Think my in-laws have been hugely scammed

alias*alibi

cavework wrote: »

Sorry , just need to confirm.. this company has said they can get a refund for PPI chaser companies fees ,who have already paid out to clients and the costs settled?

Yes; they said that they can recover the fees made by other PPI reclaiming companies. I think they said they would get the money plus the upfront fees back by Tuesday just gone. Of course my in-laws checked their account and nothing was in there. Later on they received a call from this David Clark saying they needed another £1500 and when FIL said no is when the nastiness and harassment started happening: with this david telling FIL he had phoned his bank and had arranged a loan for him! My head can't comprehend the logic of any of it.

alias*alibi

Bantex wrote: »

What are these further fees supposed to be for?

Solicitor and arrangement fees 😔

roonaldo

alias*alibi wrote: »

Yes; they said that they can recover the fees made by other PPI reclaiming companies.

Sounds ridiculous and they are being scammed yet again.

dunstonh

Yes; they said that they can recover the fees made by other PPI reclaiming companies.

You cant reclaim fees like that.

Later on they received a call from this David Clark saying they needed another £1500 and when FIL said no is when the nastiness and harassment started happening:

Once they have you, they come back for more.

Sadly, I doubt they will get their money back. Report it to Action Fraud and the police and hope that they move faster than their usual snail pace to prevent others being conned.

alias*alibi

Hopefully they have learnt their lesson and won't be sucked in again. I've left msg's on the numbers given to my inlaws asking someone to ring me but to no avail. I suppose how the inlaws need to view it is that the £4k they lost is £4k from a PPI they might not had got so back to the same position as before.

[Deleted User]

A sad and cautionary tale.

rebeccatom

It would be worth them considering changing their phone number. Like others said above, they will be put on a list and be inundated with scammer calls.

fluffy70

alias*alibi wrote: »

Money financial advisory services

Thornton Terrace
Church Road
Thornton
BN1 3DE

020 3287 3023
0117 318 0724

I've googled it but it brings up nothing. The names given were a David Clark(e) and Michael (Mike) Jones; two surnames which are hugely common no less. They told my in-laws it was a new government initiative and that they could pull out at anytime with all monies repaid....hmm.

Edited to say that yes they had been successful reclaiming PPI and have used claim companies who charged fees, despite us telling them to go direct, which was their logic for thinking this was legit.

I've just checked this address out - it doesn't exist which is why nothing is coming up for you. BN1 3DE is Hampton Terrace in Brighton. AFAIK there isn't an area of Brighton called Thornton..... sounds like these are a right bunch of scammers!!! strangely though 0117 is a Bristol code?

[Deleted User]

rebeccatom wrote: »

It would be worth them considering changing their phone number.

I think they've already spent enough money. Only reason to change number is if they are absolutely deluged with spam 'phone-calls. Changing the number won't prevent other such calls, as everyone receives them.

What they need to do is learn is not to respond to calls attempting to extort money from them.

Armorica

Yes - contact details are complete scam.

They are probably better just saying no to everything!

There are some tips/tricks they can use to validate who they are dealing with though if they want to (e.g. checking address, whether a registered company, whether a regulated company).

https://www.scamwarners.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=3 has lots of details of common scams. It can be US orientated, but there is a lot relevant to the UK / UK contact details as well.

Essentially, this one is a PPI variant of the advance fee scam...which includes (with selective quoting)

1. Requests for money to be sent in advance to cover "processing", "application", "insurance", or the "first month's payment" are a red flag

2. Requests that you "wire" or "send" money... by a money transfer service such as Western Union or Moneygram.