h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Last year my endowment company said that there might be a bit of a shortfall on my endowment scheme when it matures in the spring of 2017.

I was a little concerned about that.

However I wasn't overly worried because whilst the endowment was targeted way back when at an original figure of £38,500. The actual amount of interest-only mortgage that it is currently ear-marked to pay off is much less at £33,000. So in my mind I had a bit of wiggle room.

Now I find that the company has had a bad year and its prudent forecast for the final payout is now only £26,400

What the f**k happened!?

I can see a mis-selling complaint in the offing

File the complaint anyway, even if the market picks up and they have a good couple of years you should get something if you were mis-sold. How much longer until you need it to pay out?

for you

I'm so glad I got mine converted to a repayment mortgage in 1986.

Regarding the journal title, I hope you're not disappointed in any other department?

And there I was thinking this was going to be a 2legs Journal.

I'd get a wibble on if you do want to complain, isn't there a deadline looming for such complaints?
I remember seeing adverts on TV towards the end of last year saying something about this.

I wonder how they manage to work out whether one of these was mis-sold. I recall rejecting an 'investment' mortgage (as they've been renamed) when I took mine out on the grounds that I didn't want to take the risk. I was warned there was one of course. Which is what I believe the grounds for complaint are. If you weren't told about the adverse risks and/or weren't advised that endowments are poor performers over short term periods.
How do they know what an adviser told you face to face 10 years previously? More to the point, doesn't it just come down to one word against another unless a tape recording was made?

Anyway, away with these musings, all the best of luck with the complaint, not a nice problem to have

Hi BureauGris

The same thing happened to me!

I consulted one of these 'Mis sold your endowment' places and was told that the onus to prove I had been mis-sold was on me - I had to have something in writing to prove that the endowment was mis-sold to my ex-husband.

The person who sold it to him told him to take up an new endowment and cash in the old one - which apparently is awful advice and only makes money for the 'finance advisor' - and even though my-ex did it and followed his advice, that's not enough to prove that the guy who sold it mis-sold it as we don't have his advice in writing.

The second endowment, which is the one I/he still have - is currently showing a shortfall of about 50%. Apparently we can't claim mis-selling because, again, we can't prove that the guy didn't point out that it may not pay our mortgage off, and that the shortfall might be up to, or even above 50%.

The bit that gets me is if it wasn't mis-sold, why on earth would anyone have chosen them? They were actually more expensive than a normal mortgage at the time, the big selling bonus was that you'd end up with cash in your hand, of an undefined amount at the end of the day!

I've got absolutely nowhere with mine - if you do get anywhere let me know?

PS I'm also pretty confused as to how an investment, over 25 years (due to end in about 5 years time) can have made a loss of about 50% over the last 25 years. Normal investments seem to have done fine - do you think it's just one great big scam?

On reflection, I don't think that mine is a mis-selling. I think that it's just turned out to be a duff product.

The guy who sold it to me was an independant financial advisor who in the process of selling did something that was quite unprecedented at the time: he told me exactly how much commission he would make from the sale. In fact he went further than that, he showed me the commission schedules for *all* of the endowments that he could sell. Now as he was an IFA, that was *all* the endowments that were out there on the market.

I also remember when he brought up the subject of pensions - as you do if you're an IFA - and I said that I was in the NHS scheme. He replied by closing up his briefcase and telling me that if anyone ever advised me to leave that scheme and buy a private pension, that I should stand up and walk, nay run, as far away from them as possible.

As far as I remember other stock market investments have gone down in value which is why endowments have.

I had an interesting dicussion with an IFA the other day when I told him that considering I grew up on Benifits and had my University fees paid for my the state I think I have a moral duty to pay tax, and I wasn't interested in finding out ways to pay less. He did look confused.

Yes Z, but we all know that you're just odd like that. Sweet and lovely naturally, but odd none the less

Hmmm, I've been receiving benefits for all of my life (maybe not for about five years when I was working in offices before I had J) and I consider it my moral duty to continue claiming as much as I can for as long as I can. I've only got another five years to go before J gets to 16 and they're likely to stop (well, some will revert to him), so I'm also doing my best not to pay any tax I don't have to by claiming as much tax back as I can - pension contributions, charity donations etc.

I think my parents got out of their endowment because my dad remortgaged for money for his business. The only paid £11,000 for the house originally, so I don't see how an endowment could have avoided paying that small sum off.

Peta - http://www.which.net/endowmentaction/complaint/grounds_for_complaint.html number 4 here says that what your salesman did was against the rules and is grounds for complaint...