Redhawk Legal and Lifestyle Claims - refund of admin fee

[lordflashheart]

Hello, I hope this is the correct place to post this. I was hoping that somebody would be able to give me some advice, even if it is just to give up!
I was approached last year by Lifestyle Claims who sadly convinced me of a excellent chance of PPI compensation and at the time I was struggling with cash so foolishly jumped at the prospect and paid the £359 fee on the understanding this would be refunded if no successful claim and deducted from their 30% fee on a successful claim. As the claims all started to come back as unsuccessful I started to ask them for the refund but was always told, 'hang in there we still have a few claims to process' this went on for quite some time. I was then contacted and told that one of my claims was very promising and it was passed to ULL who were the solicitors dealing on LifeStyle Claims behalf. Shortly after that I learned that Lifestyle Claims had gone into administration and that RedHawk Legal was my point of contact now. ULL did eventually come up trumps with a whopping payout of £495! which RedHawk Legal promptly sent me an invoice for £162 of that. After contacting them and raising the question of the initial £359 I had paid, they assured me that I could claim back this amount from my credit card company and that they were in no way responsible for claiming back any fees paid to Lifestyle Claims. Tesco, the credit card company however are not interested in refunding this amount and are asking for a copy of the terms and conditions of the contract which I did not have. Redhawk Legal have since provided me a copy of this which I am happy to provide for you but there is nothing there which confirms as clearly as the chap on the phone that the 'admin fee' would be deducted from their 30%, all it states is that their fees are paid as a percentage of the claim if successful. Should I send this to Tesco and keep my fingers crossed or am I sadly going to have to write this off? It sucks that the admin fee is higher than the actual amount I received back.....

Thanks

[TUTTSI]

Re: Redhawk Legal and Lifestyle Claims - refund of admin fee

Hi and welcome to Legal Beagles

Unless you have actually signed a contract with Redhawk agreeing to their T&C's, they do not have any power to chase you for £162.

Did ULL invoice you and if so how much?

Did you receive the full refund as given by Tesco's £495?

If you could post up the copy of the agreement which Redhawk sent you, which I am assuming was the Lifestyle agreement which you originally signed, but omitting your personal details we can advise further.

The money you paid upfront to Lifestyle was only refundable if there was not a successful claim and in your case you have had a payment albeit £495. You cannot claim back from your credit card company the amount of £359 as this can only be claimed if you did not receive a service, in this case you did receive a service as Tesco's have settled your claim.

[lordflashheart]

Re: Redhawk Legal and Lifestyle Claims - refund of admin fee

Hi thanks for your swift response, I don't recall signing anything from RedHawk only with ULL to grant them authority to act on my behalf. The amount of £495 was from another credit card and this was sent in the form of a cheque from ULL direct. It was after that RedHawk expected their 30% (£162) and they were very good at chasing me practically every week to see if I'd received the cheque. I've attached a copy of the T&C's that RedHawk sent me.

So to clarify, ULL sent the cheque for £495
RedHawk Legal invoiced me for £162, which I paid after they advised me that the upfront fee would be reimbursed through my credit card company, I can also supply a letter which RedHawk Legal sent me which states and I quote 'It is our understanding that under the terms and agreement with Client Connection Ltd you are entitled to a refund of any upfront fees paid to the said company upon completion of any claims submitted' unquote. The letter is a text copy of the PDF they sent me hence the horrid fonts....

Thanks again

[EXC]

Re: Redhawk Legal and Lifestyle Claims - refund of admin fee

Firstly you need to get back to Tesco credit cards stating that although you have now obtained the contract with Lifestyle it is irrelevant to Tescos' obligation to refund you. As Tuttsi said and despite what Lifestyle told you the contact doesn't allow for a refund of the administration fee in the event a claim was successful. But this isn't the point.

Under sec 75 of the Consumer Credit Act your credit card provider is obliged to refund you if ''the company you bought the product or service from breaks their contract with you (for example they go out of business); or the company you bought the product or service from don’t deliver what they have promised'', both of which applies to you - see here http://www.theukcardsassociation.org...r_guide(1).pdf

It is indisputable that your contract was breached on 5 October 2012 when Client Connection Ltd trading as Lifestyle Claims voluntarily surrendered their authorization (see here https://www.claimsregulation.gov.uk/...y=-1&status=-1) which meant that they could no longer legally perform claims management activity and therefore could not possibly provide the claims management services they were contracted to supply you. You paid upfront ‘administration' service fee for claims that they were subsequently unable to administer and as such the contract was breached.

