Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

[Rjwoodhouse]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

I made the fast track payments on the 17th July 2011, I'm not sure but I think I signed up about 3-6 months prior to when the fast track payments were made. I got one refund credited to my capital one card ( which capital one are aware of) after a succesful claim. I was told by all debt solutions that the £599 payments were to fast track my claims and that they would be resolved within 6 months and that the fast track payments were fully refundable after a succesful or unsuccessful claim.
The fast track payments were definately deducted from my capital one card to all debt solutions as I still have the paper statement. Thankyou very much for replying and the attachment , would this attachment be of any use to the financial ombudsman as it is client connections on the letter and not all debt solutions? Going through my papers I have letters from all debt solutions, lifestyle money/claims and finally start my claim!

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

I made the fast track payments on the 17th July 2011, I'm not sure but I think I signed up about 3-6 months prior to when the fast track payments were made. I got one refund credited to my capital one card ( which capital one are aware of) after a succesful claim. I was told by all debt solutions that the £599 payments were to fast track my claims and that they would be resolved within 6 months and that the fast track payments were fully refundable after a succesful or unsuccessful claim.
The fast track payments were definately deducted from my capital one card to all debt solutions as I still have the paper statement. Thankyou very much for replying and the attachment , would this attachment be of any use to the financial ombudsman as it is client connections on the letter and not all debt solutions? Going through my papers I have letters from all debt solutions, lifestyle money/claims and finally start my claim!

Yes, the document and a covering letter from MOJ (which we could help obtain for you) would only apply to Client Connection.

It is a little complicated because although All Debt Solutions Ltd trading as Lifestyle Money shared some of the same directors and address as Client Connection Ltd trading as Lifestyle Money, they are separate legal entities. But it is possible that somewhere in your paperwork we can establish a connection between the two. It might be that your All Debt Solutions terms & conditions or correspondence states that the PPI claims are administered by Client Connection for example and in which case the MOJ letter & document could apply.

I'd like to see all the paperwork/correspondence/terms & conditions that you've had from any of the companies together with the responses to your sec 75 claim from Capital One and the Financial Ombudsman. I'll send you my e-mail address.

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

I've found some Client Connection terms and conditions which state (at the bottom) that ''we place your claim(s) with our legal specialists directed by All Debt Solutions''. So we could use this but I'd still like to see everything you have.

In the meantime I'll introduce you to someone at MOJ to obtain the covering letter & Client Connection document for the Financial Ombudsman.

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

I've e-mailed MOJ and copied you in.

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

Hiya

I've got the correspondence you e-mailed me but I can't marry up the first and last pages of the letters from the FOS/adjudicator.

There are the first pages 2 letters, one dated 11 Feb and the other 20 Feb. Then there is the final page of a letter but I don't know which letter that is from - can you let me know? It's important because the final page gives you a deadline of 6 March to respond before they close the file.

Also you seem to have signed the non disclosure agreement for the Ministry of Justice, have you received the information from them yet?

[Rjwoodhouse]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

Hiya

I've got the correspondence you e-mailed me but I can't marry up the first and last pages of the letters from the FOS/adjudicator.

There are the first pages 2 letters, one dated 11 Feb and the other 20 Feb. Then there is the final page of a letter but I don't know which letter that is from - can you let me know? It's important because the final page gives you a deadline of 6 March to respond before they close the file.

Also you seem to have signed the non disclosure agreement for the Ministry of Justice, have you received the information from them yet?

Hi, thanks for your reply.

The second page stating I have until the 6th March to reply , is with the letter dated the 20th February. The delay in getting back to the Ombudsman was due to me searching for advice and ways of getting a copy of contract which led me to Legal Beagle.

I have not received anything from the Ministry of Justice as of yet.

Many thanks, Ryan.

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

Ok, you signed the non disclosure form for MOJ 3 weeks ago so I'll chase them.

[Rjwoodhouse]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

That would be great! Thanks very much

regards ryan

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

That would be great! Thanks very much

regards ryan

MOJ are saying that they e-mailed the documents to you on 7 April but have sent them again. Can you forward them to me and we'll work on an accompanying letter to FOS.

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

Draft response to FOS. I've sent you the relevant documents to attach.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Dear Dilmi Loku

I refer to your letter of 20 February.

