bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

[TUTTSI]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

Thank you Sparkle for posting up and welcome to Legal Beagles.

For the benefit of other members in a similar position can you please give us chapter and verse of how and when you become involved with Bank Smart. ie when you paid and how much what they were going to do for you etc, etc...???

What regular contact have they had with you since paying over the money?

We have just had one of our members who paid £3k over 20 months ago to another CMC and who has now after our help just received a full refund. The reason for the refund was that there was not claim atributable to her and they just sat on her money instead of returning as they should have done.

They also took 2 weeks of nagging before they agreed a full refund and a further 26 days before the payment actually was received.

This is not acceptable and is a total nonsense.

Another CMC recently went for voluntary suspension leaving a deficit on their accounts of minus £38k so there is not chance of anyone getting their money back whatsoever.

Look forward to hearing from you soon.

Hi Everyone,

I've just joined as I saw all the Bank Smart comments. How I wish I had seen it before signing up. I have reported Bank Smart to the Ministry of Justice and spoken at length with the Claims Management Regulators who have been extremely helpful. Bank Smart have picked a fight with me......big mistake!!!!

One piece of advice, terminate the agreement due to non performance within a reasonable time, as opposed to cancel therefore no cancellation fee.

[colin a]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

hi im a newbe at this,so il give it a go bank smart want £240 from me for work they cannot prove,,i have sent letters asking for breakdown of cost ,where it states on terms and conditions that they can charge me this but all i recieve is emails demanding payment,all they state is that i owe them full comission and costs as i have cancelled any dealings with them as they have not done or proved any work done,,,this was all from a cold call last year stating that i was entitled to approx£16000 from a loan 3 years prev of£50000.....i am willing to pay for any admin work although this was never explained to me but that amount is just ridiculous,,,i feel mugged by these people,any ideas what to do next,,,,,,,i have wrote a couple of letters as stated in these forums,,which are very clever in stopping further charges,,,but this remains to be seen,,,they have been recorded delivery so i hope this works,,,but do you thjink i need to skip all the complaints proc or go straight to a solicitor....these people have my bank details etc and i am getting concerned

[TUTTSI]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

Hi Colin

Did you pay an upfront fee to them after their cold call to you?

They cannot possibly of known that you had £16k to come back from a loan - they are NOT privvy to any of your personal information and this is a figure they have plucked out of the air.

The Ministry of Justice say the Claims Management Company have to act in a fair way as part of their authorisation and handle complaints. http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/...12-bulletin-15

As they have not answered your letters and explained the costs to you and where this is mentioned on their T&C's they cannot chase you for the money, because if they took you to court they would have to a court protocol be able to show how and why you owe this money.

In the meantime they have not claimed any money on your behalf despite advising you that you would have a lot of money to come back to you. I will post up the MOJ bulletins which advises that the CMC has to act fair and reasonably at all times as part of their authorisation with them. http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/...each-sheet.pdf specifically rule 11

If you need any further help - just shout.

hi im a newbe at this,so il give it a go bank smart want £240 from me for work they cannot prove,,i have sent letters asking for breakdown of cost ,where it states on terms and conditions that they can charge me this but all i recieve is emails demanding payment,all they state is that i owe them full comission and costs as i have cancelled any dealings with them as they have not done or proved any work done,,,this was all from a cold call last year stating that i was entitled to approx£16000 from a loan 3 years prev of£50000.....i am willing to pay for any admin work although this was never explained to me but that amount is just ridiculous,,,i feel mugged by these people,any ideas what to do next,,,,,,,i have wrote a couple of letters as stated in these forums,,which are very clever in stopping further charges,,,but this remains to be seen,,,they have been recorded delivery so i hope this works,,,but do you thjink i need to skip all the complaints proc or go straight to a solicitor....these people have my bank details etc and i am getting concerned

