After my last posting I started to receive conflicting reports on how best to proceed bearing in mind what had gone on before. I managed to speak to one of the Senior Partners at Priestley and to be fair we had a fairly frank but corrteous and fruitfull discussion to bring this to an amicable end. To that end it was agreed that my partner would allow Priestley Crowe to look after the claims for some of the ones which may potentially be outstanding whilst my Partner and myself would look after some others that we had been notified of separately. Whilst I still feel it is the wrong way to do this I don't feel I can allow these claim to carry on in the current manner and Priestly Crowe to be fair have compromised and given some assurances on the outcome of the claims. Proof is in the pudding and if Priestley Crowe come through with the agreed settlement I will be happy to come back and let you know the results.

I hope you folks dont mind me jumping in here with an item which is partially covered earlier on in a thread. I just want to bring it here in case it can be of use else where. My partner is currently in disupute with Priestley Crowe and in helping her deal with this the following happened..... Today a letter was received from Priestley Crowe addressed to my Partners ex husband at her current address. As she pays all the bills now that he has run off she opened it and low and behold it was a letter from Priestley Crowe saying that they had been appointed by the liquidators Findlay James to act on behalf of Blue Sky Personal Finance that had gone into liquidation in 2014. They said he was owed money and to fill in the application form provided. Now in the other thread the discussion regarding both Findlay James and Priestley Crowe revolved around GE Finance which just so happens to be one of the creditors on my partners list. So looks like they are attempting to claim twice of the same party for the same PPI. Anyhow I contact Findlay James to ask them if Priestley Crowe had been appointed by them and also to ask if this was the case why are they passing these details on to a company that charges a fee for something that can be done for free. There response by email was.... " We have forwarded it to a company we feel would do their best for the clients, as we don't currently have the resources to deal with all the queries. If you wish to make a claim with another company or do it yourself, you are well to do so, you do not have to use the Priestley Crowe if you don't want to. " Not particularly happy with this response I replied to them as follows: "Thank you for your prompt reply (below). Whilst I appreciate that you have confirmed that you have forwarded my details to another company, I would like to you to clarify some points: 1. Are Priestley Crowe officially appointed by Findlay James? 2. Bearing in mind I had made no claim to Blue Sky Personal Finance with regards to PPI, why was my information passed to a third party without my consent?" There response to the 2nd email.... "I confirm that Priestley Crowe LLP (“PC”) have been appointed agents of the Liquidator pursuant to Paragraph 4 of Schedule 4 of the Insolvency Act 1986 to assist in quantifying and helping to agree all claims against the Company. As such, no consent was required from you" I know very little about liquidated companies etc but my limited knowledge would suggest that a company liquidated in 2014 would have little in the way of assets to claim from therefore Findlay James are forwarding details to Priestley Crowe who are getting people to claim knowing there will be little to be awarded but Priestley Crowe are likely to charge full amounts for claiming this little back and potentially putting people in debt. I am also concerned that information is being passed to Priestley Crowe without any checks...this PPI information passed to Priestley Crowe was done with no initial claim being made agains Blue Sky.

Im out and about today but will get that done tomorrow and will post their response dx.

He is an interesting little addition and one that applies to another thread involving Priestley Crowe (I will post it there also just to add to the information). Today a letter was received from Priestley Crowe addressed to my Partners ex husband at her current address. As she pays all the bills now that he has run off she opened it and low and behold it was a letter from Priestley Crowe saying that they had been appointed by the liquidators Findlay James to act on behalf of Blue Sky Personal Finance that had gone into liquidation in 2014. They said he was owed money and to fill in the application form provided. Now in the other thread the discussion regarding both Findlay James and Priestley Crowe revolved around GE Finance which just so happens to be one of the creditors on my partners list. So looks like they are attempting to claim twice of the same party for the same PPI. Anyhow I contact Findlay James to ask them if Priestley Crowe had been appointed by them and also to ask if this was the case why are they passing these details on to a company that charges a fee for something that can be done for free. There response by email was.... " We have forwarded it to a company we feel would do their best for the clients, as we don't currently have the resources to deal with all the queries. If you wish to make a claim with another company or do it yourself, you are well to do so, you do not have to use the Priestley Crowe if you don't want to. " Not particularly happy with this response I replied to them as follows: "Thank you for your prompt reply (below). Whilst I appreciate that you have confirmed that you have forwarded my details to another company, I would like to you to clarify some points: 1. Are Priestley Crowe officially appointed by Findlay James? 2. Bearing in mind I had made no claim to Blue Sky Personal Finance with regards to PPI, why was my information passed to a third party without my consent?" There response to the 2nd email.... "I confirm that Priestley Crowe LLP (“PC”) have been appointed agents of the Liquidator pursuant to Paragraph 4 of Schedule 4 of the Insolvency Act 1986 to assist in quantifying and helping to agree all claims against the Company. As such, no consent was required from you" I know very little about liquidated companies etc but my limited knowledge would suggest that a company liquidated in 2014 would have little in the way of assets to claim from therefore Findlay James are forwarding details to Priestley Crowe who are getting people to claim knowing there will be little to be awarded but Priestley Crowe are likely to charge full amounts for claiming this little back and potentially putting people in debt. I am also concerned that information is being passed to Priestley Crowe without any checks...this PPI information passed to Priestley Crowe was done with no initial claim being made agains Blue Sky.

