost with AND without PPI (HFC are/were notorious for only giving loan quotes with PPI). I think if you took HFC to court purely over PPI, the court would ask if you signed the legal agreement upon which said PPI is quoted. If you say yes, then you are legally bound by the terms of the agreement; case closed. That's regardless of how much the PPI cost - if you signed the agreement, you "agreed" to it's full terms and conditions. I think your best option is to use the bank's internal complaints process then move on to the Financial Ombudsman Service if HFC fail to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction. The decision from the FOS is binding on the bank and if you still want to take legal action, the decision from the FOS will not prejudice any action you take. Now, the 50% goodwill gesture - is this by any chance an offer to settle your loan at half the balance? If so, HFC often do these to reduce their costs. They are not making any money on your overdue loan so they want to cut and run too. To them it's simple mathematics - it's cheaper to offer you a 50% short settlement than to keep administering your account. It's your choice if you want to accept that offer and you must do what you feel is best for you. Usually, those 50% offers have a time limit on them - there is nothing to stop you making a complaint and accepting the offer while your complaint carries on. If the complaint is found in your favour by the FOS, HFC may have to pay you a refund. There's a lot of "ifs" here as I don't know the full facts. The FOS might even say the 50% short settlement is more than adequate compensation. They are impartial - not on your side and not on the bank's side and their service to you is free (but will cost HFC £360 if they have to adjudicate!). Hope this helps.

If they were settling the retail account with a transfer from the credit card, the amounts should still be identical. PPI on a credit card will show on your statement usually at the same time any interest is charged and is normally in the region of 70p for every £100 you owe (or 0.70% of your balance). Ultimately, the bank has an obligation to treat you fairly. Not explaining charges, using unrecognisable jargon and selling you something you never asked for are all prime examples of NOT treating you fairly. The current siege the banks are under at the moment is to do with the legality of penalty charges and people taking the banks to court. PPI is a whole different ball game as the legality is not being contested. But don't let that put you off! If you weren't told about the policy, or that it was optional, they haven't treated you fairly. You haven't been able to make an informed choice - that is in breach of not only the FSA's Principles for Businesses but also the Banking Code of Conduct. If you need any help constructing a letter of complaint, just give me a shout. I'm more than happy to help.

It's only because I'm on annual leave this week I mentioned on another thread - I have this habit of checking emails before switching the pc off and when I see emails from the CAG website, I just can't help myself!! Sad, but true

I assume you have an HFC current account (now Beneficial Finance)? In answer to your question, I would say yes, yes and yes. The RD cheque charge is for a cheque that has been returned as "Refer to Drawer" - a bounced cheque. The NFS is the Non Sufficient Funds charge - you can get this for a bounced direct debit. The Admin Fee can be for anything - usually an arrears fee. In all cases, they are automated and certainly do not cost HFC £15 each a throw. If these are one off charges, I'd make a formal complaint and use their complaints process to get what you want - they will try to bat off your complaint, but if you keep to your guns and say you're not satisfied and you'll go to the Financial Ombudsman if they don't refund, they'll cave in because: 1. It'll cost them £360 if the FOS gets involved 2. It's not worth the aggro of defending the complaint with the FOS. Even if they did defend the case and won, it will not have any bearing on any legal action you may want to take. Hope this helps.

Hi flopper I would doubt very much that you would have to offset your claim against the "written off" amount unless there is some contractual thing in place that allows them to reclaim written off amounts. Last I knew, HFC don't do anything like that. When you re-structured your account, I assume you signed a new contract. If they agreed to waive some of the monies that you owed them, that's their choice and they can't go back on it unless it's in the new contract. If you have asked for a closing balance (or settlement figure), then this would include any and all late fees, admin charges etc. If you've just asked for a balance, this may not include late fees. The difference betweent he closing balance and current balance is the closing balance will include any additional fees and also any rebates on interest and insurance. Hope this helps.

Excellent - seeing this first hand makes life so much easier I'll explain it all: 1st Disburse is the original setting up of your loan. The amount £4,904.64 is your total sum payable. Your loan was also 3 years (total sum payable divided by monthly payment). The Rebate Paid CR's are the life and ASU premiums. The first one is the life cover (£147.13) and the other the ASU cover (£333.52). These premiums do not include the interest. The REG PMT - EFF DTE are your normal monthly payments (Regular Payment - Effective Date). The XFER BAL FROM is actually has nothing to do with the customer at all. It means the debt has been securitised. Banks raise more capital to lend by securitising loans. They effectively sell the value of the debt on to another company. Legally, you still owe the money to HFC and you are still their customer, but as you were a good payer they secured more capital against your loan (and a lot of other customer's loans too). The impact to you of this process is nil. PAYOFF is what it says it is. This is the settling of the account early. This could have been paid off by you paying the cash over the counter or by opening a new loan which consolidated this account. I would also bet that the bounced payment you had on the very first payment is because they didn't get the Direct Debit setup on time for the first payment. That is a common error they make - simple admin task of posting the DD to head office but they send it too late so your bank doesn't have a copy by the time the first payment is due... Hope this helps.

