**WON** Bank Smart

[Malibu43]

Hi
Having seen numerous threads on here about this god awful company I was hoping for some help please. My parents used Bank Smart in relation to PPI claims and they have recently received an invoice for £285.60 in relation to a claim which was successful, however the lender had repaid the PPI to my parents before Bank Smart had the claim. Bank Smart invoiced for commission on this claim which my parents paid in 2016. I messaged BS querying the recent invoice and they stated they were waiting for a copy of the settlement letter but had now invoiced for 'final costs'.
In the paperwork we have from BS is clearly states in 2016 'the client has provided the bank/lender/provider correspondence agreeing to refund settlement. This is before we had the claim' and the status was 'claim closed now claim cancelled - no further fee!! I again messaged BS with this information and they are saying they previously invoiced for interim costs and have now invoiced for final costs. I have requested they provide full details of what these cost are for and am awaiting a reply. In the meantime my parents have received a letter from MIL Collections requesting they make payment and are now terrified they will be taken to court/have bailiffs knocking if they don't pay up. I don't feel they should be paying any costs when they have paid commission to BS for the refund received (even though BS played no part in securing this refund). Any help/advice would be much appreciated. Thanks

[Amethyst]

Disgusting behaviour from BankSmart. Your parents are not alone. They are expecting to go under now PPI claims have ended and the FCA is ( very slowly ) continuing the investigation into their authorisation.

Reassure your parents that IF banksmart are stupid enough to try to sue them for this commission which was never due in the first place, paid anyway in 2016 and now trying to scam additional monies by suddenly deciding the 2016 payment was just an interim payment ... it can be defended in court and you ( and we) will help them all the way. To get to a bailiff stage they would have to ignore all court letters for months... it's not something that just happens, there's a claim, then judgment, order to pay, then failure to pay as ordered, then an application to court, then a warrant is issued, the court informs you, then the bailiffs write to you and if you ignore that then they might pop round. Not going to happen

Id recommend making a formal complaint to banksmart CC'd to the FCA claims management team with an intention to go to the financial ombudsman if they carry on. Tell ML collections the debt is disputed and subject to a complaint.

tagging EXC who I'm sure will have further thoughts.

[EXC]

Hi
Having seen numerous threads on here about this god awful company I was hoping for some help please. My parents used Bank Smart in relation to PPI claims and they have recently received an invoice for £285.60 in relation to a claim which was successful, however the lender had repaid the PPI to my parents before Bank Smart had the claim. Bank Smart invoiced for commission on this claim which my parents paid in 2016. I messaged BS querying the recent invoice and they stated they were waiting for a copy of the settlement letter but had now invoiced for 'final costs'.
In the paperwork we have from BS is clearly states in 2016 'the client has provided the bank/lender/provider correspondence agreeing to refund settlement. This is before we had the claim' and the status was 'claim closed now claim cancelled - no further fee!! I again messaged BS with this information and they are saying they previously invoiced for interim costs and have now invoiced for final costs. I have requested they provide full details of what these cost are for and am awaiting a reply. In the meantime my parents have received a letter from MIL Collections requesting they make payment and are now terrified they will be taken to court/have bailiffs knocking if they don't pay up. I don't feel they should be paying any costs when they have paid commission to BS for the refund received (even though BS played no part in securing this refund). Any help/advice would be much appreciated. Thanks

Hiya

As Amethyst said they can't involve bailiffs until they have a court judgment so you don't have to worry about that. As she also pointed out the best thing to do is for your parents to make a formal complaint to Bank Smart which if they reject your parents can then take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman.

I'll be happy to help draft a complaint for you but I'd need to know the following:

1) The amount your parents were refunded by the lender and the date.
2) The amount of commission your parents paid Bank Smart in 2016 and the date.
3) The date that Bank Smart said ''

'claim closed now claim cancelled - no further fee''

[Malibu43]

Thank you both so much, this will help to stop my parents worrying. I would really appreciate your help to draft a complaint, I'll get back to you with all the information.

[Malibu43]

[QUOTE=EXC;n1488741]

Hiya

As Amethyst said they can't involve bailiffs until they have a court judgment so you don't have to worry about that. As she also pointed out the best thing to do is for your parents to make a formal complaint to Bank Smart which if they reject your parents can then take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman.

I'll be happy to help draft a complaint for you but I'd need to know the following:

1) The amount your parents were refunded by the lender and the date.
2) The amount of commission your parents paid Bank Smart in 2016 and the date.
3) The date that Bank Smart said 'claim closed now claim cancelled - no further fee




Hi

1) my parents cant remember how much they were refunded however Bank Smarts paperwork says on 08.09.2016 - 'the client has provided a copy of the lender correspondence dated 28.06.2012 agreeing to refund settlement of £280.71. This is before we had the claim'.