Good idea dx...never thought about that. I will start the process tonight.

Good idea dx never thought about that. Will start the process tonight.

And so the saga goes on..... I sent the letter on behalf of my partner to Priestly Crowe as advised by the Legal Ombudsman on the 28 May. I did this both by email and by recorded delivery. On 31May she received by post a letter acknowledging the complaint and the standard we will be in touch. On 12 June my partenr received a letter dated 3rd June from Prieslty Crowe which stated a number of things: Acknowledgement that she had been in contact with the Legal Ombudsmen and enclosing a copy of their formal complaints procedure should she not be satisfied with the response. They state that many of the issues raised where dealt with in their orignal repsonse letter dated 8th April and that it had stated that she should contact them to discuss matters futher or to return the requested letters of authority or they would apply fees - (It should be noted that this was after she told them that she would not deal with them by phone). They are sorry that she felt pressured into completing the online digital reclaim pack as the operator would have wanted this to be the case. They state that their records from this call indicate that their service was explained to her and that she had confirmed she was happy to proceed with them (Again she feels was put under undue pressure to do this). They state that while I had the best intentions for her (telling her to not go with them as it could be done for free) it was unwise for her to ignore them and believe they would be de-instgructed if nothing was returned to them. Having agreeing to enter into a contract with them albeit via a digital signature she was now legally obliged to dis-instruct them formally in accordance with their agreed terms of business. She was made aware during the call that she had a 14 day cooling off period which would start immediately. (She doesnt remember being told this). And that it wasnt until she contacted them in March after the colling off period that her intention not to proceed was mentioned. They say they attempted to contact her after the 24th March to get a "Wet" signature letter of authority so that they could contact the creditors (She had refused provide surity information when they called because as stated earlier they had been advised that she would not talk to them on the phone). They also stated that their outbound calls do come from a withheld number as this is a common practice for most corporate bodies. (Well not the ones I deal with). They state that when they have spoken with her, their team tried to confirm that she had to dis-instruct them formally in writing (They definately never did this as she wouldnt give them the security information), and that their calls were met by hostility and terminated prematurely. (Their calls were certainly terminated at least once by her because the agent was aggressive and once by me as i refused to pass them on to my partner who was driving at the time). They say if we had of spoke to them they were confident that the her concerns could have been resolved without a formal complaint. They were sorry that she found their letter of 25th March threatening but that it was sent after unsuccessful attempts to resolve over the phone. They state that they advised her by recorded delivery in april that if she wanted to terminate their services there would be fees levied and that if no further contact was made they would have no alternative but to apply the fees. They acknowledge that no invoices for fees where recieved and that they were attaching them to this letter (they have) but that she should have been aware that the fees were due as a test meesage was sent on 2 May to her phone. (She doesnt have any recollection of receiving this message but if it came from an unknown number it may well have gone automatically into spam or been deleted with reading). (It should also be noted that the invoices they sent in thsi letter show 2 claims from Swift Advances but the original claim one of these should have been for First Trust Bank). They claim that the letters she received from them on 19 May (These stated that they had won an award from each of the companies mentioned) were actually just "standard" arrears letters to confirm that the fees remained outstanding and are now overdue. They apolgise for the wording as these typical are related to success fees and that they were inapproporate in this case and they have taken steps to avoid reputition (Strange that!) I mention in the letter to them that i thought that sending out letters 4 letters to say they had won award and then charging a fee for it was fraudulent especially as they had not only not won an award but had in fact not even contact the companies concerned. They state that they treat this as very serious and that any further accusations against Priestly Crowe will result in them instructing their legal partners to take further actions against her. They apologise for trying to contact her during a period when my mother had taken seriously ill and subsequently passed away but that they still feel if she had acted reasonably that they could have reolved matters. As a gesture of goodwill an in order to bring matters to a swift resolution they have agreed to stop interest being applied for a further 14 days. In conclusion they state that they would like her to contact them and even at this late stage they will be happy to pursue the claims provided she agrees to co-operate. So that is about it. I am going to attempt to speak to the Legal Ombudsman again tomorrow as I still think they are a bunch of crooks. Having read a copy of the Priestley Crowe complaints procedures it appears there are