claiming back mortgage setup fees ? help

helpwanted777

I have today been called by a company called full financial review - the company website is the full financial stating I could be paid back approx £23600.00 of my upfront setup fee which was added to my mortgage, to do this I need to put approx £4000 on my credit card as their "solicitors fees" this will take no longer than 60-90 days to get my money - I did stress I had been caught before by this method by the PPI claims companies whereby the claims should have taken 12 weeks but ended up taking 3 years !! so during this 3 years I had to pay off this money off the credit card, and got about £300 back from PPI claims - they did give me the full fee back but waiting 3 years for it was not what I had been told - so Im very wary about giving over a large amount of money AGAIN to another claims company - their website looks very professional - has anyone else had this call and/or won/lost ? - also Ive been told you can do this yourself at no cost but I would have no idea where to start - any help would be greatly appreciated (the company is calling back monday to see if I want to go ahead) thanks

dunstonh

I have today been called by a company called full financial review

oh dear. A known dodgy company.

the company website is the full financial stating I could be paid back approx £23600.00 of my upfront setup fee which was added to my mortgage

And did your upfront fees come to £23,600?

to do this I need to put approx £4000 on my credit card as their "solicitors fees" this will take no longer than 60-90 days to get my money

That statement is full of breaches and warning signs
1 - £4000 is the advance fee in advance fee fraud (entice the mark with a big potential pay off. Once they greed has overtaken their common sense, then hit them with a smaller up front cost which they willingly pay as they think they are getting more - Or watch an episode of Hustle as most were based on variations of advance fee fraud)

2 - Solicitors are not involved in this. They would not touch it with a bargepole and they are not allowed to take business from cold calling. So, either the solicitor is corrupt or there are no solicitors and its just part of the scam.

3 - The ministry of justice require that people are not given timeframes that are unsuitable or unrealistic. 60-90 days is farcical.

their website looks very professional

Website design is cheap and easy nowadays. That is no measure. Most scams have decent websites.

any help would be greatly appreciated (the company is calling back monday to see if I want to go ahead) thanks

You are being scammed. There is no issue regarding the adding of fees to the mortgage. People do it all the time. It is quite normal and acceptable. Typically, it comes with one extra risk warning on the paperwork. i.e. that adding the fee to the mortgage means that the fee will end up costing you more over the term due to the interest added. However, you would have to be pretty dim not to realise that.

The typical model for this scam is that the company takes the upfront fee. Makes you wait for a couple of years with excuses of why it is taking so long and then it goes quiet. You then realise that the company has gone into administration with no assets and you lose your upfront money. This company is already on at least its third name, possibly 4th. if you google search you will find many scam reports and there is a video on youtube of a consumer programme that shows a few examples of people scammed by this company. There is even a facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/advancefeefraud?ref=stream

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2013/05/claim-credit-services-rises-fr.html
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2012/11/debt-write-off-firm-consortium.html

The bottom line is that adding fees to mortgages is normal and fine. If you had the savings available then you should be told to use them instead but the choice is yours to make. You can also pay them off at any time as mortgage fees are held in a sub account with no early repayment charges. You are entitled to complain to the lender if you wish and you can do that free of charge. They will look at the fees you paid and ask you to provide evidence of savings to show you could pay those fees. They will also look at the fees you paid. Typical mortgage fee is around £250-£500. (what did you pay?) how does that morph into £23600?