anyone used consumer money matters to reclaim PPI

AgentScully

no point in trying to have a discussion!

dunstonh

No, I don't work for a claims company and have definitely not been brainwashed. Their website says it all! And states their fee upfront. Try reading it! I cannot post the link here as I am a new user but the info I quoted can be found under "Easy Guide" on their website.

If your post reflects what they say then it is misinformation.

As an IFA, can I ask how many referrals fees you have taken from solicitors over the years since the Law Society allowed referral fees to be paid?

None whatsoever. The cases referred to me from solicitors have involved no money being paid in either direction.

So why is it wrong for another company to be paid referral fees for passing leads on - if they are being passed to a firm that is regulated under whatever governing body is relevant to the business?

You have one company generating fake complaints giving reasons such as "invested in high risk funds and wanted no risk" and a bunch of other reasons which just happen to be the same on every single complaint they send in. Whilst the other company send the complaint off, they pass the information to the sister company who then churn the pension (often earning 5-6% of the value in the process) putting the money into the same types of funds that the person is complaining about. How is that ethical?

Hmmm....I think you have a bit of a bee in your bonnet about these companies, have they perhaps pursued you on behalf of a client for a mis-sold policy or mortgage??

I am an IFA. Not a mortgage adviser. I get to see some of the complaint letters these companies send in and they are a disgrace. If you saw them you would have to agree too. My direct experience with claims companies only comes from cold calls to me where they tell me I have been mis-sold. Something which is not possible.

I do have a bee in my bonnet about them as they are as close to a legal scam as you can get. We know that over half of PPI complaints are fraudulent. The vast majority of these comes for claims companies. Most people who get a cold call from these companies can spot the lies they give out.

Would you like to explain how you think telling people lies on cold calls is ethical?
Or how sending in the same template letter for everyone containing the same reasons for everyone is ethical?
Or how about changing the complaint reasons the client gives to something different (very common occurrence)?
Or how about changing a product to another provider to earn a commission whilst putting in a complaint despite them doing exactly the same things they are complaining about?

Debs1972

I'm so glad I read all your comments before letting them in my house! Just rung and cancelled my appt, said I've a sickness & diarrhoea bug and the guy said "do u think you'll be able to let one of our reps come later"??!! How desperate are they??!!!! Will ring them in a week or so and say I'm doin it myself now!

-taff

don't bother ringing them, they don't have to know any of your business.

magpiecottage

Debs1972 wrote: »

said I've a sickness & diarrhoea bug

So do they - just of the verbal variety.

Angry_Cat

Agent Scully

Do you know what CMC's actually do for their fees ? I have an idea that you do but for the benefit of others I will explain..

They send one template letter, personalised with the details of the customer to the bank/credit card provider etc.

In this letter they say refund within 8 weeks or they will go to the fos

Then if a refund isn't mad they go to the FOS (a free service).

So they charge silly fees for a couple of template letters (virtually identical to those on consumer websites) and send a complaint form to the FOS.

No x-file here they are just a con...

And as for Consumer Money Matters... This company bombared people with telephone calls (I used to get three a week) from indian call centres making all sorts of promises about getting money back for ppi.. The one thing that they forget to mention is that anyone can do it for free..

CMC's cannot do anything for a fee that anyone can't do for themselves for free.

magpiecottage

AgentScully wrote: »

according to CMM's website, the average amount paid for PPI at the time of taking out a loan was £1,200. They reclaim this amount from the companies that ripped you off in the first place.

To do that, they must complete the form you can download free from this link.

But to do that, they must either get the information from you or commit fraud. So at best you could be paying £100s or £1,000s for them to do something you could do for yourself

They also manage to extract a payment from the banks for the interest on that money that you have been deprived of over the years at a rate of 8% which is the rate the County Courts use.

Only because banks will do that anyway if the complaint is upheld by them or the FREE Financial Ombudsman Service.

They then extract a further payment for distress and inconvenience caused to you for having been missold the PPI in the first place and for being deprived of that initial amount.

They don't - only in exceptional circumstances will a D&I payment be awarded.

So, you may have paid out £1,200 initially, and they will try and reclaim nearer £2,000 on your behalf - an extra £800.

Leaving aside the fact that there is no evidence to support your figures, if true, then the complainant could have got that for less than a fiver in stamps and stationery.

So, if they then take 34% as mentioned above, that totals £680. So realistically in using them, you are still £120 better off!

Er no in using them you would be £680 WORSE off.

I reclaimed my bank charges from the banks before the claims were closed off and I must say I used MSE to help me do that and I won. However, it took a huge amount of research and work, getting template letters, getting all the bank statements from my bank, trawling through them to find the fees, setting it all out in statements etc and then fighting with the banks' solicitors to get the money! Fortunately, I had the time and tenacity then to do that and it paid off. However, how many of us in this hectic life, realistically have the time and energy to fight solicitors and other legal representatives? How many of us settle for what the banks will reluctantly give us when you could realistically have had more?

The reality is that you would have still needed that data if you had not done it yourself - and you needed only one letter then a complaint to FOS.

Now that the FOS route for bank charges complaints has been closed off no ambulance c

Yes, these firms may be a pain in the backside in constantly ringing us, but not only are they providing jobs in this bleak world

So were the cowboy car clampers. I do not think that many of us are mourning their passing.

they are also providing the likes of you and I with an opportunity to reclaim some money back that was unfairly taken from us.