In your letter you indicated that unless I can supply you with any evidence of breach of contract to substantiate my complaint by 6 March you will take it that I no longer wish to pursue my complaint. I can only apologise for not being able to meet that short deadline but it has taken a substantial amount of research to obtain the evidence you require.

For the avoidance of doubt, should you deem this response to be out of time for the purposes of the adjudication process I formally request that my complaint is reviewed by the Ombudsman and includes the additional information provided in this e-mail.

In summary your assessment of my complaint is that I have not been able to supply you with any contract or terms & conditions for the 4 payments I made to All Debt Solutions in order to substantiate a breach of contract or misrepresentation. This, as you rightly indicate in your letter, is because I was never provided with any as the agreement surrounding the payments was concluded over the phone. I have since sought the assistance of the Legal Beagles consumer group who put me in touch with the Claims Management Regulator at Ministry of Justice who together have provided me with the documentation attached to this e-mail which evidences the contractual terms of the payments and which substantiates both breach of contract and misrepresentation.

Firstly, by way of background, it was not only All Debt Solutions Ltd trading as Lifestyle Claims that I was contracted with to handle my PPI claims but also their sister company Client Connection Ltd trading as Lifestyle Claims. Please see ‘Lifestyle Money’ pre-contractual terms & conditions document attached which states at the foot of the page that ‘’We [Client Connection Ltd] place your claim(s) with our legal specialists All Debt Solutions’’. As the document makes clear, although my PPI claims were placed with All Debt Solutions, it was Client Connection whose terms & conditions I was bound by in relation to the payment of fees.

There were 2 types of fees that Client Connection charged in respect of taking on PPI claims: an initial ‘administration fee’ of £359.98 which is referred to in the ‘Lifestyle Money’ document and which is not at issue, and a ‘priority service’ fee of £599.99 per claim which is not referred to in the document but is the fee the payments of which apply to my section 75 claim and complaint. The documents attached and referred to below from the Claims Management Regulator confirm that the contractual terms of ‘priority service’ fee are that they are refundable at the end of the claims process.

The first document (see ‘Update’ document attached) is an e-mail from the Claims Management Regulator to Nick Spooner of Legal Beagles which states, at point 5, that ‘’It appears that fees for this priority service are refundable at the end of the claims process’’.

The second document (see ‘MOJ Letter’ document attached) is a covering letter from the Claims Management Regulator at Ministry of Justice to myself which states that the enclosed letter from the company that represented Client Connection Ltd states that the fees ‘’are payable at the end of the claims process’’. The covering letter also makes clear that the letter itself is in support of my section 75 claim and that the enclosed letter is being provided under the disclosure provisions of The Enterprise Act 2002.

The third document (see ‘Scott Robert’ document attached) is the letter to which the above covering letter applies and which again confirms that in regards to the priority service fee ‘’our client deducts this fee from any fee payable at the end of the claims process’’.

I trust that the above clarifies beyond any doubt that the contractual terms & conditions of the payments were that they should have been returned to me and that given that both Client Connection Ltd and All Debt Solutions Ltd have since gone into administration they have both breached my contract in not doing so and misrepresented themselves to me during the relevant phone call that they would do so within 6 months.

I wish to repeat that should you deem this response to be out of time for the purposes of the adjudication process I formally request that my complaint is reviewed by the Ombudsman and that it includes the additional information provided in this e-mail.

Yours

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

Thank you ever so much for all you have done for me! I hope I get a good outcome and will let you know how I got on. It would be great if you could put this on the thread for the benefit of others. Thanks again and I hope to be in touch with good news, fingers crossed!

Good luck.

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

That's disappointing, FOS have completely confused the administration fee with the priority service fee and have ignored the MOJ documents entirely.

Here's a draft response.

Dear Sir

I refer to you assessment of my complaint of 10 June.

I am very surprised and deeply disappointed that you have failed to understand and assess my complaint correctly.

From the outset you have made numerous errors, incorrect assumptions and omissions. Turning to your assessment:

Paragraph 1 states that you have ''considered everything that you and Capital One have sent us''. But you have not considered or even referred to following:

1) The 'Update' e-mail document from the Claims Management Regulator at Staffordshire Trading Standards which states that ‘’It appears that fees for this priority service are refundable at the end of the claims process’’.

