Tax rebate cheeky bugger

[drinkingwineoutofamug]

So had a letter off HRMC to say I had over paid tax by £35. They would send me the payment through some company called Brooksdale. Just had a message off said company to claim my £35. No it will be £18 after brooksdale take their fee!
So my question is how do I get the full £35? I now can't find the letter I got last week to contact HRMC .

You need to do some more due diligence on the refund.

It looks like it might be triggered from the claiming of subscriptions or expenses (as you mention in the calculation) - is this a legitimate claim? Do you pay work related subscription (RCN?) and does it stack up to what’s in the tax calculation?

Or it could be a refund of excess withheld tax on the interest payments on your PPI. HMRC should be able to tell you this / give you the full tax calc which one of us could check if you uploaded.

If the calculation is right, then you should contact HMRC and ask for a copy of the 64-8 that says Brooksdale is your agent. Make it clear you have not approved this and want to know why they are accepting anything from Brooksdale in relation to your tax position. They shouldn’t be without specific approval from you, and if you’ve done your PPI claims directly then you wouldn’t have given this approval.

HMRC do not and cannot use another company as a payment provider without your approval.

I’m a chartered tax adviser, I deal with HMRC every single day. If the £18 is worth it to you, continue to follow up and chase and get either HMRC or Brooksdale to show where you agreed to this set up.

This is a good read
www.litrg.org.uk/tax-guides/tax-basics/how-do-i-claim-tax-back/should-i-use-tax-refund-company

This is truly a scam.

All of our rebates/owed letters with HMRC are dealt with directly by them and will credit/debit you accordingly.

I had a scam some years back by a company whose name was very similar to Brooksdale, Woods something.

They sent me a letter saying that they were collecting my home insurance premiums on behalf of my , then, insurers.
I smelled a rat but I'd decided to switch insurers at that time, so I ignored it.

Endless threatening letters arrived saying that I'd fallen behind with my payments and every time , I contacted my my previous insurers who told me to ignore the letters.

Went on for a couple of years!

Honestly OP. Ignore Brooksdale and just deal directly with HMRC.

How can this be any more legal than the 'apply for a passport' Google ads that needlessly inserted themselves as middle-men and ripped you off, that have now been clamped down on?

Is it really the case that you can appoint a company to act as an agent for one particular claim/rebate and then they act as your agent in perpetuity, even though you expressly wish to stop using them as agents?

This sounds like as big a scam as the PPI one, which is kind of ironic if it was in 'helping' people to claim PPI refunds that these vulture companies got their feet in the door in the first place.

This must be why they're so keen to get you to sign up for their 'assistance' in reclaiming things like uniform allowances which, although welcome, often aren't for more than a few pounds overall. They're obviously playing the long game, nasty little outfits. Can Martin Lewis not trigger some kind of class action against them? Yes, I know they have the 'this is what you signed an agreement for' weasel excuse, but it's patently obvious that everybody knows that most people would never have agreed to it had they been clearly informed what they were signing up for, longer term.

Even if they could be forced to spell it out in all of their advertising and soliciting - something similar to the 'your home may be at risk' that all mortgage and other secured loan companies are forced by law to clearly show in their adverts - not just bury it in the tiniest print in their contracts.

It’s a Deed of Assignment @Chattanooger , it has nothing to do with who if anybody is authorised on the Form 64-8.

(As an aside, the “Authorising your Agent” Form 64-8 does not instruct HMRC to send refunds to the agent anyway, there has to be a separate instruction from taxpayer to HMRC for that to happen.)

In my experience, and as others have already commented up thread, the Deed of Assignment may be immoral but if it exists it is legally binding. It was no doubt buried in the initial agreement between the taxpayer and Smoke & Mirrors dot com.

I’m a chartered tax adviser, I deal with HMRC every single day. If the £18 is worth it to you, continue to follow up and chase and get either HMRC or Brooksdale to show where you agreed to this set up.

But it sounds like this £18 is potentially just the tip of the iceberg, if this company have somehow got OP to (clearly unwittingly) sign away over half of all future rebates that she qualifies for, however large they may be.