HFC in Edmund Street, Brum is fine - Beneficial Finance is a trading name of HFC Bank. In fact, you're more likely to get the correct response by sending to Edmund Street than you are sending to the branch, but 8th March was over a month ago so you may want to call them to follow up. Your actual legal agreement should be held in the branch where you took the loan from. So you could always visit the branch and ask them to produce it. They can also answer your question just by looking up your account details on the system. If you want to freak the Customer Account Manager out, ask them to look at page 10 on CBS and ask them if the see the words "Rebate Paid CR" after "1st Disburse". What they will see will be two sums - one for the life premium, the other for the ASU (accident, sickness and unemployment) premium. Personally, I would also make an official complaint as they have ignored your reasonable request for information. Pretty poor service in my opinion!

I do sleep sometimes - it's just a habit I've got of checking my emails before bed and there's always a Consumer Action Group email in there! Then I read the reply and can't help myself! With HFC's accounting system, every transaction is recorded and can never be removed. They may have pretty poor sales tactics, but I do admire the accounting system they use. The only trouble is, only employees who are a bit long in the tooth (like I was) know how to interpret the information - it's not something they train branch staff on. So if any kind of mistake was made on their part, but wasn't corrected until some months later, they have to reverse off the payments made since the error temporarily, correct the error then re-apply the payments. It sounds complicated, but for someone with experience using their systems it's very straight forward. So from the sounds of it, HFC need to explain to you why they reversed these payments off. If no mistakes were made on your side, it must lie with them. As for the credit card transaction, I cannot think of any reason why they would debit one amount from the card and credit a lesser amount to the retail account. I would imagine some kind of error has happened which is probably linked to the reversed payments, but without looking at the transactions on the system it's very hard to tell, but it will be traceable. You may want to check your legal agreement for the IFO account - it will detail how much you borrowed. Eseentially, if you settled the account before the option date (also known as the capitalisation date) then you should have paid no more than the amount borrowed less the monthly payments you have made. Watch out for PPI though - before general insurance became regulated by the FSA, companies like Dixons, Currys, PC World all received commission for PPI (and probably still do) and the legal agreements actually came pre-printed with a tick in the "Tick here to take advantage of this cover" box! Unless the customer spotted it, they paid the premium without even being told. Even when they were told about it, they were not told it was optional. It's outrageous behaviour when you look back at it now. I know this first hand when I financed a fridge/freezer and the agreement was with HFC (my employer at the time). I had to fight tooth and nail to get the PPI taken off! From my experience, people who phone up Winkfield and ask to speak to the CEO get their complaints dealt with (and to their satisfaction) in a very short space of time. Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help.

The admin fees accrue in the background and don't actually form part of the balance you owe. I'm not sure why they chose to account for fees this way, but it does mean you are not charged any interest on them. What happens is, when you are 14 days late with a payment, they charge £15. This doesn't get added to your balance. If you pay your normal monthly payment and bring the account up to date, then the £15 becomes payable and shows on the account as arrears. But it never shows as part of the balance. So when you see admin fees being applied and reversed, the balance will not change. If you accrued a lot of fees and never paid them (in addition to your monthly payment), they would beocme payable at the end of the loan in one big payment. If you asked for a settlement figure, the late fees would be included in the closing balance. So yes, I would still proceed as normal - HFC will insist you pay those late / admin fees if you don't contest them.

Hi Ireatianu I'm guessing your intention was to settle the account before the interest was added on an IFO (Interest Free Option) account? Check back through your bank account statements and see if a Direct Debit payment was ever refused or not paid for some reason. The only time HFC reverse off multiple payments like that and re-apply them is to correct a unpaid payment. If they haven't re-applied them, then you need to ask for an immediate investigation. I'd be surprised if the funds have been stolen - they may have some dodgy sales people, but their accounting systems are very robust. There is often an overlap with the last direct debit. For some reason, when you cancel the DD at your bank, HFC don't know anything about it and they claim it anyway. So their systems shows the payment being received. It's only when 3 days later your bank recalls the payment that HFC find out. From your perspective, it's like nothing happened - it won't show on your bank statements. All the work is done behind the scenes as it were. But if you paid your HFC retail account off in those few days, the figure you would have been given would have included the direct debit payment, which was subsequently recalled. This is a failing on their part and not all the staff know of this issue. The £115.36 is the interest that accrued from when you took the account out. Buy paying the account off in the option period, you would not have paid this. But as their system was too slow to realise the DD was cancelled, they gave you a lower and therefore insufficient figure to pay the account off. The same would also apply if there were insufficient funds in your account to pay the DD - they wouldn't know for about 3 days after the schedule due date. To correct it, they should refund all the payments you've made since, less the one payment that was not paid. As for the local branch, Branch Managers always seem to go missing when a complaint comes in. Also, your accounts are not branch based, so they don't really care as they're unlikely to get a sale out of you. Cynical, but likely to be true. All branch staff will have access to your retail accounts, but they won't be able to see your credit card account which means they could sort it out in the branch if they wanted to. I suspect they either don't know how to deal with it (their staff turnover is extraordinarily high) or they are more concerned with hitting their sales targets....

