Anyone heard of a claim management company called ifonic?

Blodwin_L

I too was cold called and fell for the quote of at least £11,500 coming my way. Unfortunately I wasn't functioning as I would normally due to other distractions and lots of other priorities that were occuppying my mind. Yes I gave my card details and £990 was duly deducted from my card.

On latter playing the inconsistancies of the conversations that I had, back in my mind I telephoned to cancel. The guy with whom I spoke to was an out and out blagger expaining that this was not a cold call because they are not selling double glazing and that as they are registered with Ministry of Justice they are within thier rights to do this! Having asked for my money back and canceling Ifonics services, there was a complete refusal. I responded with the fact that I intend to report the company to the Fraud squad. I have also alerted the fraud department of my card company.

I can not understand how I fell for this. But certainly the information given in earlier threads with regards to not revealing your card number to anybody is valid.

As a further comment Ifonic claims are a subsidery of Cerys - Angharad Ltd. Looking at this companies assets it would appear that this is no more or less but a scam - legalised or otherwise.

[Deleted User]

Reviews are not meant to be disguised advertising, of course.

I've yet to see ANY reviews of Claims Management Companies published here other than MSE advising not to use them at all.

All CMCs are regulated by the Ministry Of Justice, just as they all charge exorbitant commission for basically putting a stamp on the complaint envelope.

As for a ninety day turnaround, the Banks have eight weeks to respond to complaints and don't respond any quicker to claims companies.

This is a money saving site, not a money wasting one.

weeny77

I have today been contacted by the said company, promptly telling them that I had my hands full with my toddler to be told it would literally take 2 minutes to explain. 40 Minutes later I was off the phone by this time toddler climbing the walls! I don't know what I was thinking but also gave my card details so the £990 could be charged to it for ten claims, rewards totalling nearly £15,000. I have now read the threads on here and am panicking, I know you can do the claims yourselves but I decided I will never get round to it, having a young child. The worry is that this company aren't who they say they are and now have all my details including credit card info. and are taking £990!

dunstonh

I don't know what I was thinking but also gave my card details so the £990 could be charged to it for ten claims, rewards totalling nearly £15,000.

It is against ministry of justice rules to charge you without sending you a copy of the contract first. Also, you have the right to cancel.

Do it now.

magpiecottage

dunstonh wrote: »

It is against ministry of justice rules to charge you without sending you a copy of the contract first. Also, you have the right to cancel.

Do it now.

I suggest Weeny77 contacts the credit card company immediately and explains that their card details have been compromised before sending the following e-mail to:

[EMAIL="claims@ifonic.info"]claims@ifonic.info[/EMAIL] and [EMAIL="consumer@claimsregulation.gov.uk"]consumer@claimsregulation.gov.uk[/EMAIL]


FORMAL COMPLAINT OF MISSELLING AND ADVANCED FEE FRAUD AGAINST CERYS-ANGHARAD LIMITED TRADING AS IFONIC CLAIMS, LEON ALEXANDER GRUNBERG, COLIN MARTIN STANFORD AND ROBERT EDMUND RABALOTTI

On Friday 3 May 2013 I received and unsolicited telephone call from Ifonic Claims.

When I explained that I was unable to take the call because I was busy with my child, the caller told me it would take "literally 2 minutes".

In fact, it took forty minutes.

[text deleted by [STRIKE]MSE Forum Team[/STRIKE]the puppets of Ifonic]

During the course of the call, Cerys-Angharad Limited pressurised me into giving it my credit card details in order to "validate" the claims when it is not permitted to do by its regulator, the Ministry of Justice.

[text deleted by [STRIKE]MSE Forum Team[/STRIKE]the puppets of Ifonic]

A copy of this e-mail has been sent to your regulator, the Ministry of Justice and in the event that any money is taken from my account by you I shall make a formal complaint against each of the above to the Police and seek to press charges.

emmarw68

Blodwin_L wrote: »

I too was cold called and fell for the quote of at least £11,500 coming my way. Unfortunately I wasn't functioning as I would normally due to other distractions and lots of other priorities that were occuppying my mind. Yes I gave my card details and £990 was duly deducted from my card.

On latter playing the inconsistancies of the conversations that I had, back in my mind I telephoned to cancel. The guy with whom I spoke to was an out and out blagger expaining that this was not a cold call because they are not selling double glazing and that as they are registered with Ministry of Justice they are within thier rights to do this! Having asked for my money back and canceling Ifonics services, there was a complete refusal. I responded with the fact that I intend to report the company to the Fraud squad. I have also alerted the fraud department of my card company.

I can not understand how I fell for this. But certainly the information given in earlier threads with regards to not revealing your card number to anybody is valid.

As a further comment Ifonic claims are a subsidery of Cerys - Angharad Ltd. Looking at this companies assets it would appear that this is no more or less but a scam - legalised or otherwise.

