My Wife Is Rather Stupid Re Cold Caller PPI

saxplayer67

Hi All

Myfoolish wife, over a year ago (can’t remember exact timeline) believed a coldcaller from a company called Lifestyle Money, whilst I was at work and signedforms for them to attempt to get PPI back from the bank – only she’d previouslycontacted the banks themselves to be told she had not been sold PPI. Shegave them her debit card and they deducted around a £359 from her account.

So unbeknownst to me, she went ahead. When I discovered what she had done, Ihit the roof and left a voice message and an email for the company, tellingthem I knew what they did was bordering on a scam. She received athreatening phone call from them, saying they could sue me for saying they werescammers and said they’d ‘prioritise her claim’ and she wouldn’t let meintervene futher. Guess what, heard nothing about her claim.

Fastforward to probably end of last week, she has been receiving mobile calls andemails from a number companies apparently dealing with her claim, as LifestyleMoney went into administration. One guy called Edward from a company calledARB convinced her he had taken over and to go onto noodle.com and enter herdebit card details on the site and to sign her ‘electronic signature’. She told me she went on the site but stopped short when it asked for carddetails. I don’t know whether she did it or not though.

Theseare the oldest tricks in the book as far as I can see – give your details andsignature – wham, money gone from your account. I can’t believe she(almost?) fell for it.

Concurrentlyto getting calls from this ARB, she also got calls, texts and emails fromanother company called ‘Real Time Claims’, also saying they had taken on hercase and emails asking her to electronically sign forms also! This iswhen I found out about ARB and Real Time – she hadn’t realised they were alldifferent companies. Obviously, her details have been sold down the line to allthese claims management companies. They all operate just inside the law,that I have gleaned from Daily Mail articles, Radio 4’s You and Yours programmeetc.

Stillfurther, in the post from ANOTHER company (name escapes me now), a letterarrived saying they can help her get her PPI back but also letters from aninsolvency company (apparently), saying that Lifestyle have gone intoadministration and as her PPI claim was unsuccessful, she can contact her bankto get the fee back but she still had to sign some forms for this insolvencyfirm – sign that, they’ll have her signature to do what they want, I feel.

Ihave sent an email to Real Time (the only one of the companies who had sent heremail – rest all by phone) saying they must cease contacting her and theirdetails have been passed onto the BBC’s Watchdog (I haven’t yet) and the DailyMail’s Money Mail. I've now also contacted Radio 4's You And Yours.

We’restuck in this vicious circle and I can’t believe she’s been so stupid andbelieves their spiel. But I don’t think she’s strong enough to resist their‘charms’.

Pleasehelp – if she just ignores their calls, texts, emails and letters, will they goaway?

Cheers peeps!

_Andy_

Ignoring marketing isn't going to stop them.

If she's on a dialler list it will remain that way until she asks for herself to be removed. Same with postal marketing.

Goldiegirl

I hope your wife doesn't see the title of this thread

If my husband started a thread about me with the words 'My wife is rather stupid' I'd frankly go ballistic!

_Andy_

Goldiegirl wrote: »

I hope your wife doesn't see the title of this thread

If my husband started a thread about me with the words 'My wife is rather stupid' I'd frankly go ballistic!

Agreed. There's a big difference between being naive and lacking assertiveness to 'stupidity'.

Twentytwothousand

I got caught out by scammers - no cash exchanged hands but they were very persuasive, credible, knew a great deal about me and my accounts and had they not got slightly aggressive when I questioned them I Might well have been ripped off in a similar way. I'm definitely not stupid! They have my work number and three or four times a week I get calls - you can't take a business number off the database and there's also nothing you can do if someone is calling from overseas. But worth doing telephone preference scheme if you think some of these are uk based.

flutterby_lil

Goldiegirl wrote: »

I hope your wife doesn't see the title of this thread

If my husband started a thread about me with the words 'My wife is rather stupid' I'd frankly go ballistic!

But she has been stupid....he didn't call her a stupid bi**h!

saxplayer67

My wife contacted her bank re trying to get her fee back (I don't think much hope as it was debit card) but got nowhere and in fact they couldn't really fathom what the problem was and said visit the branch.

I think she should forget about the money she has lost as long as none of these companies gets their hands on any more. Just ignore their calls, emails, texts etc.

I am sorry I said 'stupid' in the title but you can imagine my reaction last night when I discovered - by accident - that she'd been fooled over the same thing by a different company and there was the evidence in front of her!

dukeboxx

Maybe you've never been approached directly, these thieves are very convincing.

saxplayer67

I have had calls like this - and other scams - it has sometimes ended with me telling them to p*ss off! When they get all bolshy.

saxplayer67

My wife phoned this Edward of ARB today, demanding her money back and she also had the suspicion he was the same guy as other times - i.e. changing his name with each 'different' company (as one hears about) and he just 'started sniggering'. She visited the bank in person and as I had already told her, they can't get her money back as it was a debit not a credit card.

I hope she's learned her lesson.