We recently did an article on the clampdowns being faced by claims management companies. The changes that will affect thousands of firms have hit the news as well recently. I’ll come on to a little something about the story being in the news shortly, but for now let’s stick to the main point of the article – why avoid claims management firms?
They’re Just Middlemen…
Well firstly, they are just that – middlemen. They don’t add any value to the claim by simply giving you an idea as to whether you have a claim and then passing it to a law firm for assessment. Really it just delays the process. Speaking to a law firm directly like us means there are no middlemen involved – we can normally tell you on the first call whether you have a claim, and then it’s actually us that represent you.
Charges
Secondly, there could be sneaky charges involved. These companies don’t work for free, so we are looking at either two scenarios. The first is that you pay some kind of admin fee at the end of the claim (or upfront I suppose) or you face a deduction from your payout. Now, recent legal fee changes mean that most firms are now taking a percentage deduction of a client’s claim of around 25%; so facing another deduction will put a pretty big dent in your payout.
The other scenario is that you are not charged, and the law firm simply pays the claims management firm some kind of referral fee or marketing fee. Referral fees were actually banned on 1st April 2013, so I hope they are not doing that. It would be scary to learn you are dealing with crooks! But if the law firm is paying in some way, they essentially have less of a budget to run your claim. We cannot claim back for middleman fees when the claim wins – so the budget of your case could take a hit, potentially leading to poor levels of service and less compensation.
You Don’t Choose Your Lawyer!
Another reason is that they will normally choose the law firm you go with, which could be based on their preference when it comes to how much money they pay to the claims firm. But the main point is that you don’t choose, so the law firm could be anyone, anywhere, and could be rubbish for all you know! Its best to go directly – speak to a law firm about what they can do for you, and make an informed decision yourself. You wouldn’t let someone else buy a car for you without knowing anything about it, would you!
In the News
As I said earlier, the news was in the press and the BBC did an article about it (source) which we weren’t too happy with. If you look at the article now, there is an image and the story around it but when this article was first posted, there was a video. On the video were a couple of snippets from TV adverts from well known claims management firms, and then there were a few shots of internet sites.
For some crazy reason, we were quite annoyed to see they had a snippet of our home page on the video as well! Assumedly, the boys at the BBC didn’t quite properly do their homework – anyone who knows our site is probably aware that we are an actual law firm, not a claims management firm, and we have written countless articles about why people should go to a law firm directly like us and why they should avoid the middlemen claims firms. How on earth they (assumedly) got the impression we were one of those claims management firms is beyond us!
We are a law firm – as in, we can advise you about your claim, and actually represent you for it! We are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and we have a huge history of happy clients – check out our testimonials here.
We did tweet at the BBC to ask why they had featured us, but as of yet, they’ve never replied…
