Investment Claim

Castle1970

I have been approached by a legal firm offering to submit a claim on my behalf for potential mis-selling of investment advice. I guess this is something similar to the PPI mis-selling debacle of the last 10 years. They are a no-win, no fee firm and charge 48% (which seems pretty steep to me). 
I moved all my investments to a wealth manager about 12 years ago, as far as I can tell they have done ok but the legal firm says they may be able re-coup money on three grounds:
1 - If the funds have not performed as well as they would have done if I had left my money where it was before,
2 - If the fees were excessive
3 - If the financial advisor had not adhered to the contract and met us on whatever cadence was agreed, i.e. twice yearly or annually. 

Has anyone gone through this process before? Any advice? Should I just steer clear? 
Thanks

friolento

How did the legal firm obtain your contact details? How did they approach you?

boingy

Castle1970 said:

Has anyone gone through this process before? Any advice? Should I just steer clear? 

The latter. It's almost certainly a scam.

UncleK

Name of the firm would be useful

Keep_pedalling

Don’t waste your time with them. You might like to look closely at what you are being charged by the wealth manager, WMs tend to be expensive and don’t have access to the range of funds that an IFA would have (or what you would have going the DIY route). This does not mean you have any sort of claim against them but you might well be better off going elsewhere.

Exodi

Castle1970 said:

I have been approached by a legal firm offering to submit a claim on my behalf for potential mis-selling of investment advice.

Castle1970 said:

I moved all my investments to a wealth manager about 12 years ago, as far as I can tell they have done ok

And this right here is why these malignant firms continue to exist.

While Joe Public is happy to receive compensation for absolutely anything and everything, these firms are happy to file vexatious claims ad nauseam .

DullGreyGuy

Castle1970 said:

I have been approached by a legal firm offering to submit a claim on my behalf for potential mis-selling of investment advice. I guess this is something similar to the PPI mis-selling debacle of the last 10 years. They are a no-win, no fee firm and charge 48% (which seems pretty steep to me). 
I moved all my investments to a wealth manager about 12 years ago, as far as I can tell they have done ok but the legal firm says they may be able re-coup money on three grounds:
1 - If the funds have not performed as well as they would have done if I had left my money where it was before,
2 - If the fees were excessive
3 - If the financial advisor had not adhered to the contract and met us on whatever cadence was agreed, i.e. twice yearly or annually. 

Has anyone gone through this process before? Any advice? Should I just steer clear? 
Thanks

So clearly its pure speculation

The thing to remember about no win no fee is that it only applies if you see it through to the bitter end. If you get bored of the process after 2 years and want to discontinue then you have to pay your lawyers fees to date... the only ones guaranteed not to lose are the lawyers.

Malthusian

If you actually have a claim you would have a significantly better chance of winning it if you made it yourself. All the ambulance chaser will do is send a copy-and-paste letter to the wealth management firm in the hope that some of the above sticks, then repeat the process with the Financial Ombudsman. Claims made by the client themselves are more likely to be upheld.

48% of any winnings suggests you will get the Platinum claims management treatment where they will at least try to spell your name correctly when they insert it into their mail merge.

No grounds for complaint are mentioned in your post.

 the legal firm says they may be able re-coup money on three grounds:
1 - If the funds have not performed as well as they would have done if I had left my money where it was before,

Unsurprisingly that is a lie, or it would be impossible for advisers to advise anyone to invest spare cash or change funds. If they went up / outperformed you would pocket the money, and if they went down / underperformed you would complain and get free money from the advisor. 

If the adviser didn't give any good reason for changing the funds, that would potentially be grounds for a complaint if you made a loss as a result. (Though as far as I know, nobody has ever complained to the Ombudsman about being advised to invest in something unsuitable that did well and been awarded won the right to give their excess winnings to the adviser.)

dunstonh

I have been approached by a legal firm offering to submit a claim on my behalf for potential mis-selling of investment advice. I guess this is something similar to the PPI mis-selling debacle of the last 10 years

Its nothing like PPI.  PPI had many issues and was oversold.     This is a pure speculation try it on.

They are a no-win, no fee firm and charge 48% (which seems pretty steep to me). 

The lower the success rate that a claims company has, the higher the charge they make.

I moved all my investments to a wealth manager about 12 years ago, as far as I can tell they have done ok but the legal firm says they may be able re-coup money on three grounds:
1 - If the funds have not performed as well as they would have done if I had left my money where it was before,
2 - If the fees were excessive
3 - If the financial advisor had not adhered to the contract and met us on whatever cadence was agreed, i.e. twice yearly or annually. 

1 - Not grounds for complaint.  Investment returns are unknown and they zig zag with positive periods and negative periods.  The primary requirement for an adviser is suitability.    What if you were invested above your risk profile 12 years ago and wanted to lower your risk.   Lower risk results in lower returns over the long term in most periods.  What if we are in a negative period?     This complaint reason is bogus.
2 - Are the fees excessive?   The FCA is not a fee regulator and there is actually nothing in their rules that sets caps on fees.   
3 - 12 years ago is pre-RDR and pre MIFIDII.    At the point of sale, there was no requirement for a meeting or any other service as commission was effectively deferred remuneration.  That changed with RDR that required a service in return for ongoing remuneration but that could be 1-2-3 year reviews and only applied to new business after 2012 or where existing business arranged before 2012 had a disturbance event.    2018 saw MIFID that brought in the "annual" requirement but again, only applies to post RDR cases.

Has anyone gone through this process before? Any advice? Should I just steer clear? 

You have told us what the ambulance chaser told you but you haven't told us if anything they have claimed is true or not.
What fees are you paying? 
Indeed, are you even paying for advice?
Was it set up before 1st Jan 2013 or after?  
Do you think you have grounds for complaint?

Claims companies tend to try the missold investments angle every time there is a negative period (and 2022 to early 2023 was negative for defensive assets).   It hasn't taken off apart from some of the banks and salesforces.  Most advisory firms are small local firms. The majority of them have never had a complaint to the FOS.   For them getting a complaint can be devastating.   Getting a speculative try-it-on even more so.   

HappyHarry

Keep_pedalling said:

Don’t waste your time with them. You might like to look closely at what you are being charged by the wealth manager, WMs tend to be expensive and don’t have access to the range of funds that an IFA would have (or what you would have going the DIY route). This does not mean you have any sort of claim against them but you might well be better off going elsewhere.

Many firms with wealth management in the title are IFAs and so have access to the full range of funds available.

Albermarle

I moved all my investments to a wealth manager about 12 years ago, as far as I can tell they have done ok 

What could be productive is to spend some time, having a think about whether you want to carry on with your wealth manager . You could post on here what you are being charged, what funds you have, how much support you get from them etc.

You should get some good feedback/opinion, but it will not be that suing them is a good idea.