I am writing as a warning to ANYONE who is self employed and currently paying a Protection premium thru their credit card company.
Since 10-1 Our valued credit card company has been charging us a little over $50.00 per month for a Payment Protection Insurance policy.
Fortunately until this year we have never felt the need to "benefit" from this policy but due to multiple circumstances beyond my control I went ahead and called into Union Plus on Monday Feb. 19th to file a claim for benefits.
I spoke with "Mir" a C/S rep at the PPI department 800-370-6346. Mir took some basic information and asked if he could get a copy of my unemployment benefit statement. I explained to Mir that I am self employed and I never file for un employment. (that is a whole other discussion)
Mir placed me on hold. About 20 minutes later (no joke) he returned to the call to advise me that my status was not applicable for this benefit. I explained that I (my husband as the primary card holder) have been self employed since April. I further explained that when we took our withdraw from the Union in the fall of 2001 and contacted Union plus to change the account over, they solicited this benefit to me as a "buffer" type security for the start up of my business. At no point in time did we get any detailed provisions of the qualifications of this plan. We were told that if we became sick, not able to work, or un employed we could apply for certain benefits and IF the primary card holder died the card would be paid in full up to $5 grand.
After Mir explained that I could not file a benefit claim for PPI I kindly asked him to check and see how much we have paid into the useless program. He came back to the line and said $2618.14!! I about died! I knew it had to be a lot but hell that is half of our current balance! I then demanded that the consider the fault of the solicitor and give me back my premiums. He told me he could not do that and put me through to a supervisor. That gentleman never even picked up the phone at first but THRU Mir offered me a settlement of $200.00 and a cancellation WITHOUT penalty. After I kindly told Mir I was not F% ing around anymore he got me Marco Cruz who repeated his offer.
I then explained that I was not only being frauded but also bargained with to just go away and I am not going to tollerate it. Mr. Cruz then got another person to get on the phone named Lillian. Lillian is filing the dipute and she said it can take awhile. Now, remember I have been self employed longer that the plan has been in affect. They claim that a little terms and conditions was mailed out talking about exclusions. I verbally reviewed that information on the phone and they still sold it to me. Lillian is also compiling and mailing a report to me of ALL the payments I made to PPI. My plan is to have a banker friend compute the interest I lost and then file a suit against them.
So, if you are SELF EMPLOYED your "PPI" aint work A "POOP"!
S j nelson
Sandwich, Illinois
U.S.A.
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