Tax returned ltd. Bunch of Scammers

baldie_daz

How can a company that's never been asked to work on my sons behalf be aloud to take money from tax that he's over paid. Letters arrived a week ago from HMRC telling him he'd over paid on his tax for 3 years, a total of £110.00. Letter arrived today from a company called Tax Returned LTD, saying as they worked on his behalf  (which they didn't as it was HMRC that sent them a letter also informing them of this over payment) they have sent him a cheque for a total of £13.00 minus there fee of £80.00 plus vat. How can they get away with this, should he have asked them to do this for him and charged a small fee then fair enough but he's never signed anything for them to act on his behalf, (he's not on face book, in a union and not his employer either) so who are they and why have they done this. I hear these companies are not regulated, why! Is this legal? and if so again why?. To take 73% plus vat to leave him with £13. HMRC should also crack down on these firms and send money directly to the person that's over paid not these firms who take nearly all of the money anyway and then have the cheek to say thank you at the end of their letter. 
One more thing, what's the chances of getting his money back if he complains to tax returned 
Ltd and hmrc as from what I'm seeing not a hope. 
It's time to do something about these rip off firms.

la531983

You must not have got the full story from him, he must have instructed them at some point.

Ayr_Rage

They are only ALLOWED to provide a paid service if your son has previously made contact with them.

They don't just pluck details out of the ether.

As above, you don't have the whole story.

swingaloo

He has been online and gone into one of the 'We will do it for you' type sites. He must have entered all his details.
There are loads of these sites which offer to renew your passport, claim your tax, etc, etc. 
All things you can do yourself one the proper official sites.

TractorBird

The BBC (4/6/25) recently has said something along the lines of HMRC scammed by false claims of this:

Scammers stole £47m from the online accounts of 100,000 people after posing as taxpayers, HMRC has revealed.

The tax authority said it is writing to those affected to confirm it has secured their accounts, they haven't lost any money, and they don't need to do anything.

"These are attempts to claim money fraudulently from HMRC, not from customers," HMRC said.

There has already been a criminal investigation with arrests made last year, HMRC confirmed.

It said the scammers used phishing attacks to gain customer details and attempted to claim rebates. 

Phishing is when criminals use personal information gathered externally to imitate a person and access services.

baldie_daz

Thanks for all your comments. I've asked him to think hard , try to remember anything about this company. He still adamant he's never asked them to act on his behalf and until yesterday he'd never even heard of them.
The thing is if they'd charged him say £6 fee or something around that much wouldn't have bothered but £80 plus vat, it's got to be illegal surely! for over charging even if they were asked to work on his behalf. The letter from HMRC says THEY have sent tax returned ltd a letter informing them of the over payment meaning TR ltd didn't even know about it till then and still charged an £80 fee plus vat.  
With the letter they sent him there's no phone number, email address, just a postal address. So no chance of talking to them. Looked on the web site and they have 4.25 stars out of 5 but most of the comments are rating them 1 because that's the lowest they can give. 
It's not fair a young lad on a low wage getting a letter from HMRC saying you've over paid tax by £110, gets legally shafted by TR ltd and receives a cheque for only £13, they took 73% +vat . What's the saying crime doesn't pay. Clearly it does.
This needs looking into and stopping as he can't be the only one they're taking for a ride with sky high fees. Must be making millions from hard working people and getting away with it and legally apparently.
Thanks anyway.

LITRG

Hello, I'm sorry to hear of your son's situation. Please see our guidance on tax refund companies, the issues that there are in the market and the various actions potentially available to you: https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-nic/how-tax-collected/tax-refunds/tax-refund-companies