HB hits the airwaves

Published on August 25, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun? Busy times, busy times indeed at HB Towers, and we have a lot to report since we last signed in on 30th July (and contrary to what the various rumours circulating say, we have NOT all been down the pub since that date).

Where to start then… firstly, congratulations from everyone to Jessica Hobday who passed her GCSE’s this week. Jess joined us just over a month ago as an apprentice in Operations, and both she and Hamilton Brady are happily convinced it was the right move for both parties. We look forward to helping Jess complete her NVQ, whilst learning on the job with her mentor Kathryn Stacey, Systems Manager.

In other personnel news, Mike Yarwood, Client Service Manager, further expanded his corner of HB Towers, welcoming in Dan Clarke and Akwasi Oduro to the team. Both are seasoned sales professionals and have hit the ground running in August. Welcome on board gents, we look forward to great things from you.

Also kicking off in August was our very first radio campaign with Rock Radio. Entitled ‘Robbery’, tune in to 106.1 Rock Radio between now and 7th October to hear why…

Hamilton Brady’s account manager at Rock Radio, Sharon Sutton, commented, “Within our first conversation with Hamilton Brady it was clear that there was a strong synergy between our target audiences. We’re obviously pleased to be working with a client with such clear and positive values, and to be helping our loyal listeners potentially claim back thousands in compensation.”

HB’s Managing Director, Quy Tien, commented, “We’d been looking at traditional media to supplement our online activity for a while, but hadn’t really found a broadcast channel that ticked all the boxes – until we met with Rock Radio at the end of July. Their account management and creative resources are first rate, and we were on air within 3 days of the first meeting. The first month has seen some claims of excellent quality come through so more of the same please Rock Radio…”

Team news

Published on July 30, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: .

On behalf of everyone at Hamilton Brady, happy birthday to Dan Gilligan who turns 22 today.  Dan joined us this month as Claims Executive in the Client Service team.

Also joining us this month were Ian Gardner (Claims Executive) and Yuliya Oakes (Operations Assistant).  All three have had an immediate impact, proving equally popular with the staff and our clients.

In honour of the above, and the not inconsiderable consideration that it’s payday today, we’re shutting the office early and heading down the pub.  You would, wouldn’t you?

Lloyds TSB goes for gold

Published on July 28, 2010 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment Tags: .

Hats off to Lloyds TSB for being the first bank to stop selling Payment Protection Insurance.

Read the full story here.

We wonder if any of the others will follow suit, particularly those that consistently proclaim “We do not accept that the PPI was mis-sold, however, as a gesture of goodwill will refund the entire amount plus statutory interest”.  Hmmmm….  ever known a bank to give back £1000’s as a gesture of goodwill?

How did we get here?

Published on July 22, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

We’ve been living and breathing PPI compensation claims for so long that it’s sometimes easy to forget how we got here. 

How does an entire industry (PPI claims management companies, solicitors, lead generators) never mind a single company exist, centred on claiming back one specific type of mis-sold insurance? 

Surely there were just one or two misbehaved sellers of Payment Protection Insurance that gave PPI such a bad name, and once they’ve been given a slap on the wrist, everything can go back to the way it was before? 

These are questions often asked by bemused clients once we’ve explained just what it is we do.

Unfortunately, as has been amply demonstrated in recent times, when the banks and lenders go bad, they don’t tend to do things by halves.  Not when PPI policies – regardless of whether they were suitable for those buying them – were making some banks up to £250 million in profit a year. 

Yes you read that right: not sales, but profit.  Insurance is a conceptual product – unlike making a car or television set, once you’ve set up the basics, it costs next to nothing to manufacture the next policy which is then effectively almost pure profit.  And with that massive temptation in front of them, the banks and lenders certainly didn’t hold back.

Fact:  Between 2000 and 2005, the total value of PPI policies sold rose by 19% a year.  Over the same period, the personal credit sector grew by 8%.  This shows that the sale of PPI was being pushed more than twice as hard as actual loans and credit cards themselves.  Source: Research into Payment Protection Insurance in the UK (non confidential version), prepared for the OFT by London Economics, October 2006.

Fact: By 2005, £5.5 billion worth of PPI policies were being sold in a single year.

Fact: Up to 60% of personal loans, 45% of credit cards and 26% of mortgages have PPI attached.  3 in 5 loans – that means if you have a loan, it’s more than likely you have PPI on it.

