“Time is running out!” screams the flyer from an endowment claims handler that landed on my doormat the other day.

It encourages recipients to get in touch “before it’s too late” if they think they might have been mis-sold a mortgage endowment.

It points out that if your endowment is not going to reach its original target value, you might have a case for claiming compensation.

These things are true.

More than 600,000 people have been compensated because they were mis-sold these mortgage linked investment policies.

And you need to hurry if you want to follow in their footsteps, as many leading policy providers are now enforcing a time limit on claims.

What the firm (which deserves to remain nameless) fails to mention is that a shortfall alone is not grounds for a claim.

And it goes on to urge readers: “Don’t throw your money away.”

Strangely, it doesn’t mention how much it charges for its services, so I visited its website to check.

Turns out it’s a whopping 25 per cent of any cash received – money that’s meant to make up the mortgage shortfall.

If it really means what it says about not throwing money away, it should be giving would-be claimants the advice they really need: make the claim yourself.

It’s not difficult, you’ll be just as likely to succeed – and it won’t cost you a penny.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 30th, 2007 at 5:59 pm and is filed under UK Mortgages, UK Personal Finance, Investments, Money saving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.