Bank Smart, Truro

Rolph10

Hi all, I have read various comments from people regarding Bank Smart, but some of the threads are quite old. Does anyone have anything recently to comment on with this company?
I originally had a company called Ascend Finance looking into PPI's for me who were taken over by Bank Smart. As I had signed a contract with this company I have tried to keep them sweet and send back anything they have asked for. I did try and cancel one claim as it was going nowhere and they wanted to invoice me so I had to agree to them continuing to look into the PPI. Some claims are years old and I have previously been advised that nothing is owing to me. As I did not keep all these letters I am now finding that I have to request copies again to pacify Bank Smart and stop them from sending me an invoice.
However, what is more worrying is that I have received 2 reams of paper (we all know what a ream of paper looks like right!) and it is double sided printed. It is from my Bank (Barclays) saying that Bank Smart have requested this info on my behalf as they have my authority. It contains everything that Barclays have on me going back years and there are some sensitive docs in there to do with house purchase and land registry etc.. Am I bound by Bank Smart to forward this on to them? Has anyone else received reams of paper from their banks. Seems ludicrous and dangerous to me.
I wish I had never got involved with this bunch of scammers :-(

[Deleted User]

If you do a SAR (or your PPI firm does this) then yes you could well get lots of paper if you have a long history. I assume Bank Smart want to go through it all and try and find PPI even though there may be nothing to complain about.

Alpine_Star

Skank Smart have been sending out a lot of these demands recently, saying that a lender has told them that the lender has written to the customer telling them the result of their PPI claim and then demanding that the customer forwards Skank Smart the letter and threatening breach of contract costs if they don't.

The thing is that if the lender hadn't disclosed the claim response to them on the basis that the lender believes there was no valid letter of authority then Skank Smart are in breach of their own contract as they were self-evidently incapable of providing the claims management services they were contracted ton provide.

With most contracts that were assigned from Ascend Finance, the Ascend contracts actually state that Ascend's terms remain regardless of any assignment. They also say that the contract only applies to claims whose letters of authority accompanied the original Ascend contract. So unless you signed a new contract (and not just new letters of authority) with Skank Smart then no valid contract exists.

You need to make a formal complaint to them saying that you don't hold any of the information they are asking for and if they don't uphold it go to the Claims Management Ombudsman.

Rolph10

Thank you for your comments, yes I agree Skant Smart!

tidyboy22

Hi all. I have been reading through all of the bank smart posts and have started a new one regarding bank smart which I will copy below. Before I do I am wondering if there has been any updates about bank smart. Please read what I have put below and if anyone can update or help that will be great. 


Hi all. I have been reading through the forums about bank smart scamming their customers where customers have been receiving invoices from them for either cancellation of their claims or being in breach of their contract. Unfortunately the forums close or nothing more was posted towards the end of 2019. Since I have discovered bank smart scamming their customers it has worried me as I am still a client of Bank smart with outstanding ppi claims and am now worried about being a victim to them demanding money from me even though I have had no correspondence from them for nearly 2 years and my claims went in just before the ppi deadline. 

Because of this I contacted the FCA 3 times today to get advice and what I got back was the following. 

Symmetric systems ltd trade as bank smart. On The FCA website I searched symmetric systems ltd and found that the FCA have put restrictions on the company which I will post a screen shot of the company requirements set by the FCA, however when I called the FCA back they could not confirm the full instructions or reasons behind section 1.1 a & b. 

So my question is - as a client who now wants nothing to do with Bank smart, can I go ahead and cancel my agreement with them and if I do has the FCA plut in place that they are not allowed to charge/invoice me any fees for cancelling with them as the FCA requirements are not 100% clear to me. 

Could anyone or has anyone have any knowledge into bank smart/symmetric systems ltd's restrictions/requirements from the FCA so I know if I 100% can cancel with no fees from bank smart 

Thank you