Hobson & Bach - Have you dealt with them

oldhand · « **Reply #20 on:** February 17, 2011, 20:55:40 »

I do some work with the Financial Ombudsman Service ("FOS"), making or defending Complaints. The first thing you need to know is that the services of FOS are free to a Complainant. Hobson and Bach claim to be operating on a 'no win, no fee basis', only taking 10% of any recovery made by their clients. If that is true, they would make Complaints to FOS for their clients for free. If Hobson & Bach made a Complaint to FOS for each of their 200 clients and got an average recovery of £15,000 for them, they would be able to claim £300,000 from their clients and I would say 'Good Luck' to them. However, they are asking for an 'Administration Fee' of £199 upfront from each of their 200 clients. If their clients pay, Hobson & Bach would be getting nearly £40,000 up-front for work which they are promising to do for free; but with no guarantee of money for their clients. My advice is that you should go to a reputable firm of solicitors such as Stewarts Law where you will get a genuine 'No Win, No Fee' service and have a properly drawn Complaint made for you to FOS (if that is the right thing to do at this stage).

sthompson418@btinternet.c · « **Reply #21 on:** February 22, 2011, 15:39:37 »

Help, has anyone any progress on Hobson & Bach. They require the £199 admin fee to proceed with mis selling. Is this another scam? I am concerned as they advise not to pay the maintenance but the maintenance people are pressing for the money + interest. I have contacted Stewarts Law in Leeds as the website advises and they are asking for questionnaires to be filled in, they have no live case as yet going forward.
Has anyone succesfully had their money back from Barclays finance please?
any advice, help gratefully recived as I am getting panickey now. thanks you s

Timeshare Elimination.net · « **Reply #22 on:** February 22, 2011, 18:15:59 »

By advising you not to pay your maintenance will only lead you into debt, this is terrable advice.
Have you asked the resort if they would allow you to surrender back to them?
If your resort was in any legal dispute then surely they would accept your surrender back to avoid this.

Litigation is not guaranteed to win - people often lose when they (and even their lawyers) expected to win.
Litigation Cases filed by owners represented by such firms were rejected by one Spanish court in Las Palmas.

oldhand · « **Reply #23 on:** February 25, 2011, 23:12:56 »

My advice is 'Do not pay an Administration Fee of £199 to Hobson and Bach'. My reasons are that: (1) a Complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service is free for the Complainant all the way and there are never costs awarded against an unsuccesful Complainant; (2) If Hobson and Bach was a genuine 'No Win, No Fee' operator, it would not be asking for this money up-front; (3) some people think that Hobson and Bach is a law firm when it is not; (4) the Complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service prepared by Hobson and Bach which I saw did not make any legal sense; and (5), if you pay this fee to Hobson and Bach you will be worse off and will get nothing in return. If you want to make a Complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, either join a group at a proper law firm which knows what it is doing or DIY, Do It Yourself, stating the facts in plain English and asking the Ombudsman to make you an award. You will find a Complaint Form on the Financial Ombudsman Service website and you will get a fair hearing at no cost. Hobson and Bach's request for a £199 Administration Fee should be ignored.

barca_boy · « **Reply #24 on:** February 26, 2011, 09:06:48 »

Lets not forget though that they are a business. in essence you are just paying this company to do a job you could do yourself. but then how many of us use a travel agent? WE COULD BOOK FLIGHTS AND HOTEL OURSELVES BUT WE DONT, OR INDEED BROKERS? WHETHER ITS A LOAN BROKER, MORTGAGE BROKER.. ALL THESE PEOPLE DO A JOB THAT YOU OR I COULD DO BUT WE DECIDE TO LEAVE IT TO SOMEONE ELSE AND PAY.

you are right they dont seem to be a law firm but iv never met a lawyer that would only charge £199 to type something up, i had an issue the other week with an employment contract and the company lawyer wanted £500 to ust look over it.

aslong as the complaint gets put in then this company arent misleading people or doing anything wrong, but time and time again on these forums if it isnt promoting something some of the senior posters like then it gets put down.. that shouldnt be the case on an open forum.

