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PPI reclaiming fee scam?
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FlatFour
Posts: 82 Forumite
Hi,
I wanted to ask for some advice on what appears to be a totally bogus PPI reclaiming "fee" invoice my friend received recently, shortly after getting a PPI refund cheque through the post.
Like many of us I suspect, he'd received various letters from companies offering to reclaim any miss-sold PPI on his record for a fee of course. However, as he knew exactly who he had his loans through (car finance and a personal loan) he contacted them directly, ignoring these reclaim firms.
Anyway, about a year after contacting his original loan provider, he got a letter saying he'd been refunded a little under £1,500 and there was a cheque included. A useful amount of money at a very useful time. He was pretty happy as you'd expect.
Things get weird however when, about a week later, he got an invoice from one of these PPI reclaim companies demanding "their" 20% + VAT cut of his payout. This "Invoice" is a bit of a joke in several ways, which I'll list here:
- Firstly of course he NEVER ordered them to make a claim on his behalf.
- The values don't match up, only by a few pounds, but they're not the same.
- The dates surrounding this claim do not match by several months.
- The scan of the "electronic signature" they claim is his isn't even in the ballpark...it's just a line.
- They actually say words to the effect of "even if this doesn't look like your signature, it still counts as a legally binding agreement"
Finally, they threaten legal action if my friend doesn't pay up this 20%+ VAT (that's 20% of a different amount to what he actually received remember) in short order.
So, is this a known scam? Obviously these PPI reclaiming companies are getting people's details from somewhere. I myself have had numerous letters from them over the years - one just last week - yet I have not once contacted such an organisation nor needed to. How would this company know that my friend had made a successful PPI claim himself, directly against the loan issuer?
Any advice welcome.
I wanted to ask for some advice on what appears to be a totally bogus PPI reclaiming "fee" invoice my friend received recently, shortly after getting a PPI refund cheque through the post.
Like many of us I suspect, he'd received various letters from companies offering to reclaim any miss-sold PPI on his record for a fee of course. However, as he knew exactly who he had his loans through (car finance and a personal loan) he contacted them directly, ignoring these reclaim firms.
Anyway, about a year after contacting his original loan provider, he got a letter saying he'd been refunded a little under £1,500 and there was a cheque included. A useful amount of money at a very useful time. He was pretty happy as you'd expect.
Things get weird however when, about a week later, he got an invoice from one of these PPI reclaim companies demanding "their" 20% + VAT cut of his payout. This "Invoice" is a bit of a joke in several ways, which I'll list here:
- Firstly of course he NEVER ordered them to make a claim on his behalf.
- The values don't match up, only by a few pounds, but they're not the same.
- The dates surrounding this claim do not match by several months.
- The scan of the "electronic signature" they claim is his isn't even in the ballpark...it's just a line.
- They actually say words to the effect of "even if this doesn't look like your signature, it still counts as a legally binding agreement"
Finally, they threaten legal action if my friend doesn't pay up this 20%+ VAT (that's 20% of a different amount to what he actually received remember) in short order.
So, is this a known scam? Obviously these PPI reclaiming companies are getting people's details from somewhere. I myself have had numerous letters from them over the years - one just last week - yet I have not once contacted such an organisation nor needed to. How would this company know that my friend had made a successful PPI claim himself, directly against the loan issuer?
Any advice welcome.
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Comments
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You need to get him to send the firm a DSAR to ask for copies of all the data they hold on him. The fact they sent this invoice after the payout makes me suspect he has used a claims firm. If they cannot produce this then a complaint to the legal ombudsman is needed as these firms will happily take him to court
Sam Vimes' Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness:
People are rich because they spend less money. A poor man buys $10 boots that last a season or two before he's walking in wet shoes and has to buy another pair. A rich man buys $50 boots that are made better and give him 10 years of dry feet. The poor man has spent $100 over those 10 years and still has wet feet.
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You need to get him to send the firm a DSAR to ask for copies of all the data they hold on him. The fact they sent this invoice after the payout makes me suspect he has used a claims firm. If they cannot produce this then a complaint to the legal ombudsman is needed as these firms will happily take him to court
Thanks. I'll pass on your advice. He's adamant that he did not pursue any sort of claim with this company, but they could well of been one of the many who sent out spam correspondence. I wonder if the data source that gave them his details in the first place somehow disclosed the result of his claim made directly with the lender?0 -
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I think you'll find CMCs are now regulated and so any such complaint would now go to FOS.a complaint to the legal ombudsman
Regardless, this doesn't appear to be a "scam". How would the Claim firm know that the Op's friend has had a successful PPI complaint unless the Bank told them because he signed a Letter Of Authority (electronic or otherwise)?0 -
Deleted_User wrote: »No, because the data source is the phone book.