[colin a]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

thanks....that helps alot,today i recieved a letterfor interm costs for £240 to be paid within 7 days to aviod further action,,,,i guess this is the start of a plan to reach a total of £750 with surcharges so they can take me to court....i have wrote letter saying im willing to pay some fees but this is to high and they cannot provide me with any evidence of work undertaken,im not refusing to pay [minimal costs]im purly disputing the amount,so am i right in saying that any further enforcment action must be stopped as this dispute is resolved,all they have sent me is letter with my name on it saying that third party authorisation and agreement, which i signed,i thought this was for my bank .lloyds have already contacted me saying i have no ppi with this loan....this company is really hard to contact and i have never been told about any charges or commision costs,even though iv asked for all relevent paperwork terms and conditions after giving them several months to claim ithought this would be a reasonable time for them to get back to me.do i have any rights when dealing with a very vague company like bank smart or do i just sit tight and see what happens or do i contact my solicitor and get legal advise,,,,all thishas come about after being duped into this with a very convincing phone call i feel total set up now to be extorted i

[colin a]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

and sorry to the first part of your reply .no ididnt pay any money upfront to them,i cancelled all dealing with them after thge threatened me with full commision and costs,, and they keept on asking me about more credit card loans ,loans and other sort of things that might of had ppi,,i know now they charge £100 for every thjing that they look into,,that is why they wanted me to send in a filled in form by the finacial onbusmen to them,,,if that was the case i would have done this myself,,,was i right to cancell agreement due to lack of feedback

[Sparkle1966]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

Bank Smart cold called/wrote to my husband May 2011 stating PPI could be reclaimed on a loan with Lloyds Bank of £12000. We weren't aware of a loan for that amount and we had just reclaimed several amounts of PPi using another company who we approached ourselves. Well, we signed their letter giving them authority to act on our behalf jointly definately not as individuals and the authority form clearly stated second sig required in the case of joint policies. The form was sent back to them in June 2011. We gave them no account details whatsoever as they had cold called us and it could so easily have been a scam.

In the meantime in September 2011 I had personally had a lot of trouble with Lloyds which although my local branch tried to sort out were unable to do so and I ended up making a formal complaint in writing. Lloyds were apologetic and said they would review the case and repay any charges.

Bank Smart approached us again stating although they had requested info from our bank they had received nothing and to hurry matters along could we provide them with name of lenders/ and or account numbers. No we couldn't and didn't!
November 2011 Bank Smart unaware to us had finally sent the Authority and a Multi Claim request to Lloyds I think on the offchance that we may have banked with them, regarding any charges and default charges etc on any of our accounts but not the PPi on the £12000 loan they mentioned to us. They wrote to us in January asking if we had heard anything and again in February. In March Lloyds wrote to me apologising for the inconvenience they had caused me personally and the time they had taken to resolve matters and offered my a settlement which I accepted. We are talking below £2000 here I wasn't looking to get rich. Anyway, Bank Smart contacted Lloyds to which Lloyds replied that they had dealt with me direct and that Bank Smart were of no use at this time on this matter. They also sent the cheque direct to me.
At this moment in time I have Bank Smart who have increased their commission charge from £300 to £400 still harassing me and MIL Collections also on Bank Smarts behalf. I have contacted the Ministry of Justice who then passed me onto the Claims Management regulators who took the time to call me back and spent about 45 minutes discussing the matter with me. Bottom line they told me to ignore it because it is obvious the bank dealt with me directly over a personal matter even if it was above board Bank Smart did not settle within a reasonable time limit nor could they send me any proof of acting on my behalf so if it went to court they would look pretty stupid. And following their advice I terminated Bank Smart's services and now I just file the invoices. I have written a letter of complaint to Bank Smart and MIL Collections. I have also spoken to citizens advice and the financial ombudsman who suggested I contact the police if any further harassment occurs.
One last comment this morning a letter arrived in the post from Bank Smart to my husband and I quote from the letter here ' We have previously been asked to write to you regarding the loan application you made for £12000 which we have been informed is likely to have included PPI in the region of £4920, we enclose a letter of Authority' Are we going to sign it NO!!!
Whilst going through all the paper work this morning I also found a letter of engagement of Bank Smarts services and acceptance of their terms and conditions filed away not returned to themselves and unsigned.

