PPI: banks to invite customers to claim compensation Martin Wheatley of the FSA said: "This is important guidance and marks a key moment in the story of PPI. So far the majority of payouts have been for complaints received before, or put on hold during, the judicial review. However, we are now beginning to see firms considering how to treat customers who were mis-sold but have not complained. We think that the redress due from this process may well exceed what has been paid so far. Historically, response rates for these types of exercises are low - sometimes as low as one in 10. Therefore, if you receive a letter, it's important to consider your PPI purchase carefully and, if you feel you have been a victim of poor practice, please do respond to the firm. The FSA also warned that customers have just six years from when they bought the policy - or three years from when they first became aware of the problem - to make a complaint. As a result customers who receive a letter are warned to act promptly, particularly if it is an older policy, to ensure their complaint does not fall foul of any time limit. Banks have set aside some £7.6bn to cover PPI claims. Richard Lloyd, the executive director of Which?, said: "We've seen some really poor examples of communication from banks to their customers. There is no excuse for banks making the PPI mess even worse through unclear and confusing contact with customers entitled to compensation. Paying back mis-sold PPI promptly must be a priority for lenders that made billions from this deeply flawed product. It's essential that the regulator's new guidelines require all financial providers to be clear with people about their rights to a claim, the process and the time frames for lodging a complaint. Consumers have been warned by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) and other consumer groups to take complaints direct to their provider, rather than use a "complaints handling firm." These organisations typically take up to a third of any redress due. Their success rate is no higher than those seeking to settle PPI claims themselves. Many of these firms use cold call tactics to identify customers who have bought PPI. Last week the FOS said PPI remained the issue about which it received most complaints. In the last six months of 2011 it received about more than 46,000 complaints about PPI - accounting for half of the total number of complaints. It said it expected to see the number of PPI cases "rise significantly" this year.