I am afraid that's not the case. These people have even written with an 'engagement letter' and imply in their letter that they have already been more or less signed up. Interestingly, in their T&Cs they say a typical simple claim will generate c. £1,500 and their fees are typically something like £1,200 to £2,000 IF things go smoothly AND they would hope to recover these from the other side. There is insurance, etc but as I read it you still carry a potential risk but they certainly reap some reward come what may!



Rather more worrying last week Mrs D got a call purporting to be from from the party's insurers asking all sorts of details about my son's accident. Remarkably, they were saying they were going to offer him £1,500 (surprise, surprise) even though he'd never asked them for a penny and the accident was yoks ago. Why would they do that? To me either because (a) they had been contacted by solicitors purporting to act for my son without authorisation; (b) it was the firm / their agents pretending to be the insurers to reel him in as a client; or, perhaps more worrying (c) they were unilaterally "acting" for him with the intention of defrauding the insuers purely for their own personal gain - ie compensatio + time costs. Please tell me (c) does not / cannot happen?





Tried calling the SRA this morning but typically option 4 - for Joe Public to coomplain / chat was too busy and it just said goodbye! Great to see that the regulators taking an interest!

The confidentiality aspect is virtually impossible to enforce, without recourse to yet more legal representation; from an employers perspective, the cost of the litigious culture that's developed in this country is a bloody nightmare.

Sounds odd. They clearly know the details and of the accident so you'd need to find out from them why they think they are instructed. I'd ring the senior partner.





If it's a bog standard claim then they get paid about 1200 if they win and NIL if they don't. You don't (presently) carry any risk, but the government is hell bent on changing all that from April.





Insurers are bent. I wouldn't rule out them doing anything at all. But this sounds like their standard practice of trying to "nip claims in the bud", i.e. make a cash offer to get rid of any possible claim straightaway, and so save on legal costs. Now, i can see the economic argument of that, but it is the insurers and their government slaves who are whingeing on about the compensation culture, generating claims and faking injuries - yet what else is this, if not a blatant temptation to take the money, injured or not? With no medical, no proof, nothing? If this scandalous behaviour doesn't fuel fake claims - what does?





Regardless of that, you must understand that reporting anyone for anything requires a bit more than a phone call before they can do anything. After all, if you were a solicitor against whom a fake call was made, you wouldn't expect to be struck off on the strength of a phone complaint. So i understand why people maybe can't be bothered, and i can't help that, but really you should make a formal complaint and it's pretty easy to do so, even if it will require a few minutes of your time:

[urlhttp://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page#how-report-sra[/url

Complete the form, email it to them. Good job well done.

I appreciate that insurers may do that - indeed I said that to Mrs D BUT the fact that so much time has elapsed since the accident seems odd, especially as their call arrived at about the same time as the soliitors' unsolicited T&Cs!



As to SRA - just spoken to them. Did not divulge names as I wanted to speak to the firm first. Tried calling them but they've gone home for the day.

Strangely when i had a minor car accident last year, witnessed by 4 police officers, 2 of whom stopped to sort out exchange of details etc, i didn't receive any texts or letters from a claim company. Other drivers fault too (she admitted it to the cops)

this sounds more like this was the Insurers who were attempting 'third party capture' In cases where they accept their insured is at fault they are gambling that a PI claim will be pursued and trying to dispose of the claim quickly and without the need for solicitors whose costs they will then avoid. A sensible Insurer will err on teh side of generosity as the savings they are making are in the costs but some get greedy and try and fob you off with low offers. An insurer tried this with me after one of their insureds had rear ended me even after taking my details including that I work for a form of defendant solicitors and work in insurance litigation! Sufice to say their offer was rejected. I wouldnt have pursued my subsequent claim if they hadnt tried to con me with a ridiculous offer

Could well be.





No, they won't. As these offers are made without any medical evidence of any injury, they are made blind, and therefore the insurers do not know, nor care, what the claim may be worth. Or perhaps more accurately, yes in the average minor whippy, they would on average end up in front, but the token offers ASSUME the claimant has no significant injury, despite the insurance companies all well knowing that [isome[/i claimants will go on to have long-term problems.





Indeed they do. And this is why their romantic overtures to the government, that you can trust them to be fair, are manifest bollox. Along with the reason that they only owe a duty to their shareholders to maximise income, and owe no duty of care to injured victims.





So even defendant lawyers make fake claims for non-existent whippy! (Since as the gov. and ABi tell us, nobody actually suffers whiplash, not really)

I got one of those automated calls this afternoon, from a company calling itself Haddon Legal (iirc) telling me that records indicated that I was in line for a substantial personal injury pay-out; all I had to do was press 5 to be put through to a 'claims specialist.'



For devilment, I pressed 5 and when I spoke to James the 'claims specialist,' he asked, "Have you had an accident or injury in the past 3 years?" I replied no, because I haven't. He then asked, "Then why are you calling?" I replied - "It was you who called me - apparently I've had an accident." He went on, "If you haven't had an accident, we can't help you." I then shouted, "Then why did I get the call in the first place and who regulates this industry - I want to make a complaint about your shoddy fishing expedition!"



James hung up, the shameless puppet of a parasitic plague on modern society.

...who is probably a 16 year old kid with a very carefully written script in front of him and a b1tch of a female boss walking the floor shouting and bawling at him and all his co-workers to answer more calls, working for £3.68 per hour and thinking what a shoite job he's fallen into.

Indeed - I wasn't proud of myself.



Rather worrying though that they are fishing on this scale and I wonder if the script includes instructions to hang up if a mark questions the practice?

Undoubtably it will, they don't really give a damn about you or your imaginary accident, all they want is a "catch" to sell on to another trader and chalk another mark up on the board on the wall so that they can all go home at 9pm (the call centre watershed).

This country.