[shez]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

Exactly , the same as myself , can i print a copy of this may need it . This company is poison ,

[Celestine]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

Of course you can Shez. Also tell us a bit more about what they've done to you.

[TUTTSI]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

Sparkle - Bank Smart is a Claims Management Company - you are right if it was a joint account at the bank then I believe both signatures would have had to been signed to confirm to their agreement to act on your behalf. Assuming you signed with just one signature I am concerned that they think that is OK. As this post of yours was back in Aug12, do you have any further updates?

Shez, can you please start a new thread with your story so we can see how best we can help you giving us all the facts as to when they first approached you, did you sign anything.... etc, etc...

Tuttsi

[vern]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

i have the same problem apparently i owe bank smart nearly £1000 in apparent breach of contract is there any thing i can do about this my claim as been going on for 2011 and recieved no update or anything from them till these two invoices dropped through the door today i am absolutly gutted i cant afford to pay this company that amount of money all the more when they havent done a thing for me or even won my claim please tell me there is somethimg i can do about or contact some one many thanks carl

[EXC]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

i have the same problem apparently i owe bank smart nearly £1000 in apparent breach of contract is there any thing i can do about this my claim as been going on for 2011 and recieved no update or anything from them till these two invoices dropped through the door today i am absolutly gutted i cant afford to pay this company that amount of money all the more when they havent done a thing for me or even won my claim please tell me there is somethimg i can do about or contact some one many thanks carl

I think they might be trying out a new income stream by utilizing this clause in their contracts:

After engaging our services (by signing these Terms and Conditions and each individual Letter of Authority) you agree to cooperate with the claims process in its entirety and therefore failure to complete & return documents required for your claim may result in a breach of this agreement and we may seek to recover our reasonable costs if we are unable to complete our services as a result.

Can you tell us about your dealings with them in a bit more detail so we can make some suggestions?

[vern]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

I think they might be trying out a new income stream by utilizing this clause in their contracts:



Can you tell us about your dealings with them in a bit more detail so we can make some suggestions?

I set a claim up after been contacted in 2011 I'm sure it was a no win no fee I received a few letters to fill in and send the details in like ya do didn't here a stich from them until last I contacted them saying that I had heard nothing from them and to cancel my claim I was then emailed and invoice for 600 and somet pounds they said that is what it would cost me to cancel my claim so I said show me in proof where I signed and carry on with the claim as I can't afford to pay that amount of money that's the last I heard until last week when they sent me an invoice to be paid due to breach of contract for not sending forms in which they asked for which they should already have when I first asked them to look into it for I have not revived a penny from them for any so called ppi claims and feel they have done nothing in the fours years it's been going on to Warrent this amount of money just feel like my hands I tied and have no choice but to ask them again for what they to carry on the claim

[EXC]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

until last I contacted them saying that I had heard nothing from them and to cancel my claim I was then emailed and invoice for 600 and somet pounds they said that is what it would cost me to cancel my claim so I said show me in proof where I signed and carry on with the claim as I can't afford to pay that amount of money

When did you tell them you wanted to cancel and when did they respond with the invoice for £600.

Also can you post up the invoice you had last week (or just type out what it says)?

[vern]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

Not sure it was about same time last year and yes will do tomorrow when I finished work thanks for the time to try and help me out

[EXC]

Re: bank-smart lose in court over t&c's

Ok so if you hadn't heard a thing from them between 2011 and last year I reckon they've broke the terms of their authorization - they're required to keep you updated on the progress of your claim - so you may be able to argue that they broke an implied term of your contract.

Post up the letter tomorrow and we'll take it from there.