They won't know about any PPI complaint he may have made.
That's good then. I was concerned they might have somehow had access to a little more personal data that an address and email, hence them trying to get paid for a claim they didn't actually assist with. Plus the fake signature of course.
Btw: ZX81 - my first computer...plus the 16k ram pack of course
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Moneyineptitude wrote: »I think you'll find CMCs are now regulated and so any such complaint would now go to FOS.
Regardless, this doesn't appear to be a "scam". How would the Claim firm know that the Op's friend has had a successful PPI complaint unless the Bank told them because he signed a Letter Of Authority (electronic or otherwise)?
This does puzzle me. My friend is adamant he's never given any letter of authority to this company, yet they have a loose approximation of the details of the PPI claim. Also, this "scanned" signature is a mystery.
Thanks for the continued advice, what you say makes sense. I've been chatting to my friend about how could they possibly have know about his successful claim if they didn't have authority, but he's as confused as I am by it. While I was sat with him a few weeks ago, we trawled through over a years worth of emails trying to find some evidence of him ever having contacted this company, but there was none. If something had been completed online, one would expect some sort of email confirmation, yet the correspondence from these guys is by post.
His current attitude is that it's a scam and to ignore them, though I've passed on the advice given here and that he probably should try to get to the bottom of this. Even if he's 100% right and this company have made a mistake, any legal action they might decide to take is still going to be a pain, even if he were to ultimately win.0 -
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Moneyineptitude wrote: »Do note that E-Mails are easily deleted...
This is very true, but my friend is one of those people who keeps EVERYTHING and most of it is categorised into various sub-folders. So, in his case at least, it's very unlikely he'd have purposely deleted anything, though of course not impossible.
Though I've not personally done it, no need to, I guess that applying for a company to do a PPI check and claim for you takes just minutes these days, so isn't an involved process at all. Perhaps he did indeed just forget he did it, but I don't think so. Maybe if all the details on the invoice had been accurate - and the signature was actually his - then I'd be leaning towards him just forgetting. However, the discrepancies between reality and what's on this invoice are, as I said before, rather puzzling.0 -
This is very true, but my friend is one of those people who keeps EVERYTHING and most of it is categorised into various sub-folders. So, in his case at least, it's very unlikely he'd have purposely deleted anything, though of course not impossible.
Though I've not personally done it, no need to, I guess that applying for a company to do a PPI check and claim for you takes just minutes these days, so isn't an involved process at all. Perhaps he did indeed just forget he did it, but I don't think so. Maybe if all the details on the invoice had been accurate - and the signature was actually his - then I'd be leaning towards him just forgetting. However, the discrepancies between reality and what's on this invoice are, as I said before, rather puzzling.
You can send a firm a request to see if you had PPI very easily but it doesn't always take minutes as they sometimes have to dig through records. However, claims firms are notorious for having websites that look like official sites either from branding or website addresses so it's possible he started a complaint via a CMC by accident however, he should get the data from them to prove they have a contract. Despite their numbers being screwy (remember though they charge their fee/VAT on the total refund, regardless of anything being deducted like tax on the interest) the fact they knew he had a payout and sent a bill strongly indicates he used them - he might have done it online rather than via email - is he certain there are no emails even mentioning this firm even in the spam folder?
Start with the SAR and see what they come back with
https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htmSam Vimes' Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness:
People are rich because they spend less money. A poor man buys $10 boots that last a season or two before he's walking in wet shoes and has to buy another pair. A rich man buys $50 boots that are made better and give him 10 years of dry feet. The poor man has spent $100 over those 10 years and still has wet feet.
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This does puzzle me. My friend is adamant he's never given any letter of authority to this company, yet they have a loose approximation of the details of the PPI claim. Also, this "scanned" signature is a mystery.
Just remember this is the same guy who signed up to having PPI on a loan and paid it for years when he didn't even want/need it, so you can't exactly trust he hasn't signed up to this claims company.0
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