It would be bad enough if it were some kind of lottery-win-style windfall, but these rebates are your own money that you've overpaid in tax. It's the equivalent of legitimate paid-upfront work expenses that are fully reimbursable, but which you only end up seeing less than half of paid back to you, thus you pay more than 50% for the 'privilege' of lending money to your employer - or HMRC.

A quick Google shows this is not a scam as such as they are a legitimate business providing a legitimate service to assist people in reclaiming overpaid tax. I think thr issue with them is you don't need to use this middle man that somewhere, weather you remember or not, you have provided your details to.
It's like those companies that's spoof DVLA or Passprt office website and you end up using them thinking you are on the legit site. I would gives brooksdsle a call, explain you are unhappy they have tricked your details from you somewhere and ask where you gave your informed consent to act on your behalf. If they won't converse go to trading standards.

A quick Google shows this is not a scam as such as they are a legitimate business providing a legitimate service to assist people in reclaiming overpaid tax.

I think it depends on how you define a scam, though.

If a rogue trader does a job that genuinely needed doing, and does it properly, but charges a vulnerable elderly person £3,000 when it should only have cost £100, you can say that he's providing a service at an agreed price, so it's all good and legal; but most people would call it out for the scam that it really is.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll This sounds like as big a scam as the PPI one, which is kind of ironic if it was in 'helping' people to claim PPI refunds that these vulture companies got their feet in the door in the first place.

I'd put money on this becoming the next PPI scandal.

It's a scam.

It’s ethical but it’s not a scam. These parasites make a fortune from unsuspecting taxpayers.

I meant to say UNETHICAL

Just to quell the panic, my understanding is that a Deed of Assignment cannot roll forward, it can only refer to the tax year in which you sign it and the four earlier years ( tax claims can only be made for a maximum of four past years - and the cut off dates vary slightly if you are required to complete a self assessment tax return).

I think these vulture companies will fade away as people cotton on ………. and rise again with another sharp practice in due course ( ‘twas ever thus).

It’s not like PPI where it was relatively easy to pursue banks and established financial institutions. These vulture companies are fly by night chancers. Sorry to sound so cynical, it’s what 45 years working in taxes (on both sides of the game) does to you.

It's the FCA now who deal with unfair contract terms, taking over from the OFT (who did great work on it, IMO).

I'd try raising it with your MP though first, depending how responsive they are. Emailing Martin Lewis about it is also a good idea. I'd do one letter and copy them all TBH, as well as contacting HMRC. Once I'd got my facts together about how Brookdale got the information and how they purport to be acting on my behalf.

Let us know how you got on with HMRC today please @drinkingwineoutofamug . I hope they have been able to help.

Morning
I managed to speak to someone from HRMC.
So long story short , when offered money back on ppi the bank sent me an form to sign. I hazy on that bit but I'm going back 2018 and I've slept since then.
Small print. Third party to claim any tax owed.
Still waiting for a call about my cheque from Brooksdale.
No I can not claim for HRMC to send the full lot as I unwittingly signed a form 🤦🏻‍♀️
Moral of the story triple check the small print.

What a pain! Really concerning that the offending paperwork came from your bank. Might be grounds for a complaint to them or the FCA? Someone with more expertise on this thread may be able to advise on whether that's worthwhile.

Could HMRC tell you when this arrangement will expire? I.E. is it going to apply to future rebates?

Eh? Did the bank themselves contact you to offer the mis-sold PPI back? HSBC did that to us. We had to sign something - iirc, to state that we accepted this as full settlement and closure of the claim, and maybe confirming that we did know there may be tax implications; but why would they randomly choose a vulture company to act as middleman when you were already dealing with it between you?

Or was it that this vulture company made contact with the bank on your behalf, then the bank responded directly to you, but with the vulture company's claim for commission for 'all of their hard work' (sending off a generic mass letter) locked in?

Similar to if an estate agent introduces you to a buyer, no deal is made and you take the house off the market - but then, five years down the line, your paths cross again (maybe if you've re-marketed it yourself) and you make an independent deal to sell to the same person, the EA can claim their full commission?