2) My parents paid £412.10 on 24.08.2016 (which I don't understand as this is way more than the refund received).

3) the date they said claim closed - no further fee was 08.09.2016.

Is this sufficient information or do we need to request confirmation of the amount from the lender?

Oh and BS have now added a £40 debt collection charge to the invoice so are now wanting £325.60

Many thanks

[EXC]

Ok thanks.

I'm not entirely sure what the story is as I'm not sure whether the

£412.10 your parents paid is related to the £280.71 refund amount, but I fully appreciate that your parents might not know either! I suspect that what your parents paid is a 'breach of contract' invoice for 'costs' for not returning paperwork - it's their usual scam.

So I think we should just concentrate on challenging the 'final costs' they are now attempting to charge and forget the potential issue of whether they should have charged a commision originally and the amount they actually paid.

Give me a day or so and I'll post up a draft.

[Malibu43]

Ok thanks, any help you can give will be much appreciated.

[EXC]

Sorry, been v busy! Will work on draft first thing tomorrow.

[EXC]

Draft below.

Please check it for accuracy.

I don't expect they'll agree to a refund too easily but I suspect that your parents would just be happy just to get the current invoice cancelled so it's really a case of aiming high to be able to settle for less.

If you're happy with it email it to complaints@bank-smart.co.uk and copy in ivan.thompson@fca.org.uk

Also send a hard copy by registered mail to:

Bank-Smart Support Team
First Floor
Building A
Green Court
Truro Business Park
TR4 9LF

Formal Complaint

Your ref: xxx

We expect this complaint to be dealt with in accordance with your complaints procedures and those of the complaints handling regulations governing Claims Management Companies and as such we expect a final response within 8 weeks.

Should we not be entirely satisfied with your final response we fully intend to take the complaint the Financial Ombudsman without further notice.

We should also make you aware that for the purposes of oversight we have forwarded a copy of this complaint to Ivan Thompson who, as you may be aware, is the Case Officer at the Financial Conduct Authority responsible for assessing your Claims Management authorisation application and we intend to further forward to him your final response.

Further, as this complaint deals with issues directly related to 'debt' collection activity by MIL Collections, we would expect a written assurance by return that this activity will halt pending resolution of this complaint. Should it not it will form the basis of an additional complaint.

In making this complaint we have sought the advice of an advisor.

This complaint comprises of three distinct and separate grounds and we require that they are responded to accordingly:

Ground 1

Your records indicate an entry on 08.09.2016 that we had received an agreed refund settlement offer from our lender of £280.71 dated 28.06.2012, but that "This is before we had the claim". On 24.08.2016 we paid you commission in respect of the settlement offer. We are advised that as you had no dealings in making or securing the settlement offer, no commission should have been due.

Ground 2

Notwithstanding the above the amount we paid in commission (£412.10) exceeded the value of the claim, when your commission was contractually 25%.

Ground 3

You have now, some 3 years hence, issued a further invoice for £285.60 which you claim are for "final costs", and for which we have several issues with:

According to your records, our account with you states "claim closed now claim cancelled - no further fee''

Having settled your last invoice in full in August 2016 and having had no further contact from you until now we had a reasonable expectation that no further sums were due.

The invoice for "final cost'' makes no reference to what these costs were in respect of, how they were calculated, to what they were attributed or when they were incurred. In short it appears to be a blatant attempt at speculative invoicing.


In resolution of this complaint we would be prepared to consider the following:

Ground 1

A full refund of the commission paid of £412.10 which we now realise was not in fact due.

Ground 2

Notwithstanding the above, a refund of the over payment of commission.

Ground 3

Cancellation of the current invoice of £285.60 and a written assurance that no further invoices will be issued.



Yours

Mr & Mrs xxx

[Malibu43]

Hi
You are right that my parents would be happy just to get this invoice cancelled and get rid of Bank Smart once and for all.

Thank you so much for this, we are very grateful for your help

.

[EXC]

Hi
You are right that my parents would be happy just to get this invoice cancelled and get rid of Bank Smart once and for all.

Thank you so much for this, we are very grateful for your help

.

No problem. They are supposed to acknowledge receipt of the complaint in five days so keep us posted and good luck!

[Amethyst]

Malibu43

Have your parents heard anything further from BS ?

[Malibu43]

Hi, sorry for the delay in responding - my parents have received acknowledgment of the complaint from BS but nothing further yet.

[Amethyst]

Great - at least things are in progress
They usually respond fully within 7 weeks, and certainly should within 8 weeks - so think they have a few weeks left xx let us know if nothing before beginning of December and they can consider a cmc ombudsman complaint.

[Malibu43]

Ok thanks, will keep you posted