Lifestyle Claims fee refund under section 75

[mushi]

I signed up with Lifestyle claims in March 2011 for the refund of PPI for 3 claims. They charged me admin fee of 299.99 + VAT at the start and said that it would be refundable if my claims were unsuccessful which is very unlikely they said. Anyhow, I paid them from my Tesco credit card which was also in question. Few days later I had a phone call from them asking for a litigation fee of £599.99 against each claim i.e. almost £1800 for 3 x claims as they said that all 3 claims were valid and very strong. To cut the story short, the company went bust and had a letter from Synergy to switch over to them for further pursual which i did'nt. Received the notification from Sharma & Co that the company has gone into admin and I can also claim my fees back from credit card provider under section 75.
I filed a refund claim with Tesco under section 75 in December 2012 and now at the end of September received their decision after they asked for different documents and Terms and Conditions. In their decision they say that they cannot refund under section 75 as one of my claim was successful with Tesco for £188.
Even if i go by their decision the admin fee was only 359.98. How about the rest of the fee that they had charged my and the interest on the top since March 2011. Please advise about that as i am in extreme financial difficulty due to this.

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle Calims fee refund under section 75

Is it possible that you could post up the full text of Tescos' decision, without any of your personal details?

[mushi]

Re: Lifestyle Calims fee refund under section 75

Yes sure EXC...here is the draft of that letter.......it says
Your Claim under section 75 of cosumer credit act 1974
We write regarding your correspondence relating to disputed transactions with Lifestyle Claims which you paid for with your Tesco credit card in Feb & March 2011.
My Review
I have reviewed your documentation and understand your claim is based on the fact you were expecting a refund of the upfront fees paid to Lifestyle Claims, which has failed to materialise. Lifestyle claims has now ceased trading and as a result you were seeking a refund from Tesco Bank under section 75 of the consumer credit act. From the information you have provided, i note you received a payment from Tesco Bank to Lifestyle claims in April 2011. This was a result of contact from Lifestyle claims as part of your contact with them. The Terms & Conditions you have provided state that the administration fee is refundable only if all of your claims prove to be unsuccessful. As this is not the case, the administration fees are not refundable.I am therefore unable to progress your claim.
I appreciate that you may be disappointed with this outcome; however i hope you understand why we have reached this decision.
This completes my investigation into your concerns and i hope you are happy with our response. However, if not, you may refer your concerns in writing to our complaints department at the address detailed below.

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle Claims fee refund under section 75

Ok thanks.

Not surprisingly they have confused the up front fees that are referenced in the contract with the priority service fee (litigation fee), the terms of which are not.

I'm going to draft a letter of complaint for you but first I need to know the following:


1) What happened to the 2 unsuccessful claims? Were they rejected or did Lifestyle go bust before they reached a conclusion?

2) When you made your sec 75 claim to Tesco did you fill out a form or write a letter? I need to know what the details of the claim were ie the separate amounts you were claiming for.

3) Do you know if any litigation was involved in the claims ie were any court claims made?

4) What date were you awarded the £188 from Tesco.

5) In the attached document towards the bottom there is a long list of Lifetyle's creditors that appear sideways. Can you look to see if your name is listed bearing in mind the names are not in alphabetical order within their letter groupings.

Thanks

[mushi]

Re: Lifestyle Claims fee refund under section 75

1. On one of the other 2 claims which was with sainsburys finance, they got a refund of £13.06 and as per the verbal contract the litigation fees were refundable if the amount recovered was less than that fee i.e £599.99. The other claim was with Halifax mortgage and the company went bust before reaching a decision on that one. One more thing, I have just checked the invoice and the refund from Tescos, credit card was only £137.16 and out of which they took 49.38 and i was left with just 87.78. This was on the 8th April 2011.
2. I think it was a letter i wrote to them claiming the amounts as;
Subscription/admin fee £349 whereas just checked it was actually 299.99+VAT =358.98 and Tesco card has this record as it was paid from same card........3 x legal costs fee of £599 against each of the 3 claims or litigation fee..this is referred to as legal costs in Terms & Conditions clause 14. And then as advised by one of the advisers from Tesco card i could claim back the interest i paid on this total amount if i gave them in writing so i just left it blank for them to calculate the interest but put it in writing later.
3. As far as i know there were no court claims made.
4. I was awarded 87.78 from Tesco card on 8th April 2011
5. Yes I can see my name and address appearing in the creditors list sideways.
Thanks very much for your help and consideration.

