CCLS - Consumer Credit Litigation solicitors - Burleys Solicitors CLOSED

orc_2

From the Daily Mirror 18 March 2010

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2010/03/cartel-client-review-cant-affo.html

"Thousands of cash-strapped, vulnerable people entrusted £20million to this man who said he could write off their debts.
Cartel Client Review took up to £495 in upfront fees from people desperate to reclaim bank and mortgage charges and dump credit card debts.
It promised the fee would be refunded that if there was no valid claim - but yesterday boss Carl Wright (pictured left) admitted to us there's no money for refunds.
Some customers could face legal bills running to £30,000 after Cartel's solicitors failed to insure themselves against losing claims, and were shut down last week on suspicion of dishonesty.
Now the Ministry of Justice is investigating Cartel.
Not good.
Carl Wright styles himself as the man who saw the credit crunch coming. He also saw how to make a huge pile of money out of it.

As his firm gloated last year, the recession "continues to assist the spectacular growth of the financial irregularity market".
But we've been investigating complaints from customers who say they've been kept in the dark by Cartel for months.
Rosemary Duffin, from Dolgellau, North Wales, paid £495 to see if her mortgage was mis-sold.
She was told to expect a result in a year but after hearing nothing, she needed her money back. So she asked us to help.
We clinched her refund and Rosemary said: "I don't know when I would have seen my money if you hadn't intervened."
But others were told they'd have to wait to hear from Cartel's legal team at Consumer Credit Litigation Solicitors - the firm shut down by the Solicitors Regulation Authority last week.
CCLS ran out of money and staff were unpaid for months.
Cartel, meanwhile, should be swimming in cash. Wright paid himself £790,000 in 2008, shortly before spending £735,000 cash on a huge gaff in Warrington. Yet accounts for 2008 show it was more than £560,000 in the red. So is clients' money safe?
"It depends which way you want to say safe," squirmed Wright. "The money is not available to be refunded back."
He insisted the initial legal work had been done as promised and clients now needed to find a no-win, no-fee solicitor to take the case to court.
That could be tricky, he admitted, especially as recent judgments have made many of Cartel's claims "questionable". Wright said he was "gobsmacked" to find CCLS - which shared his office building - was uninsured.
He doesn't know how many of his 35,000 clients are due a refund but, after investing £1m himself, has made sure he's first in line for payouts if Cartel goes bust.
Shamelessly, he said customers should be able to reclaim their fees from their credit card company."

ILW

I don't think that this has been MSEs finest hour. Up to a week ago they were still deleting any threads relating to Cartel. I am just glad that someone had the balls to stand up to this companys bullying tactics. Pity that MSE will now never have that honour.

orc_2

Yes, the court case on 24 March will be illuminating, if it proceeds.

dunstonh

VIGILANT22 wrote: »

Sympathy!...You're having a laugh...were they all gullible?..no just damned greedy...particularly mortgage advisors and ifa's... they knew better..lowlifes the lot of them........

I don't feel sorry for the agents. Our compliance company warned advisers not to get involved with these companies and not one IFA I know deals with these companies.

I think the whole ambulance chasing thing is disgraceful. They make claims that were much of the time outright lies, playing on consumer greed and financial services poor reputation to get people to pay money up front on something that had very little chance of success.

They got lucky with endowments as the complaints process favoured the consumer (because most plans were set up before long term file keeping was considered important - most payouts were not because they were upheld but because there was missing or incomplete paperwork unable to support the recommendation). They are also getting lucky with PPI. Although the way that was sold with loans and cards and single premium was wrong. However, the unenforceable loans thing was a folly. As was contracting out of SERPS (FSA found a around 120,000 out of 8 million may have been mis-sold. Thats just 1.5% - yet claims companies told people that if they were contracted out they were mis-sold, even though 98.5% of people were not). And of course, the banks charges case failed.

Looking forward, endowment complaints are more or less finished now (as most are now timebarred). Bank charges and unenforceable loans are gong nowhere and PPI, whilst a current issue, it is likely to tail off over the next year or two. So, whats next? What if there isnt anything else? These companies live on the inflow of people paying up front fees. With so many refunds going to have to be made, where is the money for those refunds going to come from when it has been taken out of the company in wages, premises, director's income and other costs.

orc_2

I agree with some of what you have said dunstonh.

