There may well be a case to be made for complaining about the Mail on Sunday articles, if you feel they contain inaccurate and misleading statements by lenders likely to distress vulnerable people, to the Press Complaints Commission. Did a lender make a statement about their conduct which you know to be false? (E.g. providing proof, being sympathetic.) Did Abbey get your hopes up only to let you down when you realised that their 'concessions' weren't all they first seemed to be? The PCC have a web site (www.pcc.org.uk/) but complaints must be in writing. Write to: PCC, 1 Salisbury Square, London EC4Y 8JB. The articles which contains the misleading statements may well breach the PCC Code Article 1 on Accuracy. Perhaps at the very least someone who represents mortgage shortfall victims ought to be given the right of reply to these articles; ideally the PCC should have a look at these web pages and see the grim reality.

-- Eleanor Scott (eleanor.scott@btinternet.com), October 22, 2000

Answers

Most definitely Eleanor, I think I have good cause to complain considering the Abbey's solicitors wrote to me in July stating that their clients * would not normally accept less than 50% of the debt outstanding.* Therefore the statement in the Mail on Sunday has no substance what-so-ever. It is totally false. I too think we should have been given the right to reply. Jacky.

-- jacky jones (jackycolin.jones@virgin.net), October 22, 2000.

A post-script to this: the PCC did indeed intervene, and brokered an agreement with the Mail on Sunday which will give us an opportunity to express our views in their next article on mortgage shortfall.

Please send your views to me.

-- E Scott (eleanor.scott@btinternet.com), September 09, 2001.