Unhappy with offer from NewDay, claim was made through The Claims Guys

Meleelord

Hi all, 

I recently put through some claims with The Claims Guys acting on my behalf for irresponsible lending from several NewDay credit cards. All of which are defaulted due to financial difficulties. 

I have received an email from The Claims Guys with an offer from Opus Card which states they will be crediting my Opus account. Now this is where I'm not happy, I would need to pay The Claims Guys now out of my own pocket, but I've gone back to them and said I'm not happy as stated in their email -

If your lender has made an offer...

Please read the letter carefully and check that you are satisfied with the offer made by your lender. If you are happy with the amount offered, you don't need to do anything as we will automatically accept the offer on your behalf in 10 days. You will then receive a separate email from us confirming any fees due for our services.

If you do not want to accept the offer it is important you contact us within 10 days of this email to let us know. You will need to get in touch with your lender directly to dispute the value of their offer.

At the same time as receiving this email I received a separate email with fees due and payment details for me to pay The Claims Guys.

I've basically said to them I do not accept the offer as I will not be able to make payment without having the compensation paid directly to me. Is this fair of me to say and what will be the likely outcome? 

I spoke with Opus and the complaints team have said they are unsure where the money has been credited as my account is currently in between being handed over to a debt collector but they had to query this and told me I need to deal with The Claims Guys.

Any guidance or advice would be appreciated. 

Mark_d

It sounds like TCG have automatically accepted the offer and are now charging you for their services.  Did you tell TCG, within 10 days of their email, that you were unhappy with the lender's offer?

You asked TCG to handle claims on your behalf.  Now that they've achieved a settlement offer for you, you don't want to pay them for the work they've done?  If you decline the offer and TCG achieve a more favourable offer from the lender, would you then be happy to pay TCG for their work?

swingaloo

Mark_d said:

It sounds like TCG have automatically accepted the offer and are now charging you for their services.  Did you tell TCG, within 10 days of their email, that you were unhappy with the lender's offer?

You asked TCG to handle claims on your behalf.  Now that they've achieved a settlement offer for you, you don't want to pay them for the work they've done?  If you decline the offer and TCG achieve a more favourable offer from the lender, would you then be happy to pay TCG for their work?

I think you are misunderstanding what the OP is saying. He is not saying he does not want to pay for the service.
OP, I think the wording on the agreement is very vague because nowhere does it say that the offer will be in cash for you, to me it reads that even if you do not accept the offer and hope for a better one the result would be the same. They would accept the offer, receive the payment then put it on a card for you. I had a friend in this situation back when everyone was claiming PPI as mis-sold. they got a payout which was just deducted from the amount they owed the credit card company and they then had to find the cash to pay the claims company. I suspect that somewhere in the small print it tells you what will happen if your claim is sucessful. 

dunstonh

I have received an email from The Claims Guys with an offer from Opus Card which states they will be crediting my Opus account. Now this is where I'm not happy, I would need to pay The Claims Guys now out of my own pocket

That is the correct way of doing it.    That is why the repeated guidance is to never use a claims company if you have defaults, arrears or amounts written off previously.

I've basically said to them I do not accept the offer as I will not be able to make payment without having the compensation paid directly to me. Is this fair of me to say and what will be the likely outcome? 

it won't change the position with Newday as they are acting correctly and in line with expectation.   It also looks like it has already happened.

However, you may now have a complaint against The Claims Guys. They should have made you aware that in the event of a successful outcome, you would have to pay out of your own money. For firms that are FCA regulated, you would have access to the regulated complaints process and the FOS, but the Claims Guys is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which is weak compared to the FCA.    But it is still worth complaining to them if they didn't make you aware of this outcome.  Especially as it was an expected outcome as its nearly always the case that any redress will go against defaults/write offs/arrears first.

https://theclaimsguyslegal.com/complaints/

Meleelord

Mark_d said:

It sounds like TCG have automatically accepted the offer and are now charging you for their services.  Did you tell TCG, within 10 days of their email, that you were unhappy with the lender's offer?

You asked TCG to handle claims on your behalf.  Now that they've achieved a settlement offer for you, you don't want to pay them for the work they've done?  If you decline the offer and TCG achieve a more favourable offer from the lender, would you then be happy to pay TCG for their work?

I only received the email today, I've emailed them back to say I'm unhappy to accept due to not being able to afford to pay them. I was under the illusion that the amount would be taken directly out of the settlement.

swingaloo said:

Mark_d said:

It sounds like TCG have automatically accepted the offer and are now charging you for their services.  Did you tell TCG, within 10 days of their email, that you were unhappy with the lender's offer?