Fact: The average claim today is worth £2,000 – although our team have claimed up to £34,000 in a single case before…

Fact: Commissions of 50 – 80% were not unheard of, for those selling PPI.   On a policy that you may have paid £2,000 for, the salesperson could have netted £1,600 in commission.  They’re supposed to tell you about these commissions when selling you the policy.  Did they?

Fact: The roll call of those we’ve successfully claimed against reads like an ABC of household financial names - Abbey, Barclays, Co-Op, Direct Loans, Egg, First Plus, GE Money, Halifax etc etc etc…

So anyway, to cut a long story short(ish)… 

We’ll leave you with a quote from the OFT’s report:

“Asymmetric information is a salient feature of the market – consumers generally have little understanding and/or appreciation of the risk, price, terms and conditions associated with PPI, and are also unaware of the conditions and waiting periods surrounding the claims process”.

Earn while you learn… and build a career while you’re here

Published on July 19, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: .

Hamilton Brady would like to welcome Jessica Hobday to the team at Springfield House a.k.a. HB Towers.  A school leaver this year, Jessica joins us as an apprentice in Operations, the department that holds together the various bits and pieces that make up the Hamilton Brady network, the fulcrum between Client Service, Claims Processing, Business Development, Marketing, Legal & Compliance, and Accounts (never *ever* leave Accounts off a list, they pay your wages), the glue that…  you get the gist.

Jess’ mentor for her early years with us is Kathryn Stacey, Systems Manager, who will oversee her training and development as Jess studies for an NVQ in Business Administration alongside her day to day role in Operations.  Upon qualification, a full time permanent position with Hamilton Brady awaits – whether in Operations, Claims Processing or even as support for the Business Development Managers.

Lee Roughley, Head of Operations, commented, “We’re quite particular about standards at all levels of the company so were very pleased to have found an apprentice of Jess’ calibre in relatively short time. 

Operations is a highly visible part of the business, delivering management information at board level and ensuring that the logistical side of the company matches the customer service levels promised to our clients and business partners, but this doesn’t seem to faze Jess at all.  And of course, in this climate when employment is such a talking point, it’s particularly rewarding to know we’ve given someone their first full time job. ”

It’s safe to say Jess had little idea what PPI stood for just over a month ago.  Before the end of the year she’ll be quoting pack back rates by business channel in her sleep…

First Plus = Twenty Six Thousand Pounds. Yes, that’s £26,000…

Published on July 15, 2010 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments Tags: , .

Our maths professors of old would doubtless have frowned upon such an equation going up on the blackboard.

We don’t care.  We do care that our Claims Processing team today resolved a claim against said lender that resulted in our client being better off by £26,000…

Admittedly this is still a touch short of their previous best – a claim settled for £34,000 – but it’s certainly been a cracking start to the day.  More of the same please Mr Postman.

Legal Eagle gets on bike

Published on July 14, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: .

To be fair, that should read “Legal Eagle does lap of Queen’s and Wapping Docks, gets on bike, then does a runner”.  Not so snappy as titles go however.

Right, we’re quite annoyed with one David Lea.  He completes a triathlon, a.k.a. three separate events that most of us would be hard pressed to do in their own right, and raises over £350 for Clatterbridge charity whilst doing so.  And neglects to tell us until two weeks after the event.  Shame on you.

“Self publication and me don’t really go together”.  OK then.

David Lea is Hamilton Brady’s Legal Panel Manager.  He has over 20 years experience in legal administration, having run two barristers’ chambers in Manchester, and worked on some of the most high profile cases of recent times including Piper Alpha, The Herald of Free Enterprise, the M1 Plane Crash and the Harold Shipman Inquiry.  A qualified mortgage broker, and graduate of the Open University (Business Management and Management of Change), David is highly respected in North West legal circles, leading to his appointment by the BBC as technical consultant for various legal dramas including New Street Law. 

For those of you who know David, you may be surprised to hear that a 43 year old, 18 stone former semi-professional rugby player would compete in an event such as this, but give him his due he did, and he completed the event in 1 hr 12 minutes  finishing in 72nd place out of a field of 122.

David raised over £350 for Clatterbridge, and so far they have raised in excess of £13,000 as a result of this event alone.

Please offer your support to this worthy cause by visiting David’s Just Giving page here.

Company notice – urgent!

Published on July 9, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: .