the simple answer is, if you ahve the time and energy to write an in-depth complaint to the FOS then do so, if not then let this company do it but it will cost ya couple hundred quid

oldhand · « **Reply #25 on:** March 05, 2011, 00:17:50 »

Sorry, Barca, but I cannot agree with you.
Hobson & Bach say that they are a 'No Win, No Fee' company. If that is right they should be putting in Complaints to FOS for free and only getting paid if they win compensation.
Asking all of their 200 clients for an Administration Fee of £199 up-front is trying to get nearly £40,000 without getting a winning result first. If the Complaint does not succeed they would be a 'No Win but we still get lots of your money' company.
The Complaint prepared by Hobson & Bach which I saw did not explain how or why Barclays Premier Finance should have to pay compensation. If they are charging each client £199 to make a Complaint they should do the job properly.
If you do not want to make a Complaint yourself, go to genuine 'No Win, No Fee' solicitors which will cost you nothing up-front and they should do a proper job for you.

and123 · « **Reply #26 on:** March 14, 2011, 20:55:08 »

Hi. I cannot comment if this is legitimate or not but we decided to go with hobson and Bach and pay the 199. This was around 3 weeks ago. They have written to us today to say the form has now gone off to the ombudsman and they will be in touch at the end of April to give us an update. Part of me thinks if they were a rip off company why bother sending us a letter. They have my 199 quid - they could now just do a runner! I will keep people posted and let you know if I ever get any money back.

oracle · « **Reply #27 on:** March 17, 2011, 10:29:09 »

this company are exactly the same as martins and of course our favourite newbie on the block Mason, Goodwin & Lisco ... all of them not registered at companies house and all working from VIRTUAL OFFICE SPACE ,

you wont find out how they got your details either... try it..!
they have all latched onto the fact that its an easy way to make money by tickling the seeds of doubt over timeshare and lets face it , theres been plenty of companies in timeshare that have given it a bad name, i suppose it too attractive to most not to want to find out more.....BUT BEWARE... timeshare is now more regulated than probably any other product these days so guess where the old crooks are now...?

THEYRE ALL PRETENDING TO HELP YOU OUT...!....... BRILLIANT if it were not so tragic..
the authorities must be kicking themselves as they cant do anything about it.

dont fall for it...!

livvs2010 · « **Reply #28 on:** March 19, 2011, 16:17:38 »

We have since heard back from Hobson & Bach to say that they hope to get an answer for us soon. I must admit it all seems a bit too easy. We have not been asked for anything upfront not even the £199 which as been mentioned. The problem we have is that we did sign for them to go ahead and in the meantime the other solicitors Stewarts Law who I previously started out with have now come back to me with some movement. I am now in a dilemma as to what to do, do we hold out for Hobson & Bach or go along with Stewarts Law?

and123 · « **Reply #29 on:** March 19, 2011, 22:10:29 »

Seems odd that some of us are being asked for 199 and some not. Have they given you any indication on when they will have your answer? Hope they don't come back to you to then say to progress quickly u will need to go to the ombudsman! Tough call. Let us know how you get on. Still can't make my mind up if this is a scam or not. Really hoping it isn't!

oldhand · « **Reply #30 on:** March 21, 2011, 20:38:18 »

The Financial Ombudsman Service ("FOS") will not deal with a Complaint at all until the financial services provider, in this case Barclays Premier Finance, has provided a 'Final Response' to the consumer's complaint about poor service. The documents I have seen show that Barclays Premier Finance has not yet given its Final Response. I do not think that FOS will accept any Complaint at this stage.
If I am wrong about that, any Complaint going to FOS now will currently take about 9 months between acceptance and Final Decision. You should ask Hobson & Bach to send you copies of ALL letters from FOS about your Complaint
Hobson & Bach are NOT solicitors and are not regulated. If they take your money and waste it, you will have no redress from the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

gooch8223 · « **Reply #31 on:** April 05, 2011, 21:44:12 »

