Tuesday June 28, 2011 at 9:34am
Insurance companies are making millions of pounds out of selling to injury lawyers details of victims of accidents.
Former Justice Secretary Jack Straw has revealed, the insurance industry is running a “racket” by selling road accident victims’ phone numbers to injury lawyers.
Injury Lawyers on the panels of insurance companies pay up to £1,000 referral fees to get the details of accident victims from insurance companies.
Nuisance text message companies telling mobile phone users they could be entitled to £3750 in accident compensation are making approximately £175 million a year.
It is estimated last month alone, claims management companies bombarded mobile phone users with about 12.75 million spam messages.
A client of our firm, who had a car accident last month, received numerous text messages and phone calls after reporting the accident to his insurance company. Some calls were from well known injury lawyers.
If you receive a text message or a phone call without your consent telling you that you are entitled to thousands of pounds in injury compensation, the spam mail or call is classed as a “cold call.” It’s an illegal call or spam.
The companies sending out unwanted text messages or making cold calls can be prosecuted and fined up to £500,000.
Regulators have called for referral fees to be banned to put an end to this growing problem.
Mr. Straw said: “The whole thing is outrageous – it’s a complete racket.” He added, “The quicker it’s ended the better it will be for the law-abiding motorist.”