Equitable victims fear government may seek cut in compensation

Keep on delaying,commission another report and problem solved as we victims die off .It is akin to encouraging inflation to reduce the debt problem and a game we all recognise as it is as old as the hills

when you look back and realise MP's and large % Judge's plus Boot's ALL got out without any penalty poor old Joe Blogs has been kicked into touch "Out of sight -out of mind"

at least this Government is thinking of restoring faith in justice and to be honest any payment has to come from somewhere unknown and is better than nothing under previous slippery regime.

A very Equitable tale ?

A combination of inertia and my financial adviser saved me from a fate worse than death – growing old without enough money to live on - and he did this by telling me what NOT to invest in. Yes, Equitable Life.

I rang him the day I first learned about Equitable Life saying I thought it sounded the best thing since sliced bread – and no middle men, so I would move all my investments over to Equitable Life and would not be needing him anymore. He replied that I should check out their liquid asset ratio first, but I never got round to finding out what he meant by this, or to moving all my investments to Equitable Life.

This happened a good year before anything broke in the press on Equitable Life’s malaise. If HE knew, then why didn’t the authorities know and if they did, were they really powerless to stop the inevitable? If so, then heaven help our new auto enrolled, NEST pension savings !

And another thing - If you loose money because of a delay in receiving what is due to you in the commercial world, you are allowed to charge an interest rate to cover the cost to you of late payment. EMAG savers should be paid interest on compensation that was due in 2001 to help cover the cost of this 10 year delay. It is what Equitable Life investors are missing out on now that needs compensating, not just what went missing due to maladministration.

And another thing - This compensation was not paid to us when it should have been during very good years for the economy. This is not our fault, so there is no reason for government to adjust compensation to allow for the bad current economic conditions.

And another thing - The contention that if Equitable Life had been properly regulated there would have been little difference to the outcome surely proves that the regulations were not even worth the paper they were written on which in itself is justification for compensation?

And another thing - The way full compensation is worked out should not remain a mystery like a with-profits investment. I voted to get Labour out at all costs - even a hung parliament. I voted for “fairness and transparency of government” but in an amazingly short time we have been shown the dark side to this ConLibDem pact – and government practices are already returning to normal.

To get back to my financial adviser – bless his cotton socks - he eventually won £3 million on the lottery and went incognito. He always used to finish his advice sessions with “Of course, you could just put it all on the lottery.” Even doing that could have been a better outcome for those poor Equitable savers.

Kristine S-O