Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Lifestyle Claims - just another rather dodgy ambulance chaser

I received a call on my mobile this morning, from a landline number (01792 455426). You know the type, "We're ringing about your claim to a refund.", where someone you've never heard of, clearly in a call centre (you can hear the background noise), tells you that you may be entitled to money from the banks as a result of a legal judgement against them.

Now I've only ever taken out one loan in my life, as a bridging facility for a specific purpose, which was paid off in full at the first possible opportunity, so I'm unlikely to have been 'ripped off' by the (evil) banks. So, as you can imagine, I was intrigued.

So, I asked the Welshman on the other end of the line what the basis of my potential claim was. He told me that I may have been missold Payment Protection Insurance. I asked where that information had come from, and he advised that it was from a 'central database'. I was about to take my questioning one step further when, as he was in mid sentence, the line went dead.

Now, I have never purchased Payment Protection Insurance, nor have I ever even considered doing so. Not necessarily because I am that much brighter than most (which might be true, I suppose), but because the question has never arisen. Therefore, I have no claim against any bank on such grounds.

Which leads me to infer that Lifestyle are simply cold-calling lists of mobile telephone numbers that they've bought, or obtained, in the hope that they might get lucky. It also leads me to infer that they have no such 'central database' of potential claimants, as they would know if I had taken out such insurance were they to be in possession of genuine data. And that leads me to infer that they have no interest in me other than as a source of profit.

Which leads me to believe that, if I get another call from them, I'll be checking out their claim to be regulated by the Ministry of Justice. Because, whilst I may be persuaded that, once engaged by a potential client, their work may be regulated in the loosest sense, I suspect that cold calling is not an encouraged behaviour...



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have miss about 3 calls from this number. After typing yhe number into google this thread came up so thank you for the info. I will make sure i dont answer. Xx

Jonathan said...

Good point, odd your blog has advertising on it for PPI claim companies though....

Mark Valladares said...

Jonathan,

One of the ironies of using Google's advertising service, I suppose, in that the adverts are linked to the material.

I'll take a look this evening and, if I can, block it.

Robert said...

Brilliant post. I agree. I received a same call and I ignored it for I never took a loan before. Cold calling is such bad idea. Thanks for sharing.