I’ve received a letter from Alliance & Leicester, what should I do?

In 2008, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) fined Alliance & Leicester £7 million for large-scale mis-selling of PPI policies over the phone, noting that “A&L did not make it sufficiently clear that PPI was optional and it trained its staff to put pressure on customers where they queried the inclusion of PPI in their quotation or challenged advisers’ recommendations.”

Alliance & Leicester was bought out by Santander in 2008 and taken over in 2010 – it operated as a trading name of Santander briefly, but was fully incorporated into the company last year.

Alliance & Leicester provided mortgages and personal loans, as well as credit cards through a partnership with MBNA.

If you took out a loan, mortgage or credit card from the company before it was taken over, it is possible that you were sold PPI without knowing, or under false pretences. If so, you could reclaim PPI from Alliance and Leicester.

What constitutes mis-sold PPI?

You may have been a victim of mis-selling if you answer yes to any of these questions:

• Did you get incorrect or unhelpful advice about PPI?
• Did you feel you were treated unfairly?
• Did Alliance & Leicester fail to tell you PPI was optional?
• Did they imply the interest on the loan/card/mortgage would be lower if you took PPI?

There are a number of other regulations the company should have followed when selling PPI too.

Received a PPI Letter from Alliance and Leicester?

Recently, the FSA issued guidelines to banks and PPI providers about writing letters to people they have mis-sold PPI to. As such, you may have recently had a letter from Alliance and Leicester about your own PPI policies. If you have received such a letter, it should clearly detail:

• What the situation is
• How much money it may have cost you
• What you should do next to begin reclaiming the money you have lost

If You Haven’t Received a PPI Letter from Alliance and Leicester

If you believe you had a PPI policy from Alliance and Leicester and that it may have been mis-sold, but you have not yet received a letter from the provider, it’s still worth getting in touch with them to assess the situation and find out if you could be eligible.

Alliance and Leicester, like all other providers, have been instructed to send letters to consumers it believes it mis-sold PPI to. In reality, the number of consumers it actually mis-sold to could far exceed those who receive letters.

Either contact Alliance and Leicester directly or, if you prefer not to deal with it yourself, seek the services of a reputable claims management company. Note that this will incur a fee, however.