Advice Please re Credit Card Dispute

Bezzawezza

This is a long story I am sorry but I am dealing with it on behalf of my sister-in-law and am desperately trying to get something sorted. This is more a problem with a company providing a service but as the money was taken from a credit card I thought I would post here. Please move if more appropriate elsewhere.

Last June my sister-in-law got suckered into signing up to a company who specialise in recovering PPI payments. She managed to get suckered twice actually, once for her loan and once for her Barclaycard Credit Card. The companies terms were astronomical at £240 setup fee and then 20% of any money recovered but like masterful salespeople they neglected to advise her of these costs until she had signed up. Sadly I did not get involved until 2 months down the line.

Trying to keep this short they looked over her details and advised her that between the two (loan and CC) they could recover her a total of roughly £4000 in PPI payments. As their cut of this would be £1000 they went ahead and took this up front from her credit card.

Fast forward a few months and they did succeed in recovering money for the loan and this has since been paid to her. However, no money has ever been recovered for the credit card. Mainly because there has never been PPI on this card (even though the salesman said "there will have been at some point").

As a result of the £1000 they took from her card they are only actually entitled to around £500 of it. The other £500 was of course taken by them as their 20% fee for the credit card. Since 20% of nothing is nothing, and not £500, she should be entitled to this money back.

She has requested this money back over the phone at the end of November and then in writing on 14th January and then 8th February. Both occasions when writing we have given them 14 days to respond. The first letter they replied saying "please call our customer services line" which never gets answered and the second letter they have failed to reply to so far.

It is becoming clear to me that they have no intention of refunding her this money and we will need to seek other ways to recover the money. Although it seems ironic I think the best way may be to use the services of the credit card and request their involvement. Would it be best to contact them politely and ask they contact the company on my sister-in-laws behalf since we have had no luck or would we be better going the strong-arm tactic and writing to them stating Section 72 and pointing out that the credit card company is jointly liable?

Any thoughts are more than welcomed with this as it is obviously causing some stress.

Thanks in advance