A refund at last – but not from the PPI reclaim firm

D.J. writes: In 2014, I was contacted by Litchfield Price about reclaiming payment protection insurance. I gave details of my bank accounts and was asked to pay £495, which would be refunded if no claims could be made. The fee was taken from my Post Office Money credit card. Over many months, I asked for a refund of my £495. Eventually, last September, I was told I would be repaid within 28 days. Calls after that went to an answering machine that said staff training was taking place, but I have received no reply since then. LITCHFIELD Price is just a trading name that was used by a company called JAS Financial Advisory Services Limited. There are other companies with similar names that are unconnected. The one you dealt with was based in Swansea – a wellknown base for rip-off call centre businesses. In the first half of last year, there were almost a hundred complaints against Litchfield Price.

The Legal Ombudsman investigated and found two common factors: ‘JAS is taking up-front fees but failing to adequately progress claims; and JAS is failing to keep customers updated as to the progress of their claims.’ The firm was also under investigation by the Claims Management Regulator, an offshoot of the Ministry of Justice.

The response from the boss of JAS – Swansea businessman Lloyd Davis – was to put the company into liquidation. According to the liquidator’s records, the business owes more than £274,000, including more than £138,000 to claimants like you.

When the system for licensing claims management firms was set up some years ago, the then government foolishly handed responsibility to the Ministry of Justice, which soon proved unequal to the task. Much later, the Legal Ombudsman was allowed to look into complaints, but there was no compensation scheme that would rescue customers if a firm simply went bust and the directors pocketed the cash.

The saving grace for you is that you paid the £495 fee by credit card. I asked Post Office Money staff to repay you under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, the law that makes card issuers jointly liable for major purchases if something goes wrong.

They thanked me for the details I supplied, and have told me: ‘We have investigated the matter and under Section 75, a refund of £495 has been made.’ A good result.