two more steps before i can consider properly returning to the Legal Ombudsman. Therefore in order to complete step 2 I have drafted the following letter which will get signed and sent tomorrow. Dear Sir/Madam On 12 June I received a letter from Matthew Tregortha (Account Manager) in response to a letter of complaint raised on 28th May 2015. In accordance with your publicised complaints procedures I am writing to you to state that the letter sent does not satisfactorily resolve the matters raised therein and I am therefore obliged to escalate the complaint to the Team Leader (and subsequently the Senior Partner) prior to proceeding with my complaint to the Legal Ombudsman. Your letter makes certain points which I would like to clarify: 1. Priestly Crowe acknowledge that they did indeed ring from October 2014 – January 15 using a hidden number. The amount of these calls and the fact they are coming from an unknown source meant that I was under constant pressure from yourselves and when contact did finally occur I was under extreme pressure to “get the company off my back” by any means possible as Priestly Crowe do not seem to take constant no answers as a sign of not interested. 2. The company continually states throughout their official response that I refused to answer phonecalls from them or indeed ring them directly. I stated in a letter previously to you that I would not be dealing with you by phone. The is also heightened by the fact that despite desperately to get hold of myself, at no time did Priestly Crowe ring from a proper identifiable number. 3. Whilst you state that it was not Priestly Crowes intention to put me under pressure to sign a digital reclaim pack, that was exactly the affect it had. I can only assume that as the profits of Priestly Crowe are gleaned from people being unaware that they can claim back PPI themselves with the minimum of effort and without fee, that the company puts pressure on its agents to “close the deal” as quickly as possible. 4. It is stated that I was given full details of the cooling off period and what I needed to do to cancel. I do not recall this at all. Furthermore the agent neglected to tell me that by using the services of a claims company that there was a significant risk that if I was in arrears with any of the lenders that I would end up out of pocket as the lender would require that any PPI payment would be use to clear any outstanding debts whilst Priestly Crowe would still require payment. 5. You state that repeated phone calls were met with hostility and subsequent termination. This does not address the hostility and aggressiveness of your agents when being told that they had not read their notes on not to contact me by phone or indeed refusing to give them security details. As Priestley Crowe refuse to identify themselves with a recognisable number, I am I able to confirm that the caller is indeed who they say they are and why should I give over security information to a stranger. 6. You state that the letters sent to me in May 2015 contained the wrong wording. This I find incredulous from a supposedly reputable and professional company that has been working in this field for a significant time. It is unlikely that these standard letters just happened to have the “wrong words” they were sent out in an attempt to coerce me into believing that you had been awarded sums in my behalf and that to proceed would therefore be in my best interest. 7. You state that my statement with regard to fraud in relation to the letter mentioned in point 6 is incorrect and you further go on to state that you will take legal action against me should any further actions be made against Priestly Crowe. The letters mentioned above clearly stated that Priestley Crowe had been awarded sums of money from PPI claims made on my behalf. They further state that there is amounts of money to be paid to Priestly Crowe in order for me to secure these “awards”. The Serious Fraud Office defines fraud as: “Abuse of position, or false representation, or prejudicing someone’s rights for personal gain” or to put simply “Fraud is an act of deception intended for personal gain” These letters which came from Priestley Crowe without a doubt in my opinion fall into this category. This serious matter will be taken up with the Legal Ombudsman. 8. Priestly Crowe have now admitted that they have not been in touch with any company nor secured any sort of award. Therefore the fees which you are attempting to coerce out of myself are both unfair and unwarranted after admitting that you have not in fact carried out any work. 9. You state that you have enclosed a copy of Priestley Crowes complaints procedure. This was not the case. I have had to find a copy of these procedures online. 10. You have sent a copy of the original invoices which were not received. One of these invoices is incorrect and does not tie in with the purposed “Award Letters and Request for payment letters that were sent in May. I can only assume a mistake on the part of Priestley Crowe has resulted in hastily attempt to rectify the mistake. In conclusion I do not accept the response provided to my initial letter of complaint and have little faith in any further communications being satisfactory and therefore I would like a response as quickly as possible so that I may move on to stage 3 of your complaints procedure and finally take it forward to the Legal Ombudsman. As Priestley Crowe seem to be resting a lot of their assertions on communication between both them and myself I would therefore like copies of all written communication between ourselves and copies of all telephone conversations between ourselves. This should also include details of all attempts made to contact me whether successful or not. Yours faithfully

