Revisiting PPI claims - CMC fees.

magpiecottage

For those of you who have used a CMC to complain about PPI misselling and the CMC is now claiming a further fee following a review by the bank, I suggest you look at Claims Management Bulletin 23.

Note that it says

"Some concluded PPI cases have been reviewed by financial institutions and in some cases additional redress has been awarded to customers. In such cases it may be inappropriate for CMCs to automatically charge their clients further fees in
respect of such additional awards. The general position is that the agreement between the CMC and the client will have concluded at the point at which the client received redress and the CMC issuing the corresponding invoice.

If a CMC seeks further fees from clients where the contract has concluded, this may be in breach of General Rule 1 which requires you to conduct your
business with honesty and integrity. It may also be considered an act of fraud by false representation (Section 2, Fraud Act 2006).

If additional work to review concluded cases is needed then CMCs will need to re-contract with those clients who may not have received an appropriate award. Letters of authorities will also likely to have expired when the contract concluded,
and so will need to be reissued.

All CMCs have a statutory obligation to provide their services with reasonable care and skill. If a CMC fails to identify during the claims process that an
offer made to their client is incorrect or otherwise inappropriate – and to advise the client of this – then it is likely that the CMC will have failed to
comply with this obligation and therefore be in breach of contract."

This puts you into a very strong position to resist attempts by the CMC to seek further payment from you.

If you receive such a demand, I suggest you complain to the CMC and enclose a copy of the bulletin.

Alpine_Star

magpiecottage wrote: »

This puts you into a very strong position to resist attempts by the CMC to seek further payment from you.

If you receive such a demand, I suggest you complain to the CMC and enclose a copy of the bulletin.

Indeed. Unfortunately a lot of the usual suspects on here have repeatedly advised that you're liable for the fees in these circumstances and will probably continue to do so.

dunstonh

This information needs to be a sticky. It has become an FAQ on here and its good to see an official position.

magpiecottage

Ideally, it would be good as a sticky. Regardless of this, if a CMC does attempt to charge for a revisited complaint, I recommend making a complaint to it, with reference to the bulletin. If the response of the CMC is unsatisfactory then go to the Legal Ombudsman.