I also appear to have been scammed by this company. I contacted them today to inquire on the progress of my claim to be told they had not received my paperwork back. I posted it 10 days ago. They have take £990 off my credit card which they said was for administration charges for 10 claims. I will be requesting a refund but on reading other peoples experiences i dont hold out much hope. I have contacted the bank and informed them and they are sending me a form to complete in order to refund me the money. It appears I am the victim of advance fee fraud.

juliegr1

I have also recently been cold called by Ifonics, it all sounded sort of legitimate at first given the number of calls I've had advising me that I can claim free loft insulation, wall insulation, money towards a boiler etc. why wouldn't the government want me to know I could reclaim bank charges, interest insurance.

I did tell them that:
a) I did know and thank you for prompting me to look into it, I would be onto this site straight away. Reply, they have a XXX% better success rate
b)Don't have loans, outstanding interest, car finance etc, etc. Reply: Everyone has something when they think about it.
c) yes we have a mortgage - see point a
d)One previous mortgage was in my husbands name, as are the 2 credit cards so I couldn't give them authorisation anyway. Reply: It would be all right to do the initial searches and my husband would surely authorise it when he saw how much money we could get back.
e) We could reclaim it ourselves - have done with ppi we are fairly financially astute - particularly my husband who deals with financial contracts regularly via work. Reply: Why would justice dept. licence companies like this if it was easy you need their specialist knowledge..
f) We never agree to anything without seeing it in writing first. Replay: we have to charge an admin charge to produce the documents to deter time wasters.

The next bit is the bit I really object to!
At this point the not so subtle psychology came in. At mention of my husband he asked if I was one of those 'old fashioned' women who likes 'hubby' to take care of all financial matters. Suddenly I was 'dear' and 'love' and there were lots of insinuations that I dare not act alone without my husbands consent, he implied I was worried my husband would be angry if I went ahead without asking him.

Fortunately, because I was wasting far too much time by now, this is the perfect way to put my back up. I told him I didn't consider his tone to be very professional, that the whole thing sounded completely dodgy, I doubted the Justice Dept approved of trying to charge such outrageous fees up front and put the phone down.

My one conciliation is that I probably wasted as much of his time time as he did mine.

ChilliP2012

Sorry Cliff, but that seems to be a standard response from you/your company, especially after I used the above post as a basis for my email to yourself regarding the fraudulent (my opinion) actions of your company, when they debited £990 from my 86 year old father in law, who's deaf and suffers from dementia.

I think the post should be kept there as an aid for anyone else who may have any dealings with either yourself of your company. It is a helpful & informative post and I personally see no reason to remove it. Besides if it had been deemed defamatory or in breach of these boards rules, the post would of already been removed. :cool:

It seems that your solicitor will be a busy bunny over the next few weeks.

dunstonh

They are not defamatory. Magpiecottage was telling a poster what to write in a complaint to your company. In effect, a template letter. Quite ironic that you are getting upset about a template letter when you consider what you send out.

Juan_Roberto

I to have had a similar experience with the said company. It threatened me with legal action for deformation. The reason is that I used the post from magpiecottage as evidence of what other people were saying about the company. I was not the person who magpiecottage intended the template for. Should the company, Ifonic, believe I was the intended client then I'm sure should things progress the poster, magpiecottage would confirm this.

To cut a long story short I sent a draft email to the company by mistake before I had chance to complete it and explain its content.

The company saw my addition of the template as defamation on my part, which it was not and was not intended. I did copy the message, on advice, to other agencies by error before explanation. However, these have not been recorded according to the messages I received. Should I wish to pursue the matter I was given further advice and contacts. At this point in time I have not chosen this route.

The company has requested that I post a message on this forum to state that no money was taken from my credit card account. As at the time of writing this post no money has been debited from my credit card account.

However, I did immediately go to my bank and cancel the account as I had compromised my details and would not wish to chance my details being passed on either deliberately or by mistake to others. This, in my view, was a sensible course of action.

Below is a summary of my 'complaint' to Cliff at Ifonic:

I was not particularly happy with your company’s approach by cold calling me.



I was upset by the intensity of the call by Claudio and his insistence that I gave my credit card details and authorise payment for £990.00.



I was annoyed that he would not take ‘no’ for an answer and even called back while I was at my bank and then again later that day to offer a ‘no win, no fee’ deal but still insisting on debiting my credit card.



I did not intend to defame you or commit libel against you or anyone else. The comments in my email were not mine as you probably well know now. Those comments are in the public domain and must have been read by thousands of people. Clearly, you knew nothing of these until I gave you that information.



That the email I sent was an unfinished, draft version that was sent simply because I pressed the ‘send’ button instead of the ‘save’ button an error anyone may make. I was placing the ‘evidence’ in the document before I placed my explanatory narrative.



My intentions were to bring the complaints about your company to your attention, which I effectively did and in the process may even have done you a great service in the process



I think, Mr Stanfield, there are lessons to be learned, don’t you? Perhaps if we did not put ourselves in a position that creates discontent and lead people to make ‘defamatory’ statements on websites then perhaps we could maintain respect, dignity and a mutual trust.

I hope this helps anyone and everyone.