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle Claims fee refund under section 75

Ok thanks for the concise response.

I have it in writing from Claims Management Regulator at Ministry of Justice that the £599 fees were indeed refundable, so we'll present that.

That your name appears in the list of creditors is good because it proves that Lifestyle owed you the fees.

I'll draft a letter in the morning but I'll need your e-mail address to send it to you as I have to attach some documents to accompany it. Don't post your e-mail address here - I'll send you a private message and just respond to it with the address.

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle Claims fee refund under section 75

One other thing - can you e-mail me the Lifestyle documentation you sent to Tesco with your sec 75 claim?

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle Claims fee refund under section 75

Just for the benefit of those reading this thread, here's the complaint to Tescos Credit Cards that I drafted for mushi:


Dear Sirs

This is a formal letter of complaint which I expect to be dealt with in accordance with your complaints procedure as published on the Tesco Bank website. I wish to make clear from the outset that should this complaint not be dealt with to my complete satisfaction I fully intend to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Complaint

I made a claim to Tesco Credit Cards under section 75 of the ConsumerCredit Act for the refund of 4 payments made to Client Connection Ltd trading as Lifestyle Claims (now in liquidation) on the basis that the services for which I paid were not provided and as such breached our contractual agreement.

The payments I was claiming for were one payment of £359.99 and three payments of £599.99. In response to my claim Tesco Credit Cards asked me to provide the terms & conditions to which the payments related, which I supplied. It is worth noting that the terms & conditions for the £359.99 payment were completely separate and distinct from the £599.99 payments. In response Tesco Credit Cards refused to refund all four payments on the basis of the Terms & Conditions of the £359.99 payment whilst ignoring those of the three £599.99 payments. In short they applied the criteria to the £599.99 payments.

To be clear the £359.99 payment was an ‘’administration fee’’ for claims management services which I accept was not refundable as all of myclaims were not unsuccessful (see Pre-Contractual Information & Terms and Conditions document enclosed). The three £599.99 payments were not, as Tesco Credit Card infers,‘’administration fees’’ and although described to me at the time I paid them on the telephone as ‘’Priority Service Litigation fees’’ that were connected with my claims, were referred to in the confirmation letter as fees for ‘’Mortgage Audits’’ for which I would receive a refund on the difference of any money I saved (see Lifestyle Claims letter enclosed). In the event I did not receive any mortgage audits or save any money whatsoever. Indeed quite the reverse as I paid Lifestyle Claims a total of £2159.96 in advance fees and £49 in commission for claims management service that yielded just £201 (a £188 refund from Tesco and a £13 refund from Halifax), in clear breach of Lifestyle’s contractual obligations.

It is quite clear from the contractual documentation I supplied in support of my section 75 claim that the ‘’administration fee’’ is different in name, amount and contractual nature to the Mortgage Audit fee yet Tesco Credit Cards refused to entertain my section 75 claim for the latter by confusing them with the former.

Additionally please find enclosed letter from the Administrators of Client Connection Ltd (trading as Lifestyle Claims). If Tesco Credit Cards were correct in refusing to refund me the three £599.99 payments on the basis that they were not contractually refundable, I would clearly not be recognized as a creditor in respect of the payments I made.

Finally I wish to repeat that should you not uphold my complaint in full I absolutely intend to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman service.

Yours faithfully

[EXC]

Re: Lifestyle Claims fee refund under section 75

Complaint to FOS sent:

Complaint Overview

This complaint is against Tesco Bank’s refusal to refund 3 credit card payments totaling £1799.94 made to Client Connection Ltd (T/A Lifestyle Claims, a PPI claims management company now in liquidation) under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.

The terms of the payments which are at issue were part of a verbal contract concluded during a telephone call and for which I was assured would be refunded at the end of the claims process. Notwithstanding, the services (see ‘Lifestyle Letter’ doc attached) to which the payments relate (‘mortgage audits’ and ‘money saving opportunities’) were never supplied.The basis for Tesco Bank’s refusal to refund the payments is fundamentallyflawed in that they are relying (either mistakenly or deliberately) on the written Terms & Conditions covering an entirely different type of service/payment. To that end I now have documents evidencing the refund terms which I have obtained from the Claims Management Regulator at Ministry of Justice under the disclosure provisions of the Enterprise Act for the specific purpose of substantiating this complaint in support of my section 75 claim.

