50% of PPI claimants didn't even have a policy

Not surprised. As a recipient, as must be most of us, of these spam phone calls, the high-jpressure spiel they come out with probably made many people go for it - after all, they had nothing to lose.

Except to be scammed for a fee.

In message , Mark writes

I wonder if they would wind back their irritating adverts on local radio if they became inundated with spurious claims? I'm not suggesting going so far as to make the no doubt obligatory "down payment". ;-)

I might phone one of these PPI claim companies and openly admit that I've never taken out PPI and see if they go along with it.

Why?

I suspect any fraud by the companies is done on a plausible deniability basis. They will happy to take your fee, without doing due dilligence, but they will not touch you if you admit outright that it is fraud.

It's not like a 419 where the victim pretty much has to admit they are conspiring to defraud.

I suppose it might just be like criminal defence lawyers, where you have to believe your client.

I suspect any fraud by the companies is done on a plausible deniability basis. They will happy to take your fee, without doing due dilligence, but they will not touch you if you admit outright that it is fraud.

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I thought these people didn't charge an up front fee, they are purely commission based.

They work on a "percentage win" basis just like the car parking "fines" companies.

However, they make these speculative claims to banks because they know that a reasonably large percentage of the population don't understand PPI and haven't the faintest idea if they have PPI or not, so asking them whether they do doesn't always get the right answer. But instead of doing what they should do - checking the paperwork themselves before making the claim, they make the claim and let the bank do the checking.

tim

Personal amusement.