I live in Chile - is it best to use a claims company?

vickyinchile

Hi,

I have been living in Chile for the last nine years. My mum told me that I could probably claim for PPI as I had basically been in debt since I started working 20 years ago!

I did print out letters to banks and I sent them to my Mum but we are not sure how I can pay the 1GBP, can she write a cheque and enclose that? I think that cheques don't exist anymore in the UK. It's been so long since I was there I have no idea...

Anyway, with all this in mind I was thinking I would be better off asking a claims company to work on this on my behalf.

Having said that I realise that it could be a mine field of some legitimate companies and others who would prefer to rob me so what I am asking is:

1. Will it be easier for me to hand the work over to a claims company even if it means I will loose a percentage of any money owed to me?

2. Where can I find a list of reputable companies who I can trust to this work for me?

3. Or should I try and work it all out alone?

I imagine I will have to hand over information that in the wrong hands could cause me lots of problems so I am thinking maybe it's just not worth the risk and not try claiming.

Any advice?

Thanks a lot

-taff

The £1 letter is just to find out if you did have PPI and it only works with open accounts.

Any closed accounts you no longer have the number for, you need a SAR and £10 to each company to find out what info is left.

The claims companies need all the info form you first anyway, so you would still have to find it out, they then fill out the same form you would and then send it off. They are charging you up to 50% for just putting a stamp on an envelope.

If any of these future complaints were on credit that was defaulted or written off they can keep any redress towards this first.

Re-read the how to and pay attention tot he difference between closed and open accounts.

Bear in mind you need an account to deposit any successful redress in too.

[Deleted User]

vickyinchile wrote: »

Where can I find a list of reputable companies who I can trust to this work for me?

There is no such list.

Anything Claim Companies do can be done by yourself, alone and for free.

If you haven't lived in the UK for nine years, then very little of your Banking history here will be easily accessible. You certainly won't be able to pay £1 for agreements on your closed accounts.

If you are unsure whether you even had PPI, you'll need to contact the Banks to find out. You can try initially contacting them and just asking, but after such a long time it may be that records will have been destroyed.
To be sure there is nothing left you can send a Subject Access Request (SAR) letter to each of your lenders at a cost of £10 for each. If foreign payment transactions are a problem, the simplest way to pay is to ask your Mother to include a crossed postal order. If the SAR returns no details (or no PPI) then your complaints are over before they've begun.