Hello everybody I have a PPI contract potential forgery I need help with.

[Pucinelli]

I do find it odd that they just waive through PPI complaints from 3rd parties on the strength that they're regulated by SRA.
That's not a complaint response so it doesn't look like they've recognised your complaint as one. In order to go to the Financial Ombudsman you'd need either a final response or to wait 8 weeks from the point you complained if you don't get one.
They're a bit cagey on whether they actually have a letter of authority from HD Law so I would send them an SAR. There's a template here LegalBeagles and where it asks for any particular information say you want all correspondence from HD Law including letters of authority.
Did you get a reply from HD Law about distance selling regulations?

Sorry for the late reply I've had a really busy week in work. I did a SAR with Barclays who had very little on file at all, I've since sent a SAR asking for my signature that they hold on file which HD Law purport to be the method of validation. The Legal Ombudsman has thus far been very understanding and have put my complaint on the back burner whilst I seek answers to this.

Below is the response from HD Law.

Thank you for your email.

As you will be aware we had 8 weeks to provide you with a response to your additional complaint raised on 28/11/2021 and have done so well within this time.

You will also appreciate that the signature on your form of authority was accepted by your Lender, who perform vigorous checks with regards to client/customer identity before responding to a complaint), which then led to them making best possible award of compensation that could have been made in respect of your complaint.

Based on our experience had the signature on your form of authority been in anyway not correct, according to what your Lender had on file in respect of your account, we would have fully expected your Lender not to have made any sort of offer, but to have requested at least two forms id identification and a utility bill (not more than 3 months old) from you. It did not.
I have copied Ms Turton into this email who has had a copy of the reply I sent you earlier today.

Neither HD Law or Barclays appear to want to come clean here choosing to sandbag me instead but I intend to pursue this to the very end, bitter or sweet.

[Pucinelli]

After months of requesting, waiting, being sandbagged and more waiting, Barclaycard have told me that when a Lawyer who is regulated by the Law Society raises a PPI complaint with them the Lawyer doesn't need to supply a form of authority as the LS regulation is enough that they are acting in good faith. I asked them to confirm this in writing which they refused.

I have now passed this over to the Financial Ombudsman who have now put together my complaint but have asked for further evidence below.

"1. The firm were not instructed to act in the matter. You have previously provided evidence in relation to this complaint.
2. The firm failed to comply with the distance selling regulations as they failed to send copies of documents. We would expect to see that a lawyer had complied with any regulations in place. Please provide: a. A copy of any further evidence you have to show that the firm failed to comply with the regulations. b. A copy of any queries raised with the firm in relation to failing to comply with the regulations. c. A copy of any responses from the firm regarding queries raised about failing to comply with the regulations."

The problem I face here is that clearly I wasn't aware that a claim had been raised so that then negates the 14 days grace period, additionally, HD Law as asserting that I ticked the box to proceed immediately, something I most certainly wouldn't do - I'm an extremely cautious individual and in any event I would have made a PPI complaint myself had I believed that it was present - something I did with my Halifax account.

I feel that HD Law have got me over a barrel here, I can't prove that I didn't get the 14 days grace nor can I prove I didn't tick the box on the fraudulent form that I can't prove is fake.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

[EXC]

I have now passed this over to the Financial Ombudsman who have now put together my complaint but have asked for further evidence below.

"1. The firm were not instructed to act in the matter. You have previously provided evidence in relation to this complaint.
2. The firm failed to comply with the distance selling regulations as they failed to send copies of documents. We would expect to see that a lawyer had complied with any regulations in place. Please provide: a. A copy of any further evidence you have to show that the firm failed to comply with the regulations. b. A copy of any queries raised with the firm in relation to failing to comply with the regulations. c. A copy of any responses from the firm regarding queries raised about failing to comply with the regulations."

I'm not sure I understand. Is this about a complaint you have made to the Financial Ombudsman about Barclaycard saying they don't need a signed letter of authority from a solicitors for a PPI claim? As the questions they're asking about HD Law aren't really relevant. Surely the issue is that Barclaycard dealt with HD Law without you authorising Barclaycard to do so.