No - they are cashing in on a straightforward system by making fraudulent complaints in the hope that some are not or are automatically paid out without checking.

Should they not be paid for their work?

A fair day's work for a fair day's pay says I.

The problem is that it is not a fair day's work.

To be fair, based on the average claim - their costs of £680 is hardly worth it to them - from that they will have telephone operators to pay, telephone bills, rent for the call centre offices, reps who call out and do the forms with you, the claim handlers and all of the admin costs surrounding claiming back your money. It is only because they do it on a large-scale that they make it worth their while.

I tried one out recently. They did not bother to complete the FOS form as they are required to but instead completed their own with statements that were untrue.

If you think it is fair for them to do it for nothing, would you mind looking into my potential claims for me and advising me accordingly, following it through to a claim and do it all for nothing? Hmm....I doubt it.

Certainly - first of all YOU get all the information needed from the providers because neither I nor an ambulance chaser can do that.

Then YOU fill in the FOS form and sign it. Take a copy of it - because you need a copy. Then put it in an envelope with a stamp on it. Address that to the person you bought the policy from. Put it into a second envelope and send that to me.

When it arrives I will take the first envelope out of the second and pop give it back to my postman.

Also, with regard to the other comments of them looking into wills and pensions etc..... Have you got a will? If not, then you should have! My father died intestate and it caused an immense problem! If you have children, bank accounts (with or without money in them!), property.....you could be leaving your loved ones with a total nightmare to deal with! Have you asked a solicitor for an estimate for drawing you up a basic Will recently? I know I paid an absolute fortune for my Will to be drawn up at a solicitor's office. And beware of "free wills" offered by banks etc! Read the wording carefully if you have one.....are they executors where they can take a fee from your estate when administering it? If you do have a will have you had it reviewed recently? Is it all still relevant? Who else would review your will for you? And will they do it free of charge? Again, I doubt it.

I don't see what that has got to do with claims chasing.

As for the pensions side of things, my husband has worked for 3 companies in his lifetime and has 3 separate company pensions, all frozen. If someone is capable of getting info from the pension companies about those pensions, deciphering it all (as we have no idea what it all means) and advising us that we would be better off amalgamating them into a better pension - then doesn't that deserve paying a fee for?

You need an independent financial adviser, not a claims chaser for that. The adviser will be specifically qualified (to degree level) to do this. (As opposed to a claims chaser who needs no qualifications at all).

I have researched CMM Ltd in detail and see they are regulated by the Ministry of Justice for the work they do. I have no idea how that regulation works, but it suggests to me that because they are registered, they must be a legitimate company.

If you had really researched it in detail you would know that the regulation DOESN'T work.

I really do not see what you are all griping about and worried about. I seriously think I'll give them a call and see if they will look into a few things for me!

MFU

Cantbelieveit

Most of you on here seem to find it easier to blame a telemarketeer for your own short comings in negotiation and to report a co so easily to the relevant authorities is simply a waste of their time. Cold calling is not a crime, sales is not a crime and to look down on this co for those practices is actually incredibly stuck up!

Angry_Cat

Cantbelieveit wrote: »

Most of you on here seem to find it easier to blame a telemarketeer for your own short comings in negotiation and to report a co so easily to the relevant authorities is simply a waste of their time. Cold calling is not a crime, sales is not a crime and to look down on this co for those practices is actually incredibly stuck up!

Hello Mr (or Mrs) CMC Employee

Do you have any understanding of the law in regard to the telephone preference service (TPS).

This particular CMC used to continually call me in relation to PPI, even though I have never had PPI. Despite this I was told I was owed £3,000 etc.

I made a complaint to Consumer Money Matters and I was told they had no record of me and no records of any calls made to me. So the next time they called me, I recorded the conversation and emailed it to Consumer Money Matters with the assurance that I would commence litigation pursuant to section 1 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and other legislation...

Low and behold the calls, which they say they never made stopped.

CMC's can't negotiate any better than any person that uses this sight. Indeed when they make the complaint to the FOS there is no negotiation.

CMC's have very limited expertise and from personal professional experience.

Please don't come on this site trying to drum up business for an industry that is flawed - being they offer to provide a service for a fee that anyone can do for free.

They effectively charge for nothing.

Are CMC's any better than the banks ?

Angry_Cat

Cantbelieveit wrote: »

Most of you on here seem to find it easier to blame a telemarketeer for your own short comings in negotiation and to report a co so easily to the relevant authorities is simply a waste of their time. Cold calling is not a crime, sales is not a crime and to look down on this co for those practices is actually incredibly stuck up!

http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/2012/10/live-marketing-calls/#law

Once registered with the TPS, the number(s) provided by you is added to an official list of numbers that all UK organisations (including charities, voluntary organisations and political parties) are prohibited from calling for sales and marketing purposes.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1997/40/contents

1 Prohibition of harassment.

(1)A person must not pursue a course of conduct—
(a)which amounts to harassment of another, and
(b)which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.
(2)For the purposes of this section, the person whose course of conduct is in question ought to know that it amounts to harassment of another if a reasonable person in possession of the same information would think the course of conduct amounted to harassment of the other.

2 Offence of harassment.

(1)A person who pursues a course of conduct in breach of section 1 is guilty of an offence.

3 Civil remedy.

(1)An actual or apprehended breach of section 1 may be the subject of a claim in civil proceedings by the person who is or may be the victim of the course of conduct in question.