First Direct PPI Claims – The story
First Direct is an online and telephone based retail bank headquartered in Leeds, UK.
It is a division of HSBC Bank plc and has been in operation since 1989. First Direct bank was the first bank in the UK to offer banking services without any branches.
This was an incredibly novel concept at the time but First Direct has steadily grown since its conception, so that is now has 1.16 million customers.
First Direct broke the trend when it came to banking. Unfortunately, they were not any different to their banking competitors when it came to the the mis-selling of PPI.
The PPI malpractice came to light
As people tried and failed to claim on their PPI, the noise of disgruntled banking customers grew louder throughout the early 2000’s.
By 2006 prominent politicians such as Vince Cable MP were questioning “the serious problems and inflated premiums and anti-competitive behaviour in the market for payments protection insurance.”
Indeed, Mr Cable was suspicious that there was “a scandal lurking here”, and sadly, he was right.
First Direct – part of HSBC scandals
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) was given responsibility for regulating the insurance industry in 2005.
Recently the FSA has changed it’s name to the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority).
Since their appointment, HSBC has been fined several times by the FSA for malpractice.
In December 2005, HSBC were fined £100,000 by the FSA for transaction reporting breaches.
In July 2009 they were fined £3 million for security failings.
More recently, the FCA fined HSBC £10.5 million for mis-selling products to elderly customers.
Add to these scandals the fact that HSBC have also been caught rigging LIBOR and the foreign exchange rate, not the mention the £2.5+ BILLION set aside to compensate for PPI mis-selling, and it’s easy to understand why UK consumer trust in the bank has pretty much disappeared.
Making a First Direct PPI Claim
If you have had a loan, mortgage, or credit card with First Direct within the last 25 years there’s every chance you’ll have been paying for PPI.
We’ve made claiming easy, taking the stress out of you having to deal with the paperwork, the stress, and the tactics employed by the bank to try and wriggle out of paying.
So….how do you start your claim?
#1: The first option for you is to fill in the form which can be seen on every page. By doing so, we will send you out a form in the post for you to complete. Once we’ve received the form back in the freepost envelope we send you with your form, we can make a start on your First Direct PPI claim.
#2: The second option for you is to download our form, which again can be found on every page by clicking the ‘download pack’ button. Simply print it out, complete it and send it back to us, our address can be found here. Once we receive is back we’ll let you know and make a start.
Our team of experts are on hand to answer any questions you have via telephone, email or our live chat facility.
So….why wait, let’s get started!