02920364220

Would also like to add they give you a false email address too, and an unobtainable number...best is they were so convincing. After reading all other comments why have they not been stopped x

SCUM


AVIOD LIKE THE PLAGUE.

the same thing happened to me . i got a phone call saying they where briniging a new magazine out and it was on sale for a £1 which was for charity. then 2 days after £65 had gone out of my bank account. i got in touch with my bank they put me through to there fraud squad .maybe you should do the same thing bookworm

p hone the number at the top of the page . they only open for 10-am in the morning till six at night.
i have rang them twice .i did get an answer on the phone but it didnt open till  10-15am

since my last posts they have rang AGAIN twice grrrrr!!!!!!!!!!

Mortgage advice at a premium from Carrington Carr
Carrington Carr charges a hefty fee for providing advice that other brokers offer for free and bombards potential insurance customers with calls. Rupert Jones reports

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Rupert Jones
The Guardian,     Saturday 13 March 2010
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Michael Pritchard: sacked 'poor performance', but one customer said he was 'spot on'. Photograph: Christopher Thomond
How would you feel about being charged £3,000 for mortgage advice that is available elsewhere for nothing? And would you be happy to use a brokerage that has been accused of plaguing some potential customers with unwanted phone calls?

These are questions people looking for a mortgage might want to ask themselves if they are contacted by Carrington Carr Home Finance, which offers advice on home loans and insurance.

This Leicester-based company appears to be quite a big player in the remortgage market. In the last two years it has completed "in excess of £950m of mortgage business"; it employs around 260 people; and it is an "appointed representative" of insurer Legal & General.

Carrington Carr gets a chunk of its business from buying "leads" – details of homeowners who may be looking for a new mortgage – from price comparison websites and other firms. The company contacts these people and will attempt to arrange for an adviser to visit them to discuss their home loan options.

Perhaps you are thinking about getting a mortgage, so you key details into a site such as Moneyexpert.com to see what it throws up, and think nothing more of it. You may not realise, but you have agreed to be contacted by one of the site's "partners", which include Carrington Carr.

This is all legal, but the company this week faced claims that it tried to encourage someone on a super-low 1.19% mortgage to switch to a higher fixed-rate deal.

Guardian Money decided to look into the company after being contacted by Michael Pritchard, 30, who joined the firm as a trainee mortgage adviser in September but was sacked last month.

He pointed us towards the fee the company says it charges for its services, "typically 2.7% of the loan amount". On an average £121,000 remortgage that is £3,260, yet there are brokers who charge much less, or even nothing. "That fee is enormous," a rival broker said. Another added: "Most brokers who charge a fee look to recover about 1% of the mortgage."

To be fair to Carrington Carr, that 2.7% fee is not hidden, it is on the homepage. Asked about it, the firm's managing director, David Fuher, told us: "In practice, the average fee is considerably lower than this, circa 1.5% for the whole of 2009."

However, for that price you would expect a gold-plated service. But Pritchard questions whether this is what customers are always getting.

He says he was dismissed on the spot a day after visiting a potential customer at his home last month. Pritchard says that, during his factfinding visit, it became clear the man and his wife were on a "fantastic" HSBC mortgage deal where they pay 1.19%, so the best advice would be to stay on that deal. They were also insured to the hilt. HSBC has confirmed it offered a lifetime tracker mortgage, with a current pay rate of 1.19%, with no penalties for early exit.

As a result, Pritchard did not book the couple in for a second appointment to sell them a new mortgage.

"It was not in the clients' interest to sell them something they did not need," he says. The next day, he says, he was dismissed.

In a letter to him, Carrington Carr said Pritchard's employment was terminated "due to poor work performance", and added he must pay the company £5,182 in training fees – which it had reduced to £2,813 after deducting salary and other pay due to him.

Money tracked down the customer at the centre of this saga – Barry Hughes, who lives in Holyhead, north Wales. "The advice he [Pritchard] gave to me was spot on," he told us. "He pointed out to me there was no way he was going to be able to save me money. My mortgage rate is 1.19%. A few people I know have recently had new mortgages, and they are all around the 5% mark." Hughes says they had agreed to a visit because they were looking at remortgaging and upgrading to a bigger house.

Another Carrington Carr adviser came to their home a few days later. Hughes says: "She said she felt he [Pritchard] hadn't done us a very good service, and maybe we should be on a fixed-rate mortgage." Hughes says he questioned this, but the woman told him interest rates were going to rise in future. "I said 'I'm only paying 1.2% … I'd be stupid to change.' I basically said 'no thank you, and goodbye'."

Fuher told us that Pritchard's sacking "did not relate specifically to the outcome of his visit to Mr and Mrs Hughes". He says: "I have checked the information collected by Mr Pritchard at this visit (it is held electronically) and there are significant gaps in the information collected. Indeed, much of the information required was left blank … In this case Mr Pritchard was neither able to give advice, nor, according to the system, did he give advice."

