Having accidentally made duplicate claims for PCP commission two years apart

BibsyJ

Hi

My husband has accidentally signed up with two different companies two years apart through the Martin Lewis free link to look into the same historic potential undeclared PCP commission for one of our vehicles. We are now concerned about potential charges from either of the companies if one completes the work and manages to get any compensation/ redress and the other then doesn't and how much these charges might be.

We can't find any information online to help us work out the following-

1. If you accidentally instruct two companies to look into hidden PCP commission for you. Can one of them charge you for their time if the other company is successful and they aren't.
2. If so what are the charges likely to be (ball park figure of course)
3. Would it be best to find out how much charges are to date for either of the companies, pay them and close the case with one of them to avoid this charge increasing
or
4. Wait it out and see what if any compensation we receive as I know that this is still with the Supreme Court and may not even go ahead and pay any charges from any pay out we receive in the future.

So far my husband has sought some informal advice and was told to email one of the companies and ask them for a breakdown of any costings already accrued for work completed. We have had a response from them to say that this has been passed to an agent to look into but we haven't heard anything back despite multiple emails. 

DullGreyGuy

BibsyJ said:

Hi

My husband has accidentally signed up with two different companies two years apart through the Martin Lewis free link to look into the same historic potential undeclared PCP commission for one of our vehicles. We are now concerned about potential charges from either of the companies if one completes the work and manages to get any compensation/ redress and the other then doesn't and how much these charges might be.

We can't find any information online to help us work out the following-

1. If you accidentally instruct two companies to look into hidden PCP commission for you. Can one of them charge you for their time if the other company is successful and they aren't.
2. If so what are the charges likely to be (ball park figure of course)
3. Would it be best to find out how much charges are to date for either of the companies, pay them and close the case with one of them to avoid this charge increasing
or
4. Wait it out and see what if any compensation we receive as I know that this is still with the Supreme Court and may not even go ahead and pay any charges from any pay out we receive in the future.

So far my husband has sought some informal advice and was told to email one of the companies and ask them for a breakdown of any costings already accrued for work completed. We have had a response from them to say that this has been passed to an agent to look into but we haven't heard anything back despite multiple emails. 

Martin doesnt provide links, this website does provide links (he sold this site years ago) but doesnt provide links to claims management companies. Guessing you clicked something on Facebook or such where people are known to use celebs images to add credibility to their links to ambulance chasers without the celebs permission. 

You have presumably instructed two firms on a conditional funding agreement, you should go back and read the terms you have agreed to. In most cases they will say if you win you have to pay X% of your compensation and if you want to discontinue the case you will have to pay the time/effort and disbursements incurred to date inc shutting down the case. Normally you'd have a rate table giving you an hourly rate depending on the seniority of the member of staff that spent the time doing stuff on your case. 

You dont want to be sending lots of chaser emails/calls etc, each of those will be logged and charged for (was an article a few months ago about someone exchanging Xmas plan emails with her lawyer and was then shocked when they'd been billed for the "read and reply" of the 15 or so emails it went over). 

All you can do is ask for them to close the case and see what they say the bill is. Some may be nice and waive it but in reality with many ambulance chasers this is how they get most their fees. Assuming they didnt buy ATE insurance on your case the setup of the file and closure is often an hour or two of a junior staff plus a short amount of time of a middle level person so for other cases on here £200-£400 have been listed. Some have seem much higher fees especially if it was a big case and the insurance had already been purchased. 

BibsyJ

Thank you for this. It is really helpful.