I don't feel sorry for the agents/ representatives. However, they were duped. They also duped friends and family, whose financial circumstances were posing problems.

I have never advocated debt avoidance.

I have always stressed that people should not use claims management companies.

You are correct re momentum of these companies kept going by firstly, bank charges and then PPI. Both simple procedures, which can be done on a self help basis, with no charge.

It is also worth bearing in mind that for bank charges and PPI, that claims management companies simply used templates that were freely available from consumer web sites. No special skill is involved. There are excellent people giving up their own time, free of charge, because its what they believe in and they have empathy with folk hit by charges or misold PPI.

marshallka

orc wrote: »

I agree with some of what you have said dunstonh.

I don't feel sorry for the agents/ representatives. However, they were duped. They also duped friends and family, whose financial circumstances were posing problems.

I have never advocated debt avoidance.

I have always stressed that people should not use claims management companies.

You are correct re momentum of these companies kept going by firstly, bank charges and then PPI. Both simple procedures, which can be done on a self help basis, with no charge.

It is also worth bearing in mind that for bank charges and PPI, that claims management companies simply used templates that were freely available from consumer web sites. No special skill is involved. There are excellent people giving up their own time, free of charge, because its what they believe in and they have empathy with folk hit by charges or misold PPI.

I totally agree with what you are saying Orc and I myself gave up loads of time in helping people on here to get their complaints off to FOS on their own with no involvement of ANY claims company free or otherwise.

I do however feel that this was probably in vain a lot of the time as looking back and after spending two years on here I now have come to think that lots of the posts about PPI were actually posted by claims management companies (posting as clients) earning a fee and using the site for free. At one time the PPI forum was full of regulars telling posters to go for the a "True copy of the agreement" just for claiming PPI (something that is not really needed!!). This site has been abused by many. I do not feel sorry for agents working on sites like this. They should not have done it. If they are now in trouble for gaining clients/friends and they have let them down - tough!!

marshallka

dunstonh wrote: »

I don't feel sorry for the agents. Our compliance company warned advisers not to get involved with these companies and not one IFA I know deals with these companies.

I think the whole ambulance chasing thing is disgraceful. They make claims that were much of the time outright lies, playing on consumer greed and financial services poor reputation to get people to pay money up front on something that had very little chance of success.

I hear you here dunstonh but what about the greed of the agents too. (which were probably clients too!!!)

orc_2

marshallka wrote: »

I totally agree with what you are saying Orc and I myself gave up loads of time in helping people on here to get their complaints off to FOS on their own with no involvement of ANY claims company free or otherwise.

I do however feel that this was probably in vain a lot of the time as looking back and after spending two years on here I now have come to think that lots of the posts about PPI were actually posted by claims management companies (posting as clients) earning a fee and using the site for free. At one time the PPI forum was full of regulars telling posters to go for the a "True copy of the agreement" just for claiming PPI (something that is not really needed!!). This site has been abused by many. I do not feel sorry for agents working on sites like this. They should not have done it. If they are now in trouble for gaining clients/friends and they have let them down - tough!!

That is one of the difficulties with MSE.

On other sites- Consumer Forum, Legal Beagles or Penalty Charges there are effective controls in place to ensure that vulnerable people are not "tapped" by someone with an ulterior motive.

This place is not as effective as regards moderation and the site team and that is only partly excused by the sheer scale of posts. The problem is made worse by a "pack hound" mentality of some posters on occassions.

orc_2

Everyone should remember that the collapse of CCLS has resulted in

largest amount of potential victims in the 185-year history of the (SRA's)watchdog's founder, the Law Society.


The fall out is immense.

dunstonh

marshallka wrote: »

I hear you here dunstonh but what about the greed of the agents too.

Exactly. With the warnings that were issued by the good compliance companies, those that didnt heed those warnings (or perhaps didnt employ decent compliance companies - which normally cost more) must have only been doing it for the self greed.

The agents may have been duped in some cases but surely that either means they were greedy or they were stupid. Neither of which you want in an adviser.