welcome finance pre 2005 claim... update

pipz_2

well, i dont know if any of you remember but in august i put a post on here to tell about my joy of a claim with welcome finance using FSCS and also that another pre 2005 claim had been rejected by my claims company as 'it didnt meet their criteria'.
Imagine my astonishment to receive a letter this morning saying the welcome was offering a settlement for a pre 2005 claim of over 4000 pounds.
Now the big question is do i pay the claim company? I havent heard anything else from them regarding this claim & as far as i was aware it wasnt being persued. The WFS letter i received this morning was dated 12 september and i have 21 days from the date of that letter to accept the offer yet i have heard nothing from the claims company about this. Also, why has it taken WFS so long to get the letter to me seeing as that 21 days is almost up?
I am inclined to say to the claims company that i am not going to pay them as the last correspondance stated it was not going to be persued, also i as i have had no correspondance from them i was not aware of any action being taken on this account. I had to reduce the amount i paid them for the last claim they did for me as they buried the FSCS claim form for 2 months in another file and i nearly lost out on receiving money for that claim. I told them they had not acted in my best interests by doing this & they agreed and reduced the amount i was to pay them.
Bit puzzled today and a bit happy with the news, however I am confused also as to how i can ring WFS to accept the offer within the 21 days when the number they ask you to ring is not open for business today or tommorow and Monday will fall outside the 21 days..... hmmmmm, anyone got any answers on this? I have sent them an email accepting the offer which will have the sent date on it as today so im hoping that will cover me.
any advice welcome on this

amersall

Does this help?.

Something similar happened to me with Brunel Franklin. They sent me the pack which I filled in. They then sent me a letter back saying they didn't think I had a case so didn't want to go any further, and advised me I should try on my own.

Lloyds contacted me about 6 months later saying they were paying back my ppi. (Which incidently I'm STILL waiting for since August) .

low and behold a bill from Brunel came the next day. Luckily I'd kept the letter saying they didn't want to take the case on. I photocopied it and sent it to them saying not chance are you having a cut! They subsequently cancelled the invoice.

This is from this thread
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3520155

You have the letter from your claims co to say they will not persue,so i wouldnt think you would have to pay them.Remember to contact FSCS that you are dealing with this claim now,as the claims co were not taking it on.

And well done on your win xxx.

pipz_2

thank you for that, it is a big help and yes i do still have the letter so i will wait and see if they invoice me. thank you

pipz_2

oh and .... how funny that it is the same company!!!

magpiecottage

I think that, by saying they are no longer pursuing the claim, they have admitted they did not win for you. Therefore a fee would not seem to be payable (do you still have the letter?).

pipz_2

yes i do & i also have an email as i decided to email them to find out why they couldnt persue the claim & this is taken exactly from the email

"Account number (removed by me for this post) has never been sent to the FSCS as it was investigated by Welcome Finance. The reason it has not been upheld is because of the time the loan was taken out. At the time if this sale Welcome Finance were not members of the General Insurance Standards council therefore there were no regulations in place. It only became compulsory for banks to join the insurance Standards Council in January 2005.

Since the complaint was initiated we received a pre regulation rejection therefore no documents were filled out by you and no further work was carried out. This complaint is now closed."

so with both pieces of information im guessing i should consider they closed my application and are no longer entitled to any fee??

amersall

I would say so,they have closed the case and you have it in writing.

pipz_2

thanks, that what i thought too!
i phoned them Monday to be told that i needed to send them a letter asking for the acceptance form (which was shown as an enclosure on the letter received on saturday but wasnt actually included) and when they receive that i need to fill it in and send it back - i was a bit surprised that they couldnt actually send it out after a phone request??? also they said that the 21 day timeline didnt matter (weird?) and that they had no record of the offer on the system and nothing shown from the claims company correspondance. they also said i had to send a letter stating i didnt want the claims company to be sent any further information. I did say how weird it was that they letter was dated 12th september and yet i didnt actually receive it until 1st october but again i received a feeble response, something along the lines of 'sometimes things get delayed a few days in the post'.... stunned! will wait and see what happens.