Friday, August 21, 2009

Reality Dawns

Reality Dawns

As I have noted many times on this site, at some stage the hapless millions who were conned into buying useless, underperforming endowment mortgages will have to cover the shortfall when the policy matures.

The penny may finally be dropping, wrt paying off uncovered debt, as The Times reports that people are waking up to the problems of paying off interest only deals (an offshoot of endowments).

"Figures from the Financial Services Authority, which has regulated mortgages since 2004, show that 38 per cent of Britain's 11.1 million mortgage borrowers — or more than one in three — may have made inadequate provision to pay off their capital sum.

Many are in negative equity and the savings products taken out to cover the capital repayments have fallen short. That 38 per cent figure does not include those with endowments or buy-to-let investors who took out interest-only mortgages to keep the cost down
."

These policies are beginning ot mature at the very time the property market/economy is struggling to pull itself out of the mire.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Unbelievable Betrayal

Unbelievable Betrayal

The hopeless and hapless FSA has now published its final decision on its endowment mis-selling consultation, and has ignored consumer concerns about the proposals.

Which? describe this as "an unbelievable betrayal of consumers".

Which? goes on to note that the FSA had 234 responses to their consultation. Only 10 responses were from firms and industry bodies. Despite this, the FSA only addressed the concerns of firms who felt that the proposals go too far.

Which? quite rightly states that the FSA is allowing the financial services industry to dictate policy once again; get away with ripping off the consumer.

The FSA will not be missed when it is abolished after the next election. It has been worse than worthless in its role as consumer "champion", and serves only the needs of its paymasters in the financial services industry.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Things Will Only Get Worse

Things Will Only Get Worse

Those of you who hung onto a flimsy straw of hope that the recent rebound in the FTSE may help draw a line under your collapsing "with profits" (such a misnomer for such a lousy product) endowment policy, need to read this article in The Times.

The bottom line is that the returns will worsen, and that the life assurance companies will continue to cut bonuses.

Either way, in good times or bad, the policy holder picks up the bill for the failures of these useless products and the conmen who sold them to you.

We need a class action to bring these companies to heel!