Ha, another claims company has been smacked by the law. Good!

A firm of solicitors which worked for a major claims management company has just been shut down by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA). The SRA closed the Manchester office of Consumer Credit Litigation Solicitors (CCLS) (a particularly nasty name as it was clearly purposely designed to look like the Consumer Credit Counselling Service, a genuine debt advice charity!). This nasty-looking firm advised the claims firm Cartel Client Review.

I can’t stand those companies that say they will wipe off your debt ‘due to legal technicalities’ in your loan agreement(s).

Sure, one or two people (really just a handful) have managed to get their debt annulled because the original agreement was faulty. But even for those people:

• that debt will remain on their credit record as ‘unpaid’ for years to come, making it much harder for them to get credit elsewhere
• it’s just plain immoral not to pay back debts that you have knowingly built up.

Sure, the banks have been doing shocking things and have been very immoral in many of their dealings but as the old saying goes ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’. We’ve got to tread the right road as individuals, whatever others seem to be getting away with.

But what really gets me is that these firms are cynically manipulating the public to get money for claims that are mostly (really well over 90% of the time) going to get nowhere. It’s only one or two here and there that have a hope.

The companies that charge upfront are the worst. I’ve spoken to people who have stumped-up thousands in the false hope that their debts would be wiped off. They haven’t been and they won’t.

Don’t be fooled – these claims companies need to be avoided. Totally.