Priestly Crowe and Blue Sky PPI reclaiming - can we do it ourselves rather than pay a fee to them?

[Paddywack41]

Folks here is a strange one that I hope you can help me with.

 

A couple of months ago my partner got an unsolicited phone call from Priestly Crowe saying that she was opwed PPI

and that they could assist in getting it back for her.

 

 

Yes of course I have heard this nonsence before but unfortunately my partner got sucked in

even though they wont particularly able or willing to divulge what this PPI was for.

 

 

However after talking to her for ages they got out of her that she had a number of loans with various parties

but that she wasnt sure whether there was PPI on them our not.

 

They then got her to go to their website and squiggle a signature (using the mouse pad to say that they could look into it

and they said they would send out an application pack to be signed and returned.

 

When i discovered this I told her to just ignore them becuase if she could get me the paperwork I could help her claim back any missold PPI myself.

She therefore just binned the application pack.

 

 

Since that time she has however been harrassed by them by almost daily phonecalls

(which always come up as unknown on the phone) pestering her to return the pack.

 

 

Having had enough a few days ago she told them quite politely to stop bothering her and ringing her as she was NOT interested in going ahead with this.

 

Today however through the post today she got a very formal letter from them which stated the following:

 

"Further to our recent telephone conversation I am dissappointed that the issues were not resolved

which were previously raised by yourself during this communication and that the call was seemingly terminated prematurely by you.

 

I acknowledge due to our previous convesration with my colleague Kirsty that you no longer wish to continue with our services

and havce refused to send back the additonal information which we are awaiting from you.

 

As you are aware from the agreed Terms and Conditions, we reserve the right to charge the aver fee amount per claim

where we are unable to progress a claim due to inacvtion on your part.

 

 

This is not a decision we like to take as it would be more beneficial for you if we are able to progress the claims to their natural conclusion,

especially as we believe at this stage that there is every chance that these claims could be successful.

 

 

Nevertheless, if you refuse to provide what is required we shall have no option other than to apply the terms under our agreement."

 

...the letter goes on to explain that they have obtainedd proof that PPI was applied to a loan and that there is a strong possibility of them getting it back.

 

It ends "We will now hold this matter for a final 14 days from the date of this letter, in order to receive the information we requested

or receive contact from you to explain why this is not forthcoming.

If we do not hear from you, we shall assume that you are not willing to co-operate and we shall invoice you for our fees accordingly."

 

The questions here are perhaps obviousl but..

 

 

.can they get you to sign something on the PC under duress of a phone call,

and can they charge fees (whatever they happen to be as they havent prvided full details of this.

 

I hope you can help as i cant find any further information.

[dx100uk]

simply ignore them

 

 

they can willy wave that's about it

 

 

dx

[Paddywack41]

Thanks Dx - I sort of thought this but like to get the confidence of others doing the same. I would only be worried of them sending these invoices and then putting their non payment through a debt collection agency and thus damaging my partners credit rating.

[maroondevo52]

A mate of mine gets pestered every day by them wanting him to return their 'pack'.

 

I've told him where to sling it.

[dx100uk]

Thanks Dx - I sort of thought this but like to get the confidence of others doing the same. I would only be worried of them sending these invoices and then putting their non payment through a debt collection agency and thus damaging my partners credit rating.

 

 

why would the involvement of a no powers DCA harm a credit file?

[Paddywack41]

Cheers folks as al;ways a big help.

[Paddywack41]

Well I sent a polite (if slightly flippant letter) to Priestly Crowe on behalf of my partner and today got a reply by recorded delivery (See the attached photos which i hope you can read).

 

So is it of your opinion that i just continue to ignore them?

 

Hopefully this is the letter in pdf format.

[dx100uk]

urm.. I like the mumbo jumbo about wet and dry signatures ..urm..

 

 

they were introduced to you by findley james/blue sky

 

 

and you sent a letter on the 27th

you haven't told us that

 

 

dx

[Paddywack41]

Dx

 

As far as my partner is concerned she has no idea who Findlay James are

and she has never had any loans etc taken out with Blue Sky Personal Finance

although I notice a thread not far below this that had something about Prietly Crowe / Findlay James and Blue Sky.

 

 

As stated in my post above I wrote a letter (signed by my partner) in response to their original letter

but it contained nothing of importance other than me requesting that they desist from contacting my partner

ad a flippant comment about any more contact would result in my partner having to invoice them for an administration fee for dealing with their letters.

 

 

I can post it up if necessary but as I say it didnt contain much.

[dx100uk]

if they persist I would question them about why they contacted her when there was NO contact with james etc by her

 

 

lets see what happens.

dx

[Paddywack41]

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

[dx100uk]

I'd let it run

rather than invite letter tennis

 

 

dx

[Paddywack41]

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.

[Paddywack41]

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.

[dx100uk]

simply block the number and ignore them

 

 

if they really had a claim, they'd not be simply waving their arms around I'm sure

 

 

dx

[Paddywack41]

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

[dx100uk]

then you tell complain to the FCA/FOS/ICO etc etc

 

 

that's not allowed

 

 

and sadly proves they have no claim on you at all

[Paddywack41]

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

[Paddywack41]

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.

[dx100uk]

it does seem they are rather trying it on.

 

 

dx

[Paddywack41]

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"

[dx100uk]

little buggers eh..

 

 

will you please provide me with proof these institutions have infact been contacted by yourselves...

as they tell me you have never tried to reclaim for me?

 

 

I had before this thread started heard rumours about priestly trying it on with people

by anon calls and blind emails

and sending letters they were owed money

[Paddywack41]

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.

[dx100uk]

well done.

 

 

are these people not regulated by the fca too now?

 

 

dx

[Paddywack41]

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