Investment Claims and Mis-Sold Investments
When it comes to investment claims, the path to getting redress for mis sold investments (or any other financial products, come to that) often isn’t as smooth as it could be. There are a number of obstacles in the way, all of which seem to be designed to make the process of seeing a compensation claim through successfully as difficult as possible.
Take the language used by financial companies to explain their products. Although the regulations do require companies to make the details as plain and easy to understand as possible, that isn’t always followed. You’ll frequently find that there are pages of detail, often using terms which are understood in the finance world but not outside it, or the text is so watered down and simplified that it really doesn’t provide you with the information you need to make an informed decision.
Then you’ve got the rules themselves. It’s all very well knowing that a financial advisor has to follow strict sales procedures, but in order to make a claim successfully you need to be able to point out where, and why, the advisor has broken those rules. That requires a detailed knowledge of what the sales process should be, as well as being able to remember what actually happened at the time.
Should you manage to make your way through all the financial jargon and understand the rules as they should be followed, you can raise your claim with the compliance department of the company or institution concerned. You’ll write to them, get an acknowledgment letter and a notification that they are investigating, and then you sit and wait for a while. If you are lucky you may get an acknowledgement that mis selling occurred and an offer of compensation. On the other hand, the result might well be the dismissal of your claim and lead you to the conclusion that rather than ensuring that the company complies with legislation, it’s there to protect the company and reject as many complaints as it can get away with.
Fortunately, if you do get turned down first time and you still believe you have a case, you can go the Financial Ombudsman. You’ll have to raise the complaint with them again, and let them have copies of all the correspondence between you and the company, as well as any other information they ask for. They’ll then go off and investigate, and if they agree with you will overturn the original decision and order the company to pay out on your investment claims.
The Alternative:
The trouble is, that doing all that yourself is a long process, not to mention risky if you’ve misunderstood anything. For that reason, many people choose to turn to a claims specialist who will be able to handle the claim on their behalf, making sure that the correct understanding is applied to the case. They do all the legal work in return for a fee, and the claimant doesn’t need to worry about properly dotting all the “i’s” and crossing all the legal “t’s” themselves. If you think you have a claim consider speaking to an expert.
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