It was reported in the ‘Daily Mail Online‘ today that a rogue personal injury referral agency has duped £150,000 out of law firms nationwide. The scam involved the referral agency inventing accidents such as car crashes and trip/slip claims and referring them onto as many as 19 law firms from their base in a luxury flat in the city centre of Manchester. The referral agency would get as much as £600 per claim that they sold on. Investigators believe many more law firms fell foul of the tricksters, but were simply too embarrassed to come forward.
The dishonestly reaches even higher levels as it seems one of the group was a former member of the General Medical Council. This meant he had inside knowledge into the personal injury system, and so knew how to dupe it. It even seems that he was able to create doctors notes to back up their invented cases. The group, known as North West Claims, would also forge passports and national insurance numbers in order to support their invented accidents. Only when the law firms attempted to contact the accident victims would they realise it was a scam.
The group were only uncovered by Police when the Border Agency raided the luxury flat in an attempt to combat illegal immigration. Irfan Manzoor pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and is now starting a 30 month jail sentence and has been banned from being a company director for 5 years. He had many accomplices who are also beginning lengthy jail sentences.
Referral agencies simply act as middle men on personal injury claims by selling them onto law firms. It may mean that if law firms have had to pay out as much as £600 for your claim, they spend less time on your case ensuring their profit margins are not decreased further. This may mean that whichever law firm ends up with your claim may not give you the best service – this creates further hassle and frustration to a situation which was not your fault and has probably been time consuming and painful enough.
At The Injury Lawyers we do not deal with referral agencies as all our clients come to us directly. We feel that this says a lot about our firm and the level of service we give our clients.
