Law firms hired to retrieve bank charges
March 1, 2007 by admin
Filed under News, News-Banking
Many consumers are turning to ‘no win, no fee’ legal firms to help them claim back unfair penalty charges from their banks.
As more and more people put pressure on their bank to refund the charges, some people are turning to lawyers because they apparently lack the confidence or time to deal with the situation themselves.
The downside of this is that the typical legal firm is taking around 25 per cent of the money which is refunded, reports the BBC.
The firms claim that they are providing a service to consumers, despite the fact that information on how to make a successful claim is freely available.
“If you are confident and have that kind of personality, then you can win it back yourself,” said Philip MacDonald from Phoenix Financial Recovery.
“However we think there’s a reasonable niche market of people who don’t want to have to issue a court summons or deal with it, and would rather have someone to hold their hand through the process.”
Despite Mr MacDonald’s claims, many industry figures say that there is simply no need for people to give away a quarter of their winnings to a law firm.
“There’s no reason to use a claim handling firm for bank charges,” said a spokeswoman for Which?
“They have no extra powers or persuasive abilities and we’ve heard of some firms taking between 20 per cent and 40 per cent as fees.”
