Easy Tiger.lol. I knew they were not what they appear to be but you seem to know a lot more than most. Perhaps the rest of us should educate ourselves more about these so called charities.
Gemma, highly illuminating the questions you've chosen to answer and those you've chosen to ignore since you started this thread. All in the industry - including the OFT - will draw their own conclusions. It will be interesting to see how Payplan comes out of the next round of OFT inspections.
Here is our response:
Tiger Tiger seems to have a real bee in his bonnet about Payplan (and interestingly has never posted about any other provider or issue). Some additional background might help to clarify our position.
As IVA supervisors we have a duty to deal with potential PPI claims and have contracted with an external organisation, Equity in Finance, to undertake investigations and pursue claims where appropriate. We chose EiF because they have a good record in successfully pursuing claims for other IVA firms. We were interested not just in their fee level but their track record in producing successful outcomes.
Any claims that are successful will be distributed to creditors save for the EiF fees and statutory interest. We allow our clients to keep the statutory interest paid as this is a taxable benefit and may give rise to a personal tax liability (although the amount of any additional tax liability will always be substantially less than the amount of interest paid). We have taken the view that the costs of measuring and administering payments to cover our clients’ potential tax liabilities outweigh the benefit to creditors of potentially distributing slightly higher payments to them. We also think that it is nice to be able to let our clients have some of the PPI reclaim benefit. This interest will be paid in full, not net of an EIF fee.
It has been suggested that if creditors try to set off PPI claims, rather than paying out in cash, our clients might be asked to pay a fee. This is not true and we haven’t ever suggested that this might be the case. Our clients will never be asked to pay additional money as a result of our PPI reclaim process. I think that this is common practice across all IVA providers pursuing PPI reclaims.
Tiger Tiger questions why we offer a different service to our DMP clients. We do basically because we can. It would not be possible for our IVA supervisors to use Stake Your Claim as they are a connected business and so would not be able to pay a fee for the services (which obviously have a cost). Stake Your Claim was set up because many of our clients don’t want to pursue claims themselves (although are welcome to do so if they wish). We think the service is the cheapest on the market (at 10%). It offers a much better alternative (to DIY) than other companies in the market place.
There are suggestions that we are breaching OFT and MOJ guidelines – if Tiger Tiger would like to get in touch with us directly and show us where they think we are non-compliant then we’ll certainly look into this – but we suspect that Tiger Tiger is actually putting two and two together and making five.
Tiger Tiger wonders why we are asking for donations for our local food bank. We wonder why Tiger Tiger thinks we are? Gemma did tweet a link from her personal account to our local paper but this is not something that Payplan is involved in. Looks like we are under close surveillance but not surprisingly Tiger Tiger didn’t pick up on our actual charitable activity because we don’t shout about it (but are happy to tell him in private if he is curious).
Our membership on the DMP protocol working group is being questioned, but not the membership of other debt advice providers on the group including a couple of fee chargers. This is starting to feel a bit personal and we wonder what Tiger Tigers motivation is?
Many Thanks
Gemma
Payplan Representative
Payplan offer a range of solutions including IVAs and free DMPs. To find out more and to contact us please visit www.payplan.com
Boomer, it's a common misconception that Payplan are a charity - not helped by them referring to their multi-million income from the creditors as 'donations'. CCCS told the BIS Select Committee that Payplan's relationship with the banks is contractual.By Payplan's definition of donation,however, my wages at the end of the month are also just a donation from my employer - I don't see it quite like that though !
Fair play to Gemma. She has answered all the questions asked off her and I think that the reasons behind most of it seem justified.
You all know already I do not like Payplan but I think Gemma shouldn't be taking flack for her employer (or is she a volunteer - lol). The fact of the matter is all IPs on here are saying they need to reclaim the PPI in the IVAs and that this is regulators telling them to do so.
Gemma - the area that Payplan are operating against OFT guidelines (in my opinion at least) is that they do not state how much they receive for their services. I understand that you receive 17% (or similar donation). The only problem is that in the law a fixed donation is viewed as a commission and is subject to transparency. Payplan do not have this info on thier site (nor do CCCS who get 11% for that matter). This is my gripe, having been to the free and fee charging debt management companies I much rather knowing what everyone is getting out of it. It also makes it easier for me to tell them to get stuff sorted out as I know I am paying them and what. Also because Payplan are funded (and CCCS) by the banks they are not as pushy to get interest and charges frozen. This is the only reason the creditors would tolerate losing 11% and 17% as the interest and charges far exceeds this on large debts.
Again, Gemma, you seem like a lovely girl and I am not getting at you but the whole DM industry needs to be totally upfront. I for one do not mind paying for a service. It's harder to shout at someone who is doing a "favour" badly than someone your paying to do a job.
I'm going to wrap this thread up. It has become a discussion amongst seemingly professionals and I think Gemma has done well to answer the concerns.
A discussion regarding Payplan/CCCs etc is always intense and interesting but given the fact that Gemma has replied and it is now the weekend we'll call it a day
