Gladstone Brookes PPI claim went ahead without my consent 10 March 2020 at 8:08PM edited 10 March 2020 at 8:10PM in Reclaim PPI & other insurance 3 replies 322 views

albie2020

Hi,

About 7 months ago I filled in an online form with Gladstone Brookes to make an initial enquiry regarding PPI.

There were two possible instances where I may of had PPI, one a store card, the other a bank loan with Lloyds, my account  has since moved to TSB.

I received a text from Gladstone saying there was no PPI on the store card and thought that would be the end of it.

I started to receive endless texts and calls from them (none of which I answered or responded to, but they kept leaving me voicemails) saying I might have paid PPI and need to call them for me  to give them further details and allow them to pursue any possible claim.

I decided not to go ahead with anything and continued ignoring/blocking the calls.

Last week I received a letter from Lloyds saying my claim has been successful and I will receive £285.00 within 28 days in spite of me not giving Gladstone consent to go ahead with any claim and I have just received an email from Gladstone asking for their fee of £68.00.

Where do I stand with this? It's not a lot of money but it's the fact that they have pursued a claim without any consent from me.

The initial online form I filled in was just a basic inquiry form to see if there was possible PPI and no paperwork to sign has ever been sent to me.

I'm puzzled as to why they went ahead with the claim and where do I stand regarding their fee?

Thanks.

brettcta

Any information requests received after 1 July 2019 were auto-converted to complaints by lenders as per FCA guidance, this was to avoid people putting in an info request and then not having time to put in a follow up complaint. 

It sounds like this has happened and because Lloyd’s had a valid letter of authority from GB for your info request (which usually also grant them authority to lodge a complaint (I’ll have a look at a GB LOA tomorrow when I’m back in work)) they’ve worked your info request, found PPI, converted it to a complaint on your behalf and worked the case. 

what they SHOULD have done though is sent you a letter confirming the outcome of the Info Request, advising it’s been auto-converted (AKA an acknowledgment) and asking if you want to go ahead with using the CMC. If they didn’t do this, you could try contacting Lloyd’s for an explanation and see if they will make a GOGW to pay all/part of the CMC fee as they didn’t give you the option of proceeding without the CMC.

either way up, you’re probably going to have to pay GB as they’ve done what you signed up for (albeit very little).

Another case of the devil being in the detail - no one reads small print and they know it, so people sign up thinking it’s just for an information request (which was easy and free to do yourself) and end up getting stung for a darn sight more than £68.

albie2020

Thanks for the reply.

I paid them the fee, not worth the hassle of them chasing me for it.

The only problem I had/have with it was the fact that they never wrote to me asking for my consent to go ahead wit the claim.

Thanks again.

brettcta

Well then you either did instruct them or you’ve been mugged off for £68