Another member here had the same issue with another solicitors (Ingenious Legal) and complained to Black Horse about it and got a similar response - see below. Personally I think banks breach their fiduciary duty to customers by providing their personal information to ANYONE without having the customer's authority to do so.

Have you got a complaint in with the Legal Ombudsman about HD Law?



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[Pucinelli]

Sorry if I've confused you. No this whole thread is related to my complaint to the Legal Ombudsman about HD Law fraudulently signing the forms to proceed after I'd made an initial enquiry to see if I had PPI, they pursued it without my permission by signing the forms in my name. You advised me to SAR Barclaycard to see what authority they used to proceed. I have followed all of your advice and now the legal ombudsman is ready to investigate my complaint, however, they've asked for additional evidence in point 2 (above) which leaves me stumped.

The Legal Ombudsman has asked for proof that HD Law failed in their obligations to me under the Distance Selling Regulations, HD Law obviously didn't contact me for the 14 day cancelation period as that would've given the game away. I raised the Distance Selling Regulations with HD Law and they came back to me with "I ticked the form to proceed immediately so they didn't have to notify me" which leaves me with no evidence and my word against theirs, is there anything I can do?

[Pucinelli]

Additionally I raised a complaint with Barclaycard regarding them not checking to see if the claim was legitimate and I received a letter very similar to the one you've posted above.

[EXC]

The Legal Ombudsman has asked for proof that HD Law failed in their obligations to me under the Distance Selling Regulations, HD Law obviously didn't contact me for the 14 day cancelation period as that would've given the game away. I raised the Distance Selling Regulations with HD Law and they came back to me with "I ticked the form to proceed immediately so they didn't have to notify me" which leaves me with no evidence and my word against theirs, is there anything I can do?

The Legal Ombudsman should be asking HD Law and not you whether HD Law complied with the regulations.

The regulations plainly put the burden of proof on the trader to prove whether they complied. See below which is an argument I made to the Financial Ombudsman about a claims management company.

In my view HD Law cannot absolve themselves from complying with the law simply by asking you to tick a box. Besides, even if you had asked them to proceed immediately, they still would have had to provide you with the agreement in a durable medium at the point of sale. Only then would you have known that they had held you to a contract and you could have cancelled before they had commenced any work- even if that meant paying some kind of cancellation fee.

Who is the Legal Ombudsman dealing with this? Is it Beverly Vears?

I assisted a member here with an identical complaint to the Legal Ombudsman (albeit about Ingenious Legal Solicitors) which deals with the distance selling regulations. I can't post the decision up here as it contains some personal info but if you send your email address to me at nick@legalbeaglesgroup.com I can send it to you.



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[Pucinelli]

Thanks Nick I've emailed you.

[EXC]

Replied.

[Pucinelli]

Thanks for sending me the decision letter. This case certainly mirrors mine, in fact it's almost identical except I have received the documents they erroneously assert I had signed. I haven't yet read it in detail as I'm on my way home from work but the one stand out that confuses me is; if it was agreed that your client never authorised a claim nor did she have the opportunity to cancel why did they only compensate to the tune of around 50% surely she was entitled to full redress?

[EXC]

When you read it carefully you'll see it doesn't say that she definitively didn't authorise the claim. The compensation actually worked out to more like 75%.

[Pucinelli]

When you read it carefully you'll see it doesn't say that she definitively didn't authorise the claim. The compensation actually worked out to more like 75%.

Yes I can see that now [note to self, never read important documents on a crowded train and make assumptions] That's a fantastic result you've achieved and a very valuable lesson for me regarding service and durable medium where the heart of my complaint lies.

[Pucinelli]

I have now received a decision from the investigator would it be ok to email it to you for your thoughts please?

[EXC]

Yes of course.

[EXC]

Got it, thanks.

I've just glanced over it but will read it in detail and give you my thoughts in a couple of days. It looks like you have until 19 October to appeal it (when it goes to a senior Ombudsman to make a final decision).

A couple of questions in the meantime:

Was the actual URL of the free PPI check website ever provided to you?

So the PPI refund went directly to HD and they then sent it to you minus their commission, is that correct?

[Pucinelli]

No the URL was never sent and yes the refund went directly to HD Law.