Penningtons Manches backs APIL’s ‘Can the Spam’ campaign

Posted: 10/06/2016

This month APIL is raising awareness and campaigning for an end to unwanted calls and texts about personal injury claims. Research carried out by APIL found that between 2014 and 2015 complaints about automated personal injury cold calls more than doubled, increasing by 107%.

Justice minister Dominic Raab recently said that there is a cost to society from the ‘substantial industry that encourages claims through cold calling and other social nuisances and which increases premiums for customers’. Solicitors are already banned from making cold calls and sending nuisance text messages, but claims management companies (CMCs) are not prevented from using cold calling and texting to drum up business in personal injury claims. APIL wants to see such practices stopped – a move supported by the personal injury specialists at Penningtons Manches LLP.

Charlene McAuliffe, an associate in the personal injury team, says: “We’re pleased to see APIL tackling this issue. Often we meet injured clients who have been inundated with similar spam telephone calls or emails, some of which suggest a specific sum of compensation is waiting for them. These are classic examples of personal injury cold calls; they are a nuisance, exploitive and inappropriate. 

“Enabling cold callers is damaging to the claims process. Not only can such calls encourage spurious claims, a problem in itself which led to the Government implementing wide-reaching restrictions in personal injury claims, but it can frequently end up causing real difficulties for honest and genuine individuals. People who receive these calls and texts can be misled into believing that they are communicating with specialist solicitors. This will not always be the case.

“At Penningtons Manches, we would strongly recommend that anybody who has had an accident and wishes to be compensated should seek specialist advice from a solicitor.” 

Those who have recently received an unwanted call or text about a personal injury claim should contact the team at APIL, giving details about the nature of the call and the number used. This will then be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office. For further information, visit the APIL website.

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