Mis Sold Investment claim - compensation fees

Mountain68

Good afternoon
First time poster so please be gentle...
I am after some initial advice concerning a company I contacted regarding a mis sold investment. This company did secure a compensation claim but I feel in hindsight that their charges of 30% plus VAT are extremely high for the small amount of work involved. Also as I dug deeper it seems it would have been just as easy for me to conduct this claim myself. Am I legally bound to pay all or part of these fees please?

dunstonh

This company did secure a compensation claim but I feel in hindsight that their charges of 30% plus VAT are extremely high for the small amount of work involved.

So, why did you employ them?

Also as I dug deeper it seems it would have been just as easy for me to conduct this claim myself.

Yes. The complaints process is free of charge to use and takes little more than a phone call to the firm involved or a brief letter giving your reasons.

Am I legally bound to pay all or part of these fees please?

Yes you are if you signed a contract agreeing to it.

bowlhead99

If the charge rates were agreed and not contingent on a specific level of compensation being secured which they failed to meet, and not contingent on them doing a certain number of hours work which they failed to perform,I don't see you have a leg to stand on.

The time to assess how easy it is to do something yourself is BEFORE you contract with someone else to do that thing on your behalf for a fee.

So, we will be gentle and tell you to say "it's a fair cop Guv, take your 30% and I'll know for next time".

The less gentle way of putting it would be to suggest that whatever walk of life you're engaged in, there are always some people that ask you to do work for a fee, get what they want and then try to renege on the agreed fee; such people are scum.

Mountain68

Fair point mate but then someone charging you a few grand for a few phone calls in my book are lower than scum.

bowlhead99

No denying that, which is why I don't sign up to their services

jimjames

Mountain68 wrote: »

Fair point mate but then someone charging you a few grand for a few phone calls in my book are lower than scum.

If it was really that easy why didn't you do it yourself and get 100% of compensation? Maybe you got higher amount using them.

dunstonh

Mountain68 wrote: »

Fair point mate but then someone charging you a few grand for a few phone calls in my book are lower than scum.

That is what many feel about CMCs.

Herbalus

Mountain68 wrote: »

Fair point mate but then someone charging you a few grand for a few phone calls in my book are lower than scum.

I originally wrote a lengthy reply about how if you agreed to the contract then you can't really complain about the fee because you knew it in advance and agreed. But that you could still call them whatever you like because most derogatory labelling of these companies is justified.

Then I got wondering if you could lodge a complaint against this company for misleading you to sign up because they might, for example, have implied large amounts of administration work was involved. Perhaps their activities could be described as "mis-selling" you their service, as you were misled by them when they, for example, said they had a better success rate than personal claims.

If that were the case, perhaps you could then employ another claims management firm to claim from this one. That would be a dog-fight worth watching.



...While this suggestion isn't entirely serious, it'd be interesting to see if a complainant would have a valid case against a claims firm if the firm had misled a customer about the ease of reclaiming themselves, or if the fee was disproportionate to the work the customer was told would happen.

Then again nobody knows how much the fee will be at the start.

jimjames

It's also possible that the OP has got 100% more than they would otherwise if this company prompted them to claim when they wouldn't have done so otherwise.

On a similar rip off charges I was shocked to see how much is charged by company for a debt management plan. Someone already in severe financial problems is losing a massive chunk of their income just to cover the company fees without even making a start on clearing their debts so it's certainly not unique.

Gadfium

Mountain68 wrote: »

Fair point mate but then someone charging you a few grand for a few phone calls in my book are lower than scum.

Well, they may be. But you must ask your self why you contracted with them? If you knew the process was so simple and you knew that they would deduct a fee then why did you sign on the dotted line? I presume that no-one forced you to contract with them, no guns were held to heads, no pens were forced into anyone's hand?

Unless, you were too lazy to do the research yourself prior to signing with the company and you only found out afterwards how easy the process was? Or, your greed allied with laziness, prompted you to take the easy route and hand over all responsibility to the firm? The same greed is probably driving your sense of being hard done to now that you know how easy the process was.

Unfortunately, there's plenty of people out there making a living off the greedy, the lazy or the feeble-minded. Which are you?

Mountain68

Not all of us claim to be financial experts Gadfium, if you open your blinkered eyes to the majority of this site you will see that the majority have fllen prey to these parasites. Do you mind if I aski what you do for a living, as I think we already know!! 😉