We where contacted by hobson & bach in March 2010 again like most we where a bit unsure about them. We sent them the requested £199 Oct 2010 and started to get very concerned that nothing was happening, and had resigned ourself to it being a scam. Last week I completed the forms to Stewart Law. We had a message from Hobson & Bach when we returned home tonight and the date they have given us for full completion is 16th June, so we are waiting to see what happens then. Has anyone else received any calls recently with a so called date?

shirley · « **Reply #32 on:** April 18, 2011, 11:16:33 »

Hi we to have found ourselves in this situation with timeshare hobson@bach are asking us for £199,00 would like to know if anyone has got any money back there must be a few if this haS BEEN GOING ON SINCE LAST YEAR THANKS

John1967 · « **Reply #33 on:** April 18, 2011, 14:14:20 »

We have had the exact same date (16th June) supplied to us. We have had Doug Smyth of Silverpoint on the phone. According to Doug, Resort Properties went bust at the tail end of last year. 17Th December or thereabouts. Silverpoint have taken over the running of Hollywood Mirage, and club Paradiso. Anyway he tells me that Hobson and Bach are phonies. Okay so he has a vested interest in this, but it has left me and my wife in a total state of confusion. Oh and we have paid the £199 each. Am just hoping we are not being left with just more debt, and broken promises.
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oldhand · « **Reply #34 on:** April 21, 2011, 12:43:28 »

I suggest that nobody should pay any money to Hobson & Bach until after June 16. You will know by then whether or not they are giving out genuine information.

gaz6679 · « **Reply #35 on:** July 04, 2011, 19:59:24 »

Has any body been able to contact or an update from Hobson And Bach.
We have tried to contact them continually but never been able to get a reply
even the phones stopped working. This has made us very wary of them as they promised that our claim would be settled by the end of June but as expected nothing or nobody contacted us
We paid the 199 pound to help speed up the process and when i tackeled Hobsons about this i was told it was for an independant lawyer but wasnt forced to take this offer.
Now its past June we have spent 3 days ringing and emailing this company, finally we managed to get an answer at 7.00 pm but couldent get past the lady on phone who promised they would get the right person to call back as soon as they came off the phone but as expected nothing.
As any body been able to get any type of an update to the claims on timeshares.

masjan · « **Reply #36 on:** July 04, 2011, 20:42:02 »

No, we have been trying for the past 4-weeks, but got their automated message. I called again this evening at around 7pm and was surprised that someone answered. It was just a message taker though, and she said that she would get someone to call back urgently tomorrow.
We have sent an email, but don't expect to get a reply - we really don't know what to do next. There is an opportunity to start proceedings with a reputable (?) company, Stewarts Law - we have checked them out and seem genuine, but the deadline for them is 8th July!!!

oldhand · « **Reply #37 on:** July 04, 2011, 22:21:57 »

There is enough evidence now that Hobson & Bach are useless (to put it politely). They made a completely unrealistic promise to get compensation by 16 June 2011 and are not now respoding to telephone calls or e-mails. I fear that any monies you have paid to them have been lost.
You ask if Stewarts Law are a reputable firm. Yes, they are. I have known them for over 20 years. Unlike Hobson & Bach they are genuinely solicitors. They specialise in litigation and won the 'Niche Law Firm of The Year' award in The Lawyer awards about three years ago. As practising solicitors they are insured against negligence and are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Stewarts Law are doing this case on a 'No Win, No Fee' basis. There should be no cost to you in joining their action. No legal claim is a 100% guaranteed success but if there is any way of getting compensation, I expect that they will find it. What have you got to lose by joining their claim? I recommend that you do so as soon as possible

masjan · « **Reply #38 on:** July 04, 2011, 22:45:48 »

That sounds like good advice, we certainly have no confidence in Hobson and Bach now.

masjan · « **Reply #39 on:** July 05, 2011, 11:52:28 »

I've just spoken to the Financial Ombudsman and they have no record of Hobson and Bach registering a complaint against BPF.

Hobson & Bach - Have you dealt with them

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