Background to Complaint

I was cold called by Lifestyle Claims trading as Client Connection Ltd in February 2011 and was persuaded to sign up with them to make 3 potential claims for PPI. I paid an initial up-front ‘administration fee’ of £359.98 and a few weeks later I was called again asking me to pay additional up-front fees for each claim totaling £1799.94 which were described ‘priority service fees’. I was assured that these fees would be refunded regardless of the outcome of my claims.Eventually I was awarded PPI compensation totaling £201 for 2 of my claims (£188 for my Tesco credit card and a £13 for my Halifax account) for which I was charged a success commission of £49.In summary I have paid a total of £2208.92 to Lifestyle Claims for PPI claims that yielded just £201 leaving me £2007.92 out of pocket. Clearly I have been ripped off.

Despite numerous attempts I was unable to contact Lifestyle claims to obtain a refund of the fees. I was not the only one as on September 19 2012 the Claims Management Regulator at ministry of Justice banned Lifestyle claims from taking any further up-front fees and on 9 October 2012 the company went into administration and later liquidation.At this point I began to realize that I had been the victim of a scam. The exploits of Client Connection Ltd trading variously as Lifestyle Claims, Lifestyle Money and Money Claiming Experts have been covered extensively in the national press, media, television and even discussed in Parliament.

See examples:
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/experts/article-2223989/TONY-HETHERINGTON-Fees--claims-firm-goes-bust.htmlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-21396645http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/x-ray/2011/10/claiming-cash.shtmlhttp://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm121108/halltext/121108h0001.htm

Complaint

My section 75 claim to Tesco Bank Credit Cards for a refund of the fees was refused (see ‘Tesco s75 response’ doc attached) on the basis that ‘’The Terms & Conditions you have provided state that the administration fee is refundable only if all of your claims prove to be unsuccessful. As this is not the case, the administration fees are not refundable.’’On 4 November 2013 I made a formal complaint (see ‘Tesco Complaint’ doc attached) pointing out that they were confusing the priority service fees for which I was claiming, with the administration fees referred to in the written Terms & Conditions (see ‘General T&Cs Lifestyle’ doc attached) for which I wasn’t.

In response Tesco Credit Card wrote to me on 27 December 2013 (see ‘Tesco 27/12/13’ doc attached) informing me that they would not uphold my complaint on the basis that ‘’we have not received evidence to support you claim that the 3 payments of £599.98 were due to be refunded’’ and that ‘’My decision has been based on a full investigation of your complaint which included the information that you provided, however, if you have additional informationthat you wish me to take into consideration, or have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me on 0845 0716155 or at the address above’’.


On 7 January 2014 I replied (see ‘E-mail’ doc attached) attaching correspondence from the Claims Management Regulator at Ministry of Justice (see points 4,5&6 in ‘Update’ doc attached) to my advisor in this matter, Nick Spooner of Legal Beagles, which confirms the distinction between the administration fee and the priority service fee and that as a result of their investigation into the up-front fees charged by Client Connection Ltd, the priority service fees were indeed refundable ‘’at the end of the claims process’’.On 14 January Tesco responded (see ‘Tesco 14/01/2014’ doc attached) stating that they would not accept the ‘Update’ correspondence from the Claims Management Regulator at Ministry of Justice as it was from a ‘’third party’’ and inexplicably reverted to their original flawed position that ‘’The Terms & Conditions advise that the fee is not refundable’’.

Subsequently I have obtained documents from the Claims Management Regulator at Ministry of Justice (see ‘MOJ Scott Robert’ doc attached) which were provided to me under the disclosure provisions of the Enterprise Act in support of this complaint which conclusively confirms that the priority service fees were indeed refundable ‘’at the end of the claims process’’.In addition to the above, had Tesco Bank Credit Card been correct in asserting that I was not owed any money by Client Connection Ltd, I would not have received correspondence from the administrator of the company advising me to claim monies owed to me under section 75 (see ‘Sharma Letter’ doc attached) and neither would I have been listed as a creditor to the company (see ‘Statement of Administrators Proposals’ doc attached). In the event the company was put into liquidation and there were no funds available to distribute to creditors.

Finally I would like to remind you that section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act exists to protect consumers such as myself from abuse by unscrupulous companies such as Client Connection Ltd and Tesco Credit Card have an obligation to refund the payments I was cheated out of.