The lender who mis-sold the most PPI in the country, Lloyds has made provision in it's accounts to repay over £3 billion to customers.  However, despite being terribly sorry to all it's customers for the disgraceful way it acted over many years, they still can't help themselves when an opportunity presents itself to 'rip-off' a customer.

A couple of months, one of our clients (a small business customer of Lloyds TSB) accepted an offer from Lloyds to settle a complaint that had been ongoing for over 18 months.  They offered a refund of over £9700 of 'Business Loan Repayment Insurance' (BLRI) that they mis-sold to the client over many years.  We confirmed ,as part of the settlement that they would not treat the client unfairly going forward, particularly seek to reduce is overdraft facility just because he had agreed to accept £9700 of compensation from them.  They confirmed in writing that our client's overdraft facility would NOT be affacted by the settlement agreement in respect of BLRI.  

Guess what happened next?  Yes you guessed it they have now reviewed his facility (2 months before they were scheduled to review it) and reduced his facility by £5000!  Given that they have now broken the settlement agreeement, we are now in the process of having the settlement reviewed by the Financial Ombudsman Service and we are reporting Lloyds TSB to the Financial Services Authority.  Firms were specifically warned by the FSA about treating customers in an adverse / unfair manner just because they had raised a complaint and accepted a payment of compensation. 

Lloyds may have a new CEO but clearly the ethos of the business has not changed! SHAME!