CMC's who day they will find all your PPI for free, is it really?

MiserlyMartin

Hi, a newbie to the PPI scene. I don't think I had any PPI with anybody apart from my mortgage. I keep getting letters from CMC's who say they will look and find all your past PPI cases for free, then give you the choice if to claim yourself or have them do it (for a 25-30% fee). They say they find loads of cases where people has no idea they ever had PPI and they can work their magic to find these. It looks easy to sign up , have them search across all banks and credit cards across the UK for you, get the list then claim yourself. However, the T&C's of these firms seem to imply that once you instruct them to act, it is very difficult to get out of it and claim it yourself. There is a cooling off period , but thats limited.

Are these firms just cowboys best to be avoided at all costs?

And if so what is a quick hassle free way of searching all your old credit cards, banks etc going back 25 years to see if you had PPI.?

dunstonh

CMC's who day they will find all your PPI for free, is it really?

No. Your insurance history is not in the public domain. They cannot find out who you borrowed money with, let alone who you paid PPI without contacting every single lender and retailer of PPI on the marketplace. That is about 30,000 different firms. They are not going to send out 30,000 letters.

However, statistically, the top 6 lenders make up the majority of cases. So, they send them speculative letters in a scattergun approach.

Are these firms just cowboys best to be avoided at all costs?

Yes. They use the same complaints address you would use. They send in their version of the free templates you get from the FOS or the provider's website. They do nothing you cannot do yourself for free.

MiserlyMartin

Thanks. Having read a bit more here, it also looks that once you sign with one of these firms you will have to pay them their cut even if you did the claim yourself!

Dazed_and_confused

If you are clever enough to find this board on an internet website then surely you are also clever enough not to give potentially substantial sums of money to a third party who will simply put the information you supply into an envelope and post it on your behalf?