Fuher says another adviser was asked to visit the couple to complete the necessary documentation. "When she turned up at the door, Mr and Mrs Hughes said they had wanted to cancel the appointment but had forgotten, and they did not want to rebook the appointment. She therefore did not complete the factfind document and was therefore never able to give advice, nor did she give advice."

Another disaffected former Carrington Carr worker turned up on a website called WhoCallsMe.com, which allows people to find out more if they get a call from a number they don't recognise. Dozens of people have logged on to this site to report receiving calls from 0116 249 2630 – which turns out to be Carrington Carr.

"They have called at least twice every single day since July, it is now November! I have to keep my phone constantly on silent as it keeps going off at work," said "Chrissy", while someone with the moniker "sick of these calls" said: "I got in from work today to discover I had missed 30 calls from 12.26pm to 8.35pm from 0116 249 2630 – boy was I glad I was at work."

Someone claiming to be a former employee posted on the site to say the calls come from the insurance department, adding: "Much as it may irk you guys, what this company are doing is entirely legal and above board, albeit really bloody irritating." However, he/she went on to claim the company does not treat its staff well.

Asked about the calls, Fuher said: "This number is unrelated to our mortgage advisers and it is actually our team of home insurance advisers, who work from an automated dialler … In the event of an unanswered call, our phone number details are disclosed with a short message for those who call back. Clearly we do not call numbers registered with the Telephone Preference Service, and a client can request removal of their information from our dialler database."

they always call my hause and i am sick of it they wake up my sister who is trying to sleep upstairs

Rude, stuck up [***] who cold calls for me magazine and childrens books.

Just had a call from these people asking for
the wife,, said she had won a holiday..
Glad I checked it out....Obviously it's a scam

I got called by these no-scruples thieves. Done the £1 for a single copy of a magazine, and some vouchers. I was taken in by the way they described their affiliation with Leading Lights. Anyway, long story short, £65 light in  my bank account. Despite 2 promises from them to refund my money, I have nothing. My bank were informed on around 24 June, and they told me I would have to wait 15 days before they could act, in order to give these t*****s a chance to refund me. After that it may take up to another 15 days to sort out, and even then, they could not promise to get my money back.If I have no money back by the end of next week, I'm paying them a visit. I want my £65, my travelling expenses, and loss of a days pay. They will either give me cash, or if not, I will remove goods from their office to the value of £300. I will have my money back.

Welsh Man just called me and asked me for my daughter ( who has moved out into her own home .
Asked if he could call back next week as he was from Candis ??? and needed to speak to her about some benefit she was nt receiving ?
He seemed anxious not to answer any questions and rushed off the phone .
Thats why i decided to look up the number .

This number has called me four times within the space of an hour everytime i say hello i get no response but the caller doesnt hang up. Getting really fed up!!!!!

This is a callcentre that sells products on behalf of other companies. If you don't know why you are being called, you don't HAVE to sign up for anything :) And if you do, just make sure you know what you are signing up for before hand! Very simple.

I'm registered with the Telephone Preference Service and am also ex-directory, but they've called me three times this morning: once I was out, and the second couple of times I answered but then they hung up without saying a word.

Anyone who has problems with payments taken out of their accounts should contact their bank immediately, and make a claim under the Direct Debit Indemity Scheme which is designed to cover this sort of problem.  Basically, it leaves the bank having to recover the money taken from your account, and if enough people complain, they'll be able to identify the company & stop accepting any DD instructions from them.

If your bank won't refund you within a reasonable timescale (I'd suggest 10 working days), tell them you'll start proceedings in the small claims court to recover the money they owe you - because it will cost them too much to defend your claim, they'll usually pay out very quickly at this point!  Go to www.moneyclaim.gov.uk for more details.

Dear all, these leeching scum from this number are supposed to be doing this for a cancer charity in wales , this is a real charity you could donate to directly. It is called the velindre cancer trust. I have passed the details of this site to the people at the charity who will hopefully be able to get some satisfaction for those of you upset by having money taken. PS. if you were given the charity number 1052501 it is real, if you feel charitable please give directly to this very worthy cause.

i just got stung as wel 1.00 magazine just cost me 65.00, is there no way of getting money back my bank says no and i cant get any response from the phone number given.

yes me magazine will be at velindre hospital in cardiff in oct 2011 phone velindre for details

I too foolishly agreed to the £1 charge. got off the phone and checked a few details i had been given. called the police and the bank. fingers crossed £65 isnt missing from my account! they say thyr from me magazine. clearly a scam. said id won 2 spa tickets except iv never entered a competition! please avoid this company and number if they call u!

This number keeps calling me - who are they??

Yes, just received a call asking me for my credit card details to pay £1 for magazine and £100 worth of spa vouchers.

I said i don't give  credit card over phone, could I pay by paypal or cheque? unfortunately not....

I said I would look for them independently. Was on computer at time looking for Me Magazine in Cardiff. got no results (thank god for google!).

So declined and put phone down.

Just found this thread.

SPAM ARTISTS AVOID AVOID AVOID!!