I won £3,000 for whiplash but had to pay law firm £673
NATAYLA COWELL recovered £613.75 from a personal injury firm which cold-called her ten months after she was involved in a crash.
The carer had been driving into work in 2016, when another car hit her Ford Focus.
Natayla, then 25, began to feel whiplash pains across her shoulders a few days later but it wasn’t until Cheshire-based Thorneycroft Solicitors called her that she thought she would be entitled to compensation.
The mother- of- two says: ‘I asked them how they got my number and they said it was from a database. They kept saying I deserved the money.’
Natayla felt hurried into making a decision and decided to sign a conditional fee agreement with the firm. She had no idea that personal injury claimants have three years to make a claim.
Thorneycroft proceeded with the case by submitting a claim form through the online road traffic accident portal. The other driver’s insurer went on to admit liability just under two weeks later. Natayla, 29, who lives in Telford, Shropshire, ended up winning back £2,995 in damages. But the firm took £673.75 in fees from her compensation. She went on to instruct Check
mylegalfees.com in December 2017. But when the firm requested papers from Natayla’s case, Thorneycroft wrote directly to her and said that it would be seeking ‘unrecovered’ costs of £731 because she had made a claim against it. Natayla says: ‘It was intimidating.’
She continued pursuing her claim. But it was not until July last year that a judge ruled that she had been overcharged and Thorneycroft was ordered to pay her £613.75 plus £88.65 interest. She says: ‘ I feel they took advantage of my ignorance.’
Thorneycroft did not respond to requests for comment.