Fast Track Reclaim are invoicing me for an tax refund six years after they completed my PPI claim

paulb22

Hi all

In 2019 I used Fast Track Reclaim to get a PPI refund

On 22/1/2025 I received an income tax refund from HMRC for the 2023/4 tax year for £924.80

On 4/2/2025 I received an invoice from FTR headed HMRC Tax Refund Fee for £332.93 + VAT of £66.59 (total £399.52)

I seem to remember that I authorised FTR to act as my tax agent for the PPI claim. I have spoken to HMRC and they told me that FTR were still down as my agent (I've now corrected that). Unfortunately I no longer have the paperwork, but I'm pretty sure that the authorisation was specific to that claim.

Any thoughts or advice would be welcome.

DullGreyGuy

An agent for HMRC is all or nothing

Dazed_and_C0nfused

paulb22 said:

Hi all

In 2019 I used Fast Track Reclaim to get a PPI refund

On 22/1/2025 I received an income tax refund from HMRC for the 2023/4 tax year for £924.80

On 4/2/2025 I received an invoice from FTR headed HMRC Tax Refund Fee for £332.93 + VAT of £66.59 (total £399.52)

I seem to remember that I authorised FTR to act as my tax agent for the PPI claim. I have spoken to HMRC and they told me that FTR were still down as my agent (I've now corrected that). Unfortunately I no longer have the paperwork, but I'm pretty sure that the authorisation was specific to that claim.

Any thoughts or advice would be welcome.

You may be able get HMRC to send you a copy of the (repayment) authority submitted by Fast Track Reclaim.

It would seem a little odd for you to sign something saying you agree for HMRC to send tax refunds due for tax years that didn't even exist back in 2019 to a third party but sometimes people just sign whatever is put Infront of them 😳

Certainly worth keeping an eye on who you have authorised HMRC to send copies of your tax information to going forward.  Had you asked HMRC to remove them as acting on your behalf once the PPI refund was resolved they presumably wouldn't even know about your £924.80 windfall.

Grumpy_chap

paulb22 said:

Hi all

In 2019 I used Fast Track Reclaim to get a PPI refund

On 22/1/2025 I received an income tax refund from HMRC for the 2023/4 tax year for £924.80

On 4/2/2025 I received an invoice from FTR headed HMRC Tax Refund Fee for £332.93 + VAT of £66.59 (total £399.52)

I seem to remember that I authorised FTR to act as my tax agent for the PPI claim. I have spoken to HMRC and they told me that FTR were still down as my agent (I've now corrected that). Unfortunately I no longer have the paperwork, but I'm pretty sure that the authorisation was specific to that claim.

Any thoughts or advice would be welcome.

What was the January 2025 refund for?
Were FTR putting repeated claims in for you for some kind of expense?
Is the claim that led to the refund correct?
The worst case here is that FTR are due their fee and the claim turns out to be invalid so HMRC recover the refund amount and you are still down the FTR fee.

penners324

Send them a response stating they were only employed to deal with the PPI claim and demand they advise HMRC they are no longer your agent.

Refer them to Trading Standards and Action Fraud as well.

Nasqueron

penners324 said:

Send them a response stating they were only employed to deal with the PPI claim and demand they advise HMRC they are no longer your agent.

Refer them to Trading Standards and Action Fraud as well.

OP can get HMRC to end the relationship

However, many of these PPI companies had terms that allow them to do other things like tax refunds which OP will have signed up for, even if unwittingly by not reading them

sourcrates

Once you engage the services of a claims company, in this case for PPI reclaiming, that arrangement is binding until revoked by you.

99% of people fail to realise this fact, you must revoke your consent in writing, otherwise it continues.

This gives them the authority to instigate tax refunds etc.

This was supposedly addressed by Government, making these agreements single purpose, with no continuous authority, yet the dates on your reclaim suggest otherwise.

baikal

If your PPI claim was concluded then the contract with FTR was ended.
They tried this carp on me and I defeated them with their own terms and conditions.
See below.

The investigation into the concerns you raised on the 6th & 27th September 2023 is now complete. I can confirm that I am upholding your complaint and would like to apologise for the level of service you have received from Fast Track Reclaim (FTR).

 

Please find the reasons for my decision below.

 

Your complaint points:

 

·         The refund you received from His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) was dealt with between yourself and the tax office.

·         There was no input in this by FTR and FTR’s help was not requested.

·         Section 5 of the Terms & Conditions (T&C) states that the agreement is in place until the claim reaches a final conclusion or is terminated, and as your claim was successful in 2022, the agreement ended.

·         As such, FTR does not have a legitimate interest in your latest refund and no fee should be due.

·         You withdraw any consent for FTR to act on your behalf and request immediate erasure of your details.

 

My findings:

 

• HMRC should only inform us of refunds which have been made as a result of the R40 we submit and any refunds we are made aware of are processed in good faith that they have been made based on the tax claim we submitted.
• Whilst you did engage our services to submit a claim for tax year 2019-20 on your behalf, you did not engage our services for tax year 2022-23 and therefore, the refund notification received should not have been input into our system and you should not have been invoiced for this. Please accept my apologies for this error.
• I can confirm that the invoice and charge have been removed from your account and the open claim under reference has been closed. You will not receive any further communication from us regarding this matter.
• The signed letter received from you on the 30th October 2023, was signed on behalf of FTR and forwarded to HMRC to revoke the Deed of Assignment held on your account, which will ensure that details of no further refunds are sent to us.
• In line with your instruction, a Right to Erasure request has been logged and your details will be deleted from our records within 28 days.