Claims advisory group and a refund for PPI

Jim_Radley

Hi all,
Over 18 months ago I was offered a service to get my PPI back from a company called 'The Claims advisory group', being told that I wouldn't be able to get it back if I tried to claim it myself. They said that their charge was somewhere around 30%, after 12 months of hearing nothing from 'The Claims advisory group' I figured that I didn't have much to be refunded and that they had dropped my case due to it not being lucrative to them. I therfore tried claiming myself as heard that banks were refunding people.



A month ago I received a refund for £1300 out of the blue, happy that I had succeeded and got a pleasant surprise I barely had chance to blink before a barrage of phonecalls from 'The claims advisory group' came through demanding immediate payment of their commission which is £497, now I know that they have made no effort to keep me informed over the period of 18 months, and the initial paperwork that they sent for me to fill in was just the Financial Ombudsman form that I returned directly to the Financial Ombudsman. Taking all this into consideration, do I pay 'The Claims advisory group' £497 for sending me a welcome pack and 4 pieces of paper printed off the Financial ombudsmans website?
Regards
Jim

dunstonh

do I pay 'The Claims advisory group' £497 for sending me a welcome pack and 4 pieces of paper printed off the Financial ombudsmans website?

Yes. You agreed to use them and you agreed their fee.

Just because they do virtually no work doesnt mean you can get out of paying. Unless you can prove they lied to you when they sold their service or can find a get out in their contract, there is very little you can do about it

magpiecottage

dunstonh wrote: »

Yes. You agreed to use them and you agreed their fee.

Just because they do virtually no work doesnt mean you can get out of paying. Unless you can prove they lied to you when they sold their service or can find a get out in their contract, there is very little you can do about it

Except that I have spotted something:

Jim_Radley wrote: »

told that I wouldn't be able to get it back if I tried to claim it myself.

If you look at the Conduct of Authorised Persons Rules 2007, published by the Ministry of Justice, you will see, on page 6, there are client specific rules.

Rule 1e) says "A business shall Where advice is given, advise the client unambiguously of ombudsman schemes or other official means of obtaining redress"

Rule 12 on page 8 says, "Where a claim is one that falls within the province of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Housing Ombudsman Service or any other recognised dispute resolution procedure, the business must not suggest that a claimant will have a more favourable outcome if he uses the services of the business."


Go back up to page 4 and look at general rule 8, which says, "A business shall operate a complaints scheme in accordance with rules made by the Regulator. (There are rules on complaints and redress available separately - see Complaints Handling Rules.)"

Your complaint is that they breached rules 1e) and 12 because they falsely claimed you would not receive redress in order to secure your business. Therefore they MISSOLD their services to you. Had they not done so then you would have made the complaint yourself and not been indebted to them.

(You don't know the pleasure it gives me to tell you to accuse an ambulance chaser of misselling).

The rules say you can complain by telephone, letter, e-mail or fax but you must do it within six months of becoming aware that you have cause for complaint. That starts when the nice compliance consultant (me!) told you they had broken the rules!

I suggest you get on with it and tell them that any attempt to bully you into paying whilst the matter is in dispute will result in an instant complaint of harrassment to the MOJ.