Financial Guidance and Claims Bill a missed opportunity to ban CMC cold calling, says APIL

The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has said that the Financial Guidance and Claims Bill is a missed opportunity to tackle the scourge of CMC cold calling and spam texting.

APIL, which says that cold calling and spam texting encourage people to make personal injury claims even when they are not injured, has called on peers to put a stop to cold calling as they debate the bill in a second hearing in the House of Lords today.

“We are plagued with around 51 million unsolicited calls and texts a year from CMCs which are already regulated,” said Brett Dixon, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL).

“We have been calling for a ban on the practice for years. A recent YouGov survey found that 67 per cent of people would support such a ban.”

Back in March, James Dalton of the Association of British Insurers and Rob Townend of Aviva both agreed with APIL on the need for a ban when they appeared in front of the Prisons and Courts Bill Public Bill Committee in the House of Commons.

However, a commitment in the Conservative Party election manifesto to consider a ban has not materialised.

“Solicitors are already banned from cold calling for personal injury, and rightly so,” said Dixon. “But CMCs are not, and it is time this changed.”

He added that cold calling exploited vulnerable people and was tasteless and intrusive. It also generates a false perception that obtaining compensation is easy, even when there is no injury, warned Dixon.

Mark Dugdale