Louise Cole from Surrey got back £1500 from Halifax

In December 2006 Louise had recently given birth and was not working as she was looking after her family. Louise had built up some savings and wanted her money to be in the best place to provide for the family in future. As such, she agreed to meet a financial adviser from Halifax to discuss her options.

She was advised to invest a lump sum of £7,000  which was the maximum that could be placed into a Stocks and Shares ISA. When she transferred the ISA less than 3 years later the value was only £6,684 meaning she had lost almost 5% of her money. Clearly, the plans she had made would not happen if she continued to lose money at this rate.

Louise asked Goodwin Barrett for our help and when we investigated her case we discovered she had been advised to invest into funds which were much too risky for someone in her situation. We sent our claim to Halifax explaining that Louise should not have been advised to take this level of risk with her savings.

Halifax looked into the advice given to Louise and agreed that it was not suitable for her at that time. We asked Halifax to refund the money lost and calculate what returns could have been achieved if Louise had invested in a more appropriate area. This resulted in a pay out of £1,557.