Hi Ian This is a usual sales tactic that they employ. What is actually happening, is the Customer Account Manager is going out to speak to the Branch Manager so they can find a way together to overcome your objections. As far as PPI is concerned, it is 100% optional. If they told you at the point of sale that you couldn't get a loan without it, then that is a lie, simple as that. The first thing I would do is make an official complaint to the local branch, preferably in writing, though a verbal complaint also counts. HFC Bank (parent of Beneficial Finance) is regulated by the Financial Services Authority, which means they have to comply with the complaint handling rules (found in DISP in the FSA Handbook). In short, they have 5 days to acknowledge your complaint in writing and then 4 weeks to resolve it. If they can't, they can send you a holding letter explaining why and then have another 4 weeks. If they can't resolve it in that time, you can ask the Financial Ombudsman to intervene (which will cost them £360 for the case fee, but is a free service to you). The PPI does indeed only cover you for a maximum of 5 years and although your loan is over 6 years, this does not automatically make for a miss-sold policy. You may want to make a complaint about the way the policy was sold, the sales tactics in the office and that it was not fully explained to you. They will probably bat your complaint off immediately by saying you never made a complaint at the time and now it's three years later. You should respond by saying you've been reviewing your finances and only just became aware that the PPI was optional etc. HFC should also have identified if you had any "need" for the policy. By this I mean, do you have any other means of paying the loan if you should be off work due to accident sickness or redundancy? The next question would be: would you want to use those funds to pay the loan should you lose your income? If the answer to both questions is yes, then the policy was inappropriate for you. On that basis, you can claim the policy was miss-sold as the salesperson failed to establish your needs correctly. You should also review the interest rate you are paying on your loan - HFC charge some ridiculously high APR's. A simple search on the net can find you loans at a fraction of the cost HFC will charge you. Remember, HFC need the high APR's to pay the bonuses to their top sales people.... I would also recommend that if you don't want people like HFC Bank phoning you up and convincing you to go and see them, you should register your number with the Telephone Preference Service: (TPS Registration) If they continue to hassle you, you can then complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, who believe it or not, have the ability to impose an unlimited fine for data protection failings! HFC Bank's business model is based heavily on telesales. They rely on people not opting out of direct marketing when they take their loans out. If everyone opted out, HFC would have to find an alternative source of business or heaven forbid, they'd close down!!

The Memo sheet is literally what it says it is. The two notes they've put on mean: 1. CAIS = they've updated your account with the credit reference agencies with an arrangement or other status. 2. The PPI policy was indeed cancelled. You can use the figures I provided (as I estimate they will be no more than £1.00 out - I hope!) or you can send a non-compliance letter as I believe they should have included a copy of your agreement with your SAR. You could try a CCA request, but the SAR should have been sufficient. Thanks for clicking my scales

HFC Bank Ltd, now trading as Beneficial Finance is a highly focused sales organisation. Their staff are strongly incentivised to sell loans and general insurance products. They do have some safeguards in place, a budget planner if you will, that helps them "prove" a client can afford their repayments. However the "Credit Policy Matrix" as they call it, has default amounts for normal expenditure on food, fuel, gas, electric etc. Before I left the company (less than 12 months ago) these figures were last reviewed in the early 1990's are do not truly reflect what a client can really afford. The other problem is, whenever you put money to a sales target, human nature dictates that some people will always take the path of least resistance to achieve it. To give HFC Bank some credit, they do take action against staff who knowingly breach company policies or try to circumvent the built in safeguards. Examples can include artificially inflating a client's income, reducing expenditure on items such as council tax etc. Spookily, a lot of customers only pay £50 a month for council tax.... I wish I did! There are some good people in the branches but remember, they have an immense pressure on them to hit their growth, PPI and collections targets. HFC Bank as a whole has some serious delinquency (bad debts) issues and these could be seen as a reflection of the bank's previous lending practices / policies. All regulated lenders have a responsibility to assess their customer's needs and to ensure they don't over extend them. It's easily done and customers often don't realise they are doing it. Therefore the bank would also have to take some (but not all) responsibility for the lending decision. There is an inherent risk in lending that even the best underwriter could not foresee, which is why they charge an interest rate to reflect the risk.