Penalty Charge

suegay

Hi all, I have been sent a letter from a debt collection agency with regards to a PPI claim with BankSmart. They are claiming I failed to provide necessary documentation for them to continue with my claim and are now charging me a penalty. Is this allowed and can I do anything about it or should I just ignore it?
Thanks

dunstonh

Is this allowed

Did you enter into a contract with them?

Did you respond to their requests after entering into a contract?

should I just ignore it?

If you ignore it, you will just end up in court.

waamo

Do they call it a penalty charge or is that something you've made up?

suegay

I did send off documents that I had to sign when they originally contacted me about making a claim. These were letters of authority I believe but they took so long to deal with my claim that they kept contacting me to provide the same forms again. I don’t have any other documents to give them so they are charging me a fee for breach of contract even though they didn’t do anything for me. The debt is not actually referred to as a penalty charge but that’s basically what it is. I will contact them tomorrow to see if this issue can be resolved. I will post the outcome. Thanks.

brettcta

Calling something a penalty charge, asking for help with it before then saying it isn’t called a penalty charge isn’t very useful.

what have they referred to the charge as? An early cancellation fee? Breach of contract?

waamo

A penalty has to meet certain tests so it's an important difference. What does
your contract say? That will tell you if you owe the money.