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Over 2,000 elderly victims have lost a total of 44 million pounds following the advice of their building societies. They redrafted wills and put their homes & savings into trusts to preserve their money for their families, but it was too good to be true. The Philips Trust went into administration in April 2022 leaving many elderly victims and their relatives without the life savings they worked all their lives to put aside. Iona Bain went to find out more about how this scandal happened, and what victims are doing to get their life savings back.

Since we filmed that, Leeds, Newcastle and Nottingham building societies announced at the start of this month that they will reimburse over 2,000 customers who placed money into those now-failed trusts after being introduced to them while on their branch premises, so that's a huge win for those that have lost their life savings in this scandal.

We contacted both Nottingham and Newcastle Building Societies, Newcastle building society told us it wasn鈥檛 responsible for the actions of Philips Trust Corporation, which caused this problem, and that while there is no legal or regulatory requirement for it to offer help, it is voluntarily fully refunding customers.

Nottingham Building Society told us while Philips Trust Corporation came to look after some of these services, it never had any direct relationship with it, nor was it involved in any of it鈥檚 decisions. It too has pointed out that despite no legal or regulatory requirement to do so, it鈥檚 fully refunding customers despite having no connection with the trust.

Finally, the Financial Conduct Authority told us that while it recognises the distress customers suffered, it was unable to act, as the evidence it has seen doesn鈥檛 show that the building societies were carrying out regulated activity. It鈥檚 pointed out it can only act in areas it regulates, and this is set out in law. It is however pleased that some building societies have confirmed voluntary refunds.

To watch this with subtitles, go to 大象传媒 iPlayer and search for Morning Live from 13/05/24.

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