Only a little to report on but still like to keep you all informed. My Partner rang each of the financial institutions named in the Priestly Crowe letters and each one stated that they had not made any award to Priestly Crowe, no-one from Priestly Crowe had been in contact with them and that even if they had they would not have given them any information without specific written instructions from my partner. With this information in mind I am of the opinion that this is tantamount to fraud on behalf of Priestly Crowe and I am determined to follow it through with the Legal Ombudsman. As I stated (I think in an earlier reply) I found the online submission form on the Legal Ombudsman site to be very poor at best and not very clear what should be entered especially if your complaint does not really involve complaining about a pay out from a PPI claims company. I therefore rang them directly and found them to be very helpful. They explained that i had to raise a formal complaint directly with Priestly Crowe and give them up to 8 weeks to resolve. They also kindly sent me a template of the letter to send. I have not written up the letter on behalf of my Partner and we will be sending it by Recorded Delivery tomorrow. I wouldnt expect a quick or indeed proper response from Priestly Crowe but as always i will keep you informed.

Yep they are Dx Out of interest I have got my partner to ring the various institutions that have allegedly approved "Her Claim" I haven't got the whole story yet as I am at work but the first message from her has been: "Very interesting chat with GE - A few accounts in my name but none with any claim on them"

While in the scale of things my partners problems may be very minor but I feel it is important to keep things updated in the hope it may help any other people experiencing the same things. After the last posting I took Dx's advice and made a complaint to FOS. Unfortunately i got an email back from FOS stating that they couldnt deal with it it would be the Legal Ombudsman. I have attempted to redo it for the ombudsman to look at it but their site is a little confusing and i may have to manually write to them which i will do shortly. There have been no more phonecalls but today my partner received in the post 4 letters (In the one envelope). Each of the letters had a heading "Payment Protection Insurance Claim: Success Fees" and had the following details: Creditor: GE money Home Lending / Platform Mortgage / Swift Advances / First Trust Bank - Credit Cards (One Creditor Per Letter) Creditor Reference: Once reference per letter apart from Swift which simply had TBC Our Ref: Various Outstanding Fees: £265.00 / £581.00 / £581.00 /£1,222.00 The text of the letter was as follows: "We write with reference to the successful claim payout that you were awarded by Platform Mortgage (Different on each letter) and specifically the portion that relates to our fees for the work undertaken on your behalf. whilst we assume this is just an oversight, we note that payment in respect of our invoice issued remains outstanding (Note...she has never received any invoice). Please send us the full amount immediately, our if you are unable to do so please telephone our office on 0844 557 1835 to discuss the matter further. Yours sincerely" It should also be noted that for each of the companys: Platform Mortgage - These has actually paid out twice on a claim and so if she had been claiming herself i would have advised against claiming. First Trust - This was in her ex-partners name not hers Swift - Again she is not aware what this is for but thinks it was once again in her ex-partners name. GE Money - Probably the only genuine claim as she had previously tried to claim on this but was rejected. Me being a stubborn bugger would like to ring them and tell them where to put the invoice however I am still content to follow Dx's advice and just ignore (unless of course you think it would be best to do otherwise). I would however like my partner to ring each of the companies named and see if indeed they have awarded any payout... unlikely I suspect as previously they were looking for information so that they could persue the claim.

Thanks Dx yet again. I have registered a complaint with ICO and will have a look at FCA/FOS

I would block them Dx but there is no number comes up when they call.

Well another little update on the Priestly Crowe Saga. I had written to Priestly Crowe (on behalf of and signed by my partner) to tell them to stop telephoning and that only to contact by mail so that we would have a record. On the 8/05/15 She received a phonecall from a person announcing themselves from Priestly Crowe. They asked her for Security Details at which time she said "Do you have my records in front of you" which they answered yes but they couldnt discuss them until she passed the security questions. My partner told them to read the instructions regarding contacting her by phone and hung up. She then recieved an email (This may have come before or after the phonecall as there is no time stamp on it that i can see). This email said: "We have been trying to contact you further to our letter dated 7th April 2015 to which we have not received a response. Based on this, charges have now been applied to your claims for which we need to discuss payment. Please call the office on 0844 557 1835 to discuss further. Kind Regards" My partner obviously didnt ring them and going by the advice given chose to ignore and not reply to the email. Yesterday afternoon she got another phone call from Priestly. She once again said to them do you have my records which state not to contact me by phone. Their reply was are you refusing to speak to us. She said no but have you read my instructions? Again she was asked "Are you refusing to speak to us" and then she hung up. It has to be said that they really are starting to annoy me now and would love someone to complain to get them off her back.

I was thinking that myself dx, As people like these annoy me with their bully boy tactics I tend to get sucked into a slanging match with them, I will therefore refrain this time but will post again if or when my partner gets another letter from them.

Thanks Dx - I will reply on her behalf tomorrow and see if they respond.