Ok it’s not urgent as such, but very important.

This is to wish Ruth a very happy birthday today on behalf of everyone at Hamilton Brady.  Unfortunately due to the size of the team and our disparate schedules, it’s very rare all of us are in the same town never mind office.

Ruth has been a valuable addition to the team since joining us in March, popular with clients, Introducers and the other staff alike – at HB it’s not enough to be good at your job, you have to be a likeable person too.  We’re funny like that. 

Her passion for claiming compensation (justice…) for our clients is matched by her general work ethic – staying til 7pm on three occasions this week alone - and my only regret is that we did not move sooner to bring her across from RM.

Quy Tien

MD

When CMC’s go bad

Published on July 5, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , .

It’s a regrettable fact of life that not all claims management companies (CMC’s) should be taken at face value.  There are many decent CMC’s around who genuinely set out to help consumers claim what is rightfully theirs.  However in March of this year two of the most prominent CMC’s in the UK ceased trading – one after their inhouse solicitor was effectively shutdown by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority whilst their licence to act as a CMC was removed by the Ministry of Justice; and one went into receivership.  Let’s call them companies Alpha and Bravo.  Actually, that’s a bit obvious.  How about Charlie and Romeo. 

What both had been doing for years was to take hundreds of pounds per client, from thousands of clients who were promised the alluring prospect of having their debts written off on a legal technicality.  Now it’s not our place to allege what may or may not have happened with the millions of pounds of client money, but what we can say is that despite extensive research by our legal team, we’ve yet to come across any significant legal victories by either Charlie or Romeo on behalf of their clients.

We recently were instructed by a former agent of Charlie to see if we could urgently do anything to help a client of theirs who had been left high and dry by Charlie’s solicitors going out of business.  It wasn’t just that they now had no legal representative, it was the fact that a heavyweight City firm of lawyers were acting for the lender, a court deadline was imminent and the client had no ATE Insurance in place to cover themselves if the case was lost.

We had the case reviewed swiftly by specialist auditors Credit Card Audit Ltd who considered that the case pleaded by Charlie’s solicitors was not strong enough to succeed, although there were lots of other issues in the documentation which the lender would not have wanted to come out in court but they had not been pleaded.  Unfortunately if the court deadline was not met it would lead to the claim being struck out and the client facing a costs bill of up to £20,000. We instructed Hall & Co to help the client on a very tight timescale, and they brilliantly managed to get the other side to just walk away, saving the client a huge potential costs bill.

Bringing Justice To The Consumer.  It’s not always the obvious victories that bring the most satisfaction.

Note:  Should you have instructed a claims management company or solicitor to issue any kind of proceedings on your behalf, please make sure that they have ATE legal expenses insurance in place .  If they don’t, then you may be liable for all the costs of the other side if the case is lost. This can be hugely expensive.

May you live in interesting times.

Published on July 4, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

“For centuries the Chinese used an ancient curse: ‘May you live in interesting times!’ It isn’t a curse any more. It’s a blessing.”

- Duncan Munro, 1950.

So say we all at Hamilton Brady – and these are certainly interesting times to be part of the HB family.  As previously reported, we very recently completed an equity investment deal with Consilium Ventures.  Leading investment vehicles such as CV get to where they are by carefully selecting who they team up with, so it was a ringing endorsement of Hamilton Brady’s management team and business strategy to have won their backing, especially with so many others in this industry and beyond forecasting dark clouds and gloomy times ahead.  We prefer ‘interesting times’ as an outlook.

It was partly due to the completion of the tieup with Consilium Ventures and partly due to the 1001 other things (to be honest we’ve not actually counted but it feels that way) going on at HB Towers that this blog hasn’t been updated for a while.  For which, we apologise.  Annual leave and lunchbreaks have duly been withdrawn for the blog writers so watch this space for the first of several updates, starting tomorrow with how we recently helped a client avoid a legal bill of up to £20,000 after they were left high and dry by another claims management company.

June saw two additions to the management team with Alan Saunders signing on the dotted line as our third Business Development Manager, whilst Mike Yarwood joined the Client Contact team as department head, responsible for customer services and making sure as many people as possible receive the compensation they’re owed for having been mis-sold PPI.  We advise both to make the most of their ‘new kids on the block’ status e.g. exemption from the brewing up rota, as they’ll soon be losing that to the three new faces joining us in July.