Daily Mail, Wednesday, March 4, 2020^ Page 37MONEY
MORSELS
Phone bill hike
MOBILE customers are facing
hefty bill hikes. Three, O2, EE and
BT Mobile pay-monthly customers
will see their bills rise by up to
2 .7 pc. The rises are mostly at
inflation, meaning customers won’t
be able to leave mid-contract with-
out paying a penalty.Fraud fund
BANKS will continue paying into
a compensation fund for fraud
victims until the end of the year.
The pot was due to run out at the
end of this month, but industry
body UK Finance says it will be
extended to allow banks time for
a permanent arrangement.Missing benefits
AROUND £16 billion of means-
tested benefits went unclaimed
last year, according to charity
entitledto. Government figures
show two in five pensioners are
missing out on pension credit, a
benefit to top up lower incomes.
Around 590,000 eligible households
are believed to be without it. It will
also guarantee households a free
TV licence from June 1.Online censorship
MORE than four in ten consum-
ers say brands removing critical
reviews on the internet are
endanger ing free speech. A
survey by review site Trustpilot
found 71 pc of shoppers believe
companies are tampering with
online reviews, with 45 pc saying
this causes them to waste money
on products.Isa homes
BRISTOL is the most popular city
for people buying their first home
with a Lifetime Isa, with 380 such
purchases last year. Research by
Skipton Building Society shows
other hotspots are Birmingham,
Manchester and Leeds.Funeral branch
FUNERAL pr ice co mpar iso n
website Beyond has opened its
first High Street store after 70 pc
of providers refused to sign up.
T h e b r a n c h i n Ay l e s b u r y,
Buckinghamshire, aims to show
families that there are better
value alternatives to ‘medieval
window dressing’.Mortgage boost
MORTGAGE approvals for house
purchases rose to 70,900 in January,
the highest since February 2016,
according to Bank of England data.
The rate is 4.4 pc higher than
December and is a further sign
that buyers were buoyed after
December’s General Election.Tesco card woe
TESCO is issuing new cards to
600,000 Clubcard account hold-
ers following a security breach.
The supermarket believes user-
names and passwords stolen
from other platforms had been
tried out on its websites. It says
no financial data was obtained
a n d i t s s y s t e m s h av e n o t
been hacked.Rise of ‘free’ firms used by millions
NO-WIN, no-fee claims firms emerged in the
Nineties, when the government restricted
and later abolished Legal Aid for personal
injury cases.
It meant those who signed the new Condi-
tional Fee Agreements (CFAs) could make a
personal injury claim without having to
worry about paying legal costs if they lost.
The no-win, no-fee deals were first allowed
for a range of court cases in England and
Wales in 1995. Three years later, a move was
made to extend them to all civil cases, with
the exception of family courts.
It wasn’t long before TV adverts showing
people falling from ladders or being involved
in car accidents became commonplace.
The personal injury market is now valued
at nearly £4 billion a year. But the practice
has come under considerable criticism from
those who believe they make money out of a
‘compensation culture’.
And the firms which use the agreements
have been accused of making money fromthose who make claims against publicly
funded bodies, such as the NHS.
Lawyers who use CFAs will say there is no
gravy train, because firms lose money fromunsuccessful cases. In the past, these firms
have also been accused of using unscrupu-
lous means to get leads for new claimants.
Cold calls from staff asking whether you’ve
been involved in an accident are still
common. However, in 2012 a law was intro-
duced to forbid companies who deal with
drivers after a car crash, including mechanics
and car-hire firms, from selling on clients’
details to personal injury lawyers.
Insurers have also become unlikely victims
of the industry. Trade body the Association
of British Insurers has blamed personal
injury lawyers for soaring car premiums.
It says many insurers have had no choice
but to increase the cost of cover, to meet the
demand of payouts to claimants for injuries
such as whiplash.
In a bid to tackle the high number and cost
of whiplash claims and tackle fraud, the
Government is planning to implement a
Whiplash Reform Programme.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
wh i p l a s h p a i n s a c ro s s h e r
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 say-
ing 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 withthe 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- 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.
S he s ays : ‘ I fe e l t hey t o ok
advantage of my ignorance.’
Thorneycroft did not respond
to requests for comment.Natayla: ‘It was
intimidating’