You asked TCG to handle claims on your behalf.  Now that they've achieved a settlement offer for you, you don't want to pay them for the work they've done?  If you decline the offer and TCG achieve a more favourable offer from the lender, would you then be happy to pay TCG for their work?

I think you are misunderstanding what the OP is saying. He is not saying he does not want to pay for the service.
OP, I think the wording on the agreement is very vague because nowhere does it say that the offer will be in cash for you, to me it reads that even if you do not accept the offer and hope for a better one the result would be the same. They would accept the offer, receive the payment then put it on a card for you. I had a friend in this situation back when everyone was claiming PPI as mis-sold. they got a payout which was just deducted from the amount they owed the credit card company and they then had to find the cash to pay the claims company. I suspect that somewhere in the small print it tells you what will happen if your claim is sucessful. 

It was probably in the small print somewhere but yeah I would be fine if they took the payment before it being credited to my credit card account, but I don't have a spare £643 laying around to pay them, I'm already in a DMP so no chance they'll get that from my bank! 

dunstonh said:

I have received an email from The Claims Guys with an offer from Opus Card which states they will be crediting my Opus account. Now this is where I'm not happy, I would need to pay The Claims Guys now out of my own pocket

That is the correct way of doing it.    That is why the repeated guidance is to never use a claims company if you have defaults, arrears or amounts written off previously.

I've basically said to them I do not accept the offer as I will not be able to make payment without having the compensation paid directly to me. Is this fair of me to say and what will be the likely outcome? 

it won't change the position with Newday as they are acting correctly and in line with expectation.   It also looks like it has already happened.

However, you may now have a complaint against The Claims Guys. They should have made you aware that in the event of a successful outcome, you would have to pay out of your own money. For firms that are FCA regulated, you would have access to the regulated complaints process and the FOS, but the Claims Guys is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which is weak compared to the FCA.    But it is still worth complaining to them if they didn't make you aware of this outcome.  Especially as it was an expected outcome as its nearly always the case that any redress will go against defaults/write offs/arrears first.

https://theclaimsguyslegal.com/complaints/

I shall see what their response is and if I need to I'll take it to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Either way I've not accepted the offer and have informed them of my reasons why. If it's a case that the offer was accepted automatically which it sounds like it has been, then I'll leave it to The Claims Guys to sort out as Opus have basically said it's already been credited to me and won't reverse it by my instructions as the case has been closed. 

It's not the kind of stress I need when already having financial difficulties. 

swingaloo

It does say that if you do not accept the offer then you have to deal with the company yourself going forward. Its not a case of you not accepting and then the claims guy  trying for more.

Meleelord

swingaloo said:

It does say that if you do not accept the offer then you have to deal with the company yourself going forward. Its not a case of you not accepting and then the claims guy  trying for more.

This is true, I'm happy to try and deal with them myself if I need to. 

Meleelord

They are now saying they want me to pay fees for any work they have already carried out, am I best in raising this with their complaints team and Solicitors Regulation Authority? I can barely afford to live let alone pay them anything. 

dunstonh

Meleelord said:

They are now saying they want me to pay fees for any work they have already carried out, am I best in raising this with their complaints team and Solicitors Regulation Authority? I can barely afford to live let alone pay them anything. 

That is expected.  Although it may end up being cheaper than the percentage cut, it is likely to work out similarly.

am I best in raising this with their complaints team and Solicitors Regulation Authority?

Yes.  They should have made you aware that where debts have been written off/reduced, defaulted or if you are in arrears, the lender may use any redress to set off against those, and you may not see some or all of the redress personally.  That means you would have to pay their costs directly.

They failed to make you aware of the risks of entering into a contract with them.

Meleelord

dunstonh said:

Meleelord said:

They are now saying they want me to pay fees for any work they have already carried out, am I best in raising this with their complaints team and Solicitors Regulation Authority? I can barely afford to live let alone pay them anything. 

That is expected.  Although it may end up being cheaper than the percentage cut, it is likely to work out similarly.

am I best in raising this with their complaints team and Solicitors Regulation Authority?

Yes.  They should have made you aware that where debts have been written off/reduced, defaulted or if you are in arrears, the lender may use any redress to set off against those, and you may not see some or all of the redress personally.  That means you would have to pay their costs directly.

They failed to make you aware of the risks of entering into a contract with them.

I'll see what the complaints team come back with and go from there. They want to charge the same proportion of fees.