If like me you’re plagued by Payment Protection Insurance phone calls, then it may interest you to know that cold callers have made at least £5 billion by bombarding the public with nuisance calls and texts.
According to a report by MPs, failures by the Government and the City have encouraged the growth of the claims management industry, which makes up to 84 million unwanted calls a week. MPs on the Public Accounts Committee said that these firms are permitted to pocket as much as a quarter of PPI refunds. Almost half of all nuisance calls are from companies wanting to manage PPI claims, according to consumer group Which?.
Consumers can complain directly to the Ombudsman free of charge – yet so far, 80 per cent of those who have done so, have chosen to go through claims management companies. Since April 2011, more than £22 billion has been paid out in compensation to those who were sold the insurance policies by banks, but did not necessarily need them.Most popular
Martin Narey
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The committee of MPs also warned there are substantial and continuing risks that financial services will be mis-sold – finding too little has been done to tackle the cultural problems behind mis-selling. The
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