Consumers warned about bank charge reclaim companies
December 24, 2007
Consumers in the UK are being warned about rip-off bank charge reclaim companies that take hundreds of pounds of some consumers simply for filling out some simple forms that the consumers could easily complete.
Many of these companies charge a percentage of the amount being reclaimed in charges, and this amounts to hundreds of pounds in some cases. Some companies take between 15 and 40% of the amount being reclaimed, which means that the customer loses a large chunk of the amount that they claim.
One consumer explained how she had been shocked to discover how much she was being charged by a reclaim company that she used called Charge Claims. Anne Mills used the company because she though that it would save her a lot of time and hassle, and after looking at the amounts that many other reclaim companies charged she thought that the maximum that she would have to pay would be around 25%.
A year after starting the process with the claims company Ms Mills received a settlement of £950 from the Halifax. However, she then received an invoice from Charge Claims for 40% of the settlement amounts, which equated to £380. She was so shocked that she sought advice from the Citizen’s Advice Bureau and the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Ms Mills stated: ‘…I’m still angry that they didn’t advise me of their level of charges from the outset when my claim was first initiated with them. I feel a 40% charge is an extortionate amount to pay, just for having them write a few letters on my behalf. My claim never went to court so I really do not feel that the work Charge Claims did on my behalf warranted such a large fee. I now just wish I had been more circumspect when I was signing the original agreement. If I had known then that I could have handled the whole claim myself in a couple of hours, I would never have gone through a third party agency.’
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