If Tescos are in any doubt that the loss of Lifestyle’s authorization means that your contract was breached, refer them to this http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/...ncelled-v2.pdf which clearly says that the loss of authorization amounts to a breach of contract where it says ‘’You might have the right to take the business to court for breach of contract if the business is no longer authorised’’. In the event you couldn’t take them to court as they went into administration days after they surrendered their authorization, for which going in to administration is a breach of contract in itself.

Secondly did ULL litigate your PPI claim (ie did they issue legal proceedings) ?

[TUTTSI]

Re: Redhawk Legal and Lifestyle Claims - refund of admin fee

Hi thanks for your swift response, I don't recall signing anything from RedHawk only with ULL to grant them authority to act on my behalf. The amount of £495 was from another credit card and this was sent in the form of a cheque from ULL direct. It was after that RedHawk expected their 30% (£162) and they were very good at chasing me practically every week to see if I'd received the cheque. I've attached a copy of the T&C's that RedHawk sent me.

So to clarify, ULL sent the cheque for £495
RedHawk Legal invoiced me for £162, which I paid after they advised me that the upfront fee would be reimbursed through my credit card company, I can also supply a letter which RedHawk Legal sent me which states and I quote 'It is our understanding that under the terms and agreement with Client Connection Ltd you are entitled to a refund of any upfront fees paid to the said company upon completion of any claims submitted' unquote. The letter is a text copy of the PDF they sent me hence the horrid fonts....

Thanks again

So you are saying that you paid Redhark £162- WHY would you be able to claim back the money you paid to Lifestyle?

Do you have this little snippet in writing from Redhawk that they told you could recover it from your Credit Card Provider the upfront fee? if you do then this must be reported to the MOJ as that is NOT true, you definitely cannot reclaim your upfront fee back from your credit card provider as the contract which you signed is clear about that, The upfront fee presumably went to pay ULL and was only returnable IF they were unable to make a claim and before they went into administration.

Redhawk were NOT entitled to diddly squeak, they have taken money from you without you having any signed contract with them. Now you may go back to your credit card company and tell them that you DO not have a contract with Redhawk, they have not given you a service and they have coerced you to make a payment of £162 from you and you want to reclaim this back on the basis that they personally have not provided you with a service, you do not have any signed contract with them and that they told you that you would be able to recover your upfront fee from a company which is now in administration. This is the section to quote for the credit card refund under s75 Consumer Credit Act http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct...55617003,d.d2k


Let us know how you get with this and also a complaint to the MOJ/TS at Burton on Trent would be in order as they cannot take a fee on one hand and tell you can claim back from your credit card provider when that is NOT possible.

MOJ/TS
Claims Management Regulation Unit
57-60 High Street
Burton upon Trent
Staffordshire
DE14 1JS

[lordflashheart]

Re: Redhawk Legal and Lifestyle Claims - refund of admin fee

Thanks again for your responses, I am a little confused as it appears to me I'm getting conflicting advice EXC who if I'm reading it correctly believes my contract with LifeStyle was breached so I should be able to contest Tesco in refunding this and Tuttsi, who again, if I'm reading this correctly is telling me I don't have a leg to stand on with Tesco but instead I should be looking at RedHawk. Its all worked out that my 'fees' have amounted to twice what I actually received after deductions. I would never have paid upfront fees and accepted that they would leverage an additional 30% and was assured frequently that this would be deducted from their winning fees or refunded if unsuccessful. I'm certainly not trying to con money back from anyone and if I have been a 'mug' in this respect by believing what I had been told, then sadly I will have to chalk this up to experience and write off xmas this year....

[EXC]

Re: Redhawk Legal and Lifestyle Claims - refund of admin fee

Just to be clear you can't claim on your credit card under section 75 of CCA on the basis that the upfront fee was contractually refundable on a successful claim because there is nothing in the written contract to that effect.

But you can claim on the basis that the contract was indisputably breached as Lifestyle surrendered their authorization, went into administration and could not perform their contractual obligations to completion. That ULL took on the claim presumably on a no-win-no-fee basis is irrelevant to that consideration.

Additionally you entered into a verbal contract with Lifestyle that the £359 was refundable on a successful claim and clearly they didn't refund you. And on that basis the verbal contract was also broken. If Tesco are in any doubt that the upfront fee contract was verbal see the attached administrators document which describes Lifestyle's business model as ''...to contact potential clients by telephone, assess over the phone if they had been potentially mis-sold PPI, obtain verbal agreement and take an upfront fee of £359.99''.