Share your stories on PPI Reclaiming claims handlers

magpiecottage

Name and shame please

NL12lda

I sat on my backside for so long thinking that I would not get anything from PPI reclaims, then out of the blue a got a letter from Virgin Money (mbna) with a form enclosed. I sent this back and within 14 days I had a cheque for £2400. This spurred me on and I contacted my other lenders. No joy from Capital One or Amex but just got an offer on Sat. from Halifax of £4500. Still waiting for mbna on a closed account but excellent results so far. Always do it yourself, its not hard. Dont give anyone 20+% of what js rightly yours. Again, thanks to Martin and the team.

booktherapist

Once you have signed up with a ppi claim handler is it possible to stop the process and take it over yourself?

dunstonh

booktherapist wrote: »

Once you have signed up with a ppi claim handler is it possible to stop the process and take it over yourself?

Yes, as long as it had not been paid out. However, you will need to check your contract to see what costs you incur for cancelling the contract.

magpiecottage

dunstonh wrote: »

Yes, as long as it had not been paid out. However, you will need to check your contract to see what costs you incur for cancelling the contract.

You MAY be able to get out of this without charge if you can prove they breached the MOJ's Conduct of Authorised Persons rules to sign you up.

pennydreadful

I hope this is the right place to post this, I thought my experience with Gladstone Brooks may be useful information to anyone thinking about using a claim handling company.

I decided to use a company as I thought it would be too much faff to do it myself (I know, I know.....I have learnt a lot since then). Generally they were quite helpful at first but then started making lots of mistakes. They cocked my address up for a while, combining an old house number with my current street address, so stuff was not being delivered to me. This took a few calls to them to sort out as communication at their end seemed to be quite poor. This cost me money as calling their 0800 number costs when ringing from a mobile, which I normally had to do in order to call them in office hours.

Various of the banks they were dealing with wouldn't actually deal with them so I had to make calls to the banks anyway (usually on hold for ages, again at cost). They got me a complete refusal from Egg, which they won't take up with the ombudsman as it "won't change things" but they've failed to send me the refusal letter so I haven't been able to pursue it myself so far.

The only sum they have recovered for me has been around £250 from MBNA. Here's where the fun bit started. They told me about 3 months ago that they'd secured this, then invoiced me for their 60 or so quid. Fair enough, it's what I'd signed up to, but I wasn't going to pay it until I'd received the cheque. They then started texting, calling and writing, often several times a week, asking for their money. One charmer regularly opened the phone calls with "Is that xxxxx? Have you got your money?"

Eventually they posted and emailed a final demand type letter, to which I replied (for quite possibly the hundredth time) that I haven't received the cheque and as soon as I do you will have your payment. Hell, I wasn't even going to wait for it to clear as I was so sick of being pestered.

This helped as it was picked up by a Gladstone Brooks operative who appears to be slightly higher up the food chain. They have now been updating me by email about their endeavours to get MBNA to release this cheque. (It transpires, despite numerous GB operatives telling me that the cheque had been released and should be with me within days. They presumably had no facts on which to base that assertion as it was false)

Nevertheless, even with the input of Ms Higher Up The Food Chain, the texts haven't stopped. They can't stop them, apparently, as they are "automatic." I've had another email from Ms HUTFC today advising that it should only be a few days now, but in total it's been a real PITA and I can't wait to pay it and have done with them.

My experience generally has been poor communication within the company, staff who appear to tell lies, low level harassment and administrative !!!! ups.

On a happier note, I hadn't given GB my whole credit card and loan history as I thought I'd see how they get on with the first few and do some research about whether I could deal with doing claims myself. I then therefore started doing some further claims directly myself, and some for my husband, and so far we've been refunded just over £15,000.

The only glimmer of enjoyment from my dealings with GB is that the vast amount of effort they have put into getting this 60 quid from me has probably cost them more than that!

To anyone thinking about using a company, please please don't (or, if you must, don't use this one!)

[Deleted User]

pennydreadful wrote: »

On a happier note, I hadn't given GB my whole credit card and loan history as I thought I'd see how they get on with the first few and do some research about whether I could deal with doing claims myself. I then therefore started doing some further claims directly myself, and some for my husband, and so far we've been refunded just over £15,000.

I think you need to check the terms of the contract you've signed with this company. If you have agreed to a contract which entitles them to represent you in all PPI complaints, then you'll likely get a demand for payment from the ones you have completed on your own. Perhaps the administrative incompetence you mention will work in your favour, but I wouldn't be overly confident of that.

pennydreadful

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

I think you need to check the terms of the contract you've signed with this company. If you have agreed to a contract which entitles them to represent you in all PPI complaints, then you'll likely get a demand for payment from the ones you have completed on your own. Perhaps the administrative incompetence you mention will work in your favour, but I wouldn't be overly confident of that.

Thanks for that, that did cross my mind so I checked and it isn't a feature of their contracts. To be honest, after I checked I thought I was stupid for even thinking a contract would include that but clearly not!

-taff

Absolutely make sure, and terminate your contract in writing first....jsut in case....

and you can still forward your Egg complaint to the FOS, you don't need the rejection letter, it is helpful but you can always ask Egg to send you a copy...

kittybrady123

I decided to claim PPi through a claims company over 2 years ago for a bank loan(s). The claim was successful at the time, and as per the terms and conditions of the claims company we notified them that we were successful. They bizarrely advised us that we had no open claims with them and all our outstanding claims were settled. We knew this to be incorrect, so we called them again, and again we were given the same response. A long story short, we received a letter yesterday (over 2 years later) from the claims company telling us that if we don't pay (and send them the paperwork supplied to us by our bank) they will sue us for £3,333 plus legal fees...... we kept the amount they were owed (£1,544.61) for them but no longer have it.....dispare doesn't cover it. They say that they were not copied into the correspondence from our bank - but have specifically pointed out certain terms and conditions on their very threatening letter, that it was our responsiblity to notifiy them, we tried several times to do so. Its a horrible feeling to now be threatened with Solicitors. Unless we contact them with all the paperwork in 7 days........