2) The 'MOJ letter' document from the Claims Management Regulator at Ministry of Justice which states that the company that represented Client Connection Ltd confirms that the fees ‘’are payable at the end of the claims process’’.

3) The 'Scott Robert' document that states ‘’our client deducts this fee from any fee payable at the end of the claims process’’.

It can be beyond dispute that the contractual terms of the priority service fees were that they were to be refunded at the end of the claims process. Regardless of when I was told the claims process would end, the claims process necessarily ended at the point the company went into administration and were unable to provide me with a service and/or refund the fees that I was contractually entitled to. This was clearly and unambiguously a breech of contract and this alone should be sufficient enough for you to uphold my complaint in full.

Paragraph 3 states, correctly, that I was unable to supply any written terms & conditions for the payments as the contract was concluded verbally over the phone. However in paragraph 4 you directly contradict this by arbitrarily applying the fees to the different fees referred to in the pre-contractual information and terms. For the avoidance of doubt there were no written terms & conditions that applied to the priority service fees provided to myself or any other customers.

Paragraph 7 states, correctly, that the pre-contractual terms & conditions states that the administration fee is £398.98 but that I paid a (completely different) priority service fee of £599.99 for each claim. But in paragraph 10 you revert to applying the terms of the administration fee to that of the priority service fees. I am at a loss to understand why you appear incapable of making the important distinction between the administration fee and priority service fees and their differing terms.

Paragraph 12 you again invalidate the first part of the paragraph with the last by, correctly, stating the contract was verbal and then inexplicably and incorrectly stating that ''It is reasonable to assume that the pre-contractual information and terms and
conditions provided would be applicable to that contract''. In short, a contract is either verbal or written. In cannot possibly be both.

I now expect you to uphold my complaint in full. Should you not do so I fully intend to exercise my right to ask the Ombudsman to review it.

Yours

Mr xxx

[Amethyst]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

Rereading the letters through, the ''administration fee'' is refundable if there is a successful or unsuccessful claim. But in a successful claim it is repaid towards the 25% success fee, not the customer. ''deducts the fee from any fee payable at the end of the claims process''

eg: Pay £398 up front - they get you a refund of £4000 PPI - you owe them their 25% fee (£1000) less the up front fee (£398) so you only owe them £602.

The priority service fee should have a term attached to it on the timescales - I think the verbal contract £599 claims were within 6 months, whereas normal £398 claims were within 12 months. FOS have decided to treat the £599 the same as the £398. ( It should be refundable if they fail within the agreed 6 months IMO - but then it is still owed later as part of the 25% success fee so swings and roundabouts)

Santander - owe them 25% of refund less the £599
BArclaycard - owe them 25% of refund less the £599
Barclaycard - owe them 25% of refund less the £599
Abbey - full refund as not resolved
Egg - full refund as not resolved.

How much were the PPI settlement offers? If each was over £2k then there's nothing due back to cust. IF lifestyle (or whoever) took 25% of the settlement and didn;t deduct the upfront fee, then it is all due back.

Sorry that's just reading through the MOJ Scott Robert letter etc and my interpretation of it, I don't obviously know the ins and outs of this specific case, so feel free to discount xxxx

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

The £398 administration fee was charged when people were signed up and was refundable only in the event that all claims were unsuccessful. I dealt with someone whose 'successful' claim amounted to a PPI refund of just £117 and they were refused a refund as well as being charged commission on the PPI refund. But I did manage to get a sec 75 refund for that.

The £599 priority service fee isn't a type of administration fee, it's completely separate and in addition to the administration fee and is refundable at the end of the claims process regardless of the outcome.

It's explained a paras 3 & 4 here by MOJ.

Typically Client Connection would call customers a few weeks after they'd signed up and paid the administration fee and tell them that they could 'fast track' each claim if they paid the additional £599 priority service fee per claim.

[Amethyst]

Re: Lifestyle money + lifestyle claims

Okay, I don't think that the £599 was paid as well as the £398 has come through in the letters to the FOS.

I'm also not convinced that letter from the MOJ helps the case much, it is very poorly worded.

The third document (see ‘Scott Robert’ document attached) is the letter to which the above covering letter applies and which again confirms that in regards to the priority service fee ‘’our client deducts this fee from any fee payable at the end of the claims process’’.