In October my father went to Spain to recuperate from a triple heart bypass operation. While he was there, he was pressured by the son of the friend who accompanied him into putting down a deposit of 6000 euros amounting to 4253.64 on a holiday apartment in Marbella. This man, Adrian Weinberg, was a rep for a property development company there. My father had no interest in buying a property in Marbella, but Mr Weinberg refused to give up and in the end my father reluctantly handed over his Lloyds TSB premier visa debit card, believing that he was protected by this. The deal was subject to 2 conditions: firstly, Mr Weinberg promised that the deposit was fully refundable within 10 days if my father changed his mind and wrote this on the contract; and secondly, the deal was subject to the approval of Peter Talbot, my father's Financial Advisor.
When my father returned to the UK 3 days later, he contacted Mr Talbot who advised him strongly against the deal. Mr Talbot e-mailed Mr Weinberg immediately to ask for a refund, but received no response.
My father went straight to the local branch of his bank in Leamington Spa, where the Manageress, Leona Sadler, told him to write to the Customer Service Recovery Department in Birmingham. My father wrote a long letter explaining the situation, but received a response saying that as it was an "unusual transaction", there was nothing the bank could do.
A couple of years later my father received a new visa debit card when his old one expired. With it was a leaflet that said he was fully protected by it. He wrote a letter to the Head of Card Services, Philip Robinson, explaining what had happened in Marbella, but received no response.
It was shortly after that that he learnt of the existence of the Visa Debit Disputes Department and realised that his bank had misdirected him to the wrong department. Unfortunately, as there was a time limit of 120 days within which to submit a claim, he was now too late.
He was advised to write a letter of complaint to the Customer Service Recovery Department in Birmingham, but several letters back and forth yielded no results. The bank then advised him to take the matter up with the Financial Ombudsman.
He filled in the appropriate form and sent all the relevant correspondence with it. Although he provided all the appropriate supporting documentation and it was blatantly obvious that the bank was at fault. And that neither he nor his correspondence had been forwarded on to the right department, it was clear that Kirti Mepani, the Financial Ombudsman employee, was nitpicking over irrelevant details in order to side with the bank regardless. She decided against my father on the basis that he had not been able to provide the original letter he wrote to the bank in November and also stated that he had voluntarily handed over his debit card to Mr Weinberg, completely ignoring the fact that the deal was subject to 2 conditions as already stated: firstly, that it was fully refundable within 10 days (guaranteed under European law) and secondly, that it was subject to the approval of his FA. She totally disregarded the fact that if no one was ever allowed to dispute a transaction, then the Visa Debit Disputes Department wouldn't be in existence and if he had been correctly directed to them, then he would have been able to put in a claim within the 120 day deadline. Finally, she decided that there was no guarantee that he would have got his money back even if he had been correctly directed to them. However, if the claim had been put in in time and Adrian Weinberg had ignored it, then my father would have won by default. As Mr Weinberg had ignored all attempts to recoup the money by Mr Talbot and my family, then it is almost certain that he would have ignored the claim as well. The probability of this happening was over 90% and therefore the odds should have been in our favour.
Luckily and accidentally, we found the original letter my father wrote to the Lloyds TSB in November on his old Apple Mac in the attic. We printed a copy off and sent it in with our appeal against Kirti Mepani's decision, also submitting a witness statement from Peter Talbot, but despite this, a few weeks later we received a rejection from a Financial Ombudsman called David Millington.in his report Mr Millington totally missed the whole point of our complaint, which is that my father was misdirected by his local branch of the Lloyds TSB and told to write to the wrong department, fussing over a stupid petty and irrelevant detail that he addressed the letter to Customer Service Recovery, rather than Customer Relations. So what? This is clearly who he was told to write to by the bank and it's the same address AND the same wrong department, as verified by the letter from Peter Talbot. The fact of the matter is that he should have been directed to the Visa Debit Disputes Department and NOT some department in Birmingham at all. It seemed that Mr Millington was trying to use this detail to imply that the letter wasn't genuine instead of focusing his attention on the real issue in hand. Ms Mepani also said that the bank were still maintaining that this is the correct procedure when it is not! It's unbelievable that Lloyds TSB are still giving out incorrect information and sending their customers to the wrong department, seriously jeopardising their chances of recouping their money because of the 120 day time limit.
Secondly, Mr Millington ignored the fact as made in our Appeal Statement that we would have almost certainly won by default if my father had been correctly directed to the Visa Debit Disputes Department within the 120 day time period. He also ignored the fact that my father's authorisation of the transaction was subject to 2 vital conditions - the approval of his Financial Advisor and the fact that the money was fully refundable within 10 days if he changed his mind.
Thirdly and crucially, he got his facts wrong. He stated incorrectly that my father did not receive a reply from the bank in response to his original letter and blamed him for not chasing it up. However, he did receive the ridiculous fob-off saying that it was an "unusual transaction" as documented over and over again in the correspondence. Clearly Mr Millington didn't even bother to take the time and effort to read it properly - or maybe he can't read and needs to take a course in literacy? It is clearly both incompetent and negligent of him to ignore such a vital point in the final decision-making process. At the time my father didn't realise that he could do anything about it as he was unaware of the existence of the Visa Debit Disputes Department. The onus was not on my father to chase the bank at all, but on the bank to redirect both him and his correspondence to the correct department.
Furthermore, he said that he didn't have a copy of Adrian Weinberg's contract, but what difference what the contract from the rep in Spain said when the money was refundable within 10 days under European law anyway?
Both Kirti Mepani and David Millington were incompetent, negligent and totally - almost deliberately - mishandled the case. One might believe from their actions that they are both corrupt and received a backhander from Lloyds TSB, another corrupt organisation, for taking their side instead of ours.
A message of warning to other consumers - do not believe that you will obtain justice by contacting the Financial Ombudsman. The fact that you are given a voice to complain is nothing but an illusion and will lead to injustice being piled upon injustice, and just exacerbate matters further and make you feel even worse.
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