I'm getting warnings about the upcoming PPI deadline - which is now a mere 22 months away.
For those perhaps not in the UK (I've no idea if this is an international phenomenon), Payment Protection Insurance is a product that companies have over the years endeavoured to sell to anyone that took out a loan or a credit card, and basically protects them in case something bad happens (they lose their job, become ill, get their leg eaten by aliens etc).
And there's been a scandal over the past few years that PPI was "missold" to consumers, for example giving people the impression that it was an essential part of the loan repayments.
I had Payment Protection Insurance once, on one loan, and years ago the loan provider wrote to me, highlighted that they may have missold me PPI, and sent me a check for the amount I spent on PPI, plus insurance. Job done.
Nevertheless, I have - along with innumerous other people - been bombarded with calls, emails, and text messages from financial recovery specialists offering to track down missold PPI. I've just got rid of one of these specialists, who in their call to me started with:
"Hi, is this Mike Raven?"
"Yes."
"of [address]?"
"Yes."
The above conversation apparently was enough to register me on their database as someone who wanted PPI recovering (with a huge chunk of the repayment going to the financial recovery firm, no doubt) and meant that I received ever more frantic text messages begging me to give them all of my financial details so that they could hunt down my non-existent PPI.
I'm forced to have a permanent telephone line to my house in order to receive my internet service, however I have not had a telephone plugged in for years, because the only calls I ever received on the landline was for PPI (occasionally with other useful calls asking if I wanted double glazing, house insurance, to give a charity I'd never heard of money, or perhaps to enquire if I owned an abattoir that required repainting).
That's not to say, of course, that I don't get calls on my mobile about PPI.
I. Do.
So, I'm looking forward to the deadline. I just wonder what the next annoying reason to ring me will be...
