Bad press for heir hunters

[custard_pot]

Did anyone see todays programme? The case of Michael Moore who had Downs Syndrome. They found a heir who was giving her share to Mencap who helped to look after him and FRASER & FRASER also gave their commision.

Well done Fraser & Fraser    it just shows that all the companies should be tarred with the same brush.

Christine

[FraserandFraser]

Yes we decided several months ago, to support Mencap after the heir said she wanted to, shame the mirror never picked up on it.

[les_looking]

I think the company who stated in those hightly reputable "newspapers"
that they only charge a flat fee are slightly misleading, becuase if you read on they then say they will go on to charge time related fees, and if their fee for getting a BDM certificate (if i have read it right) is £50,
then equate that to possible fees they charge,
then i am afraid they won't be getting the part of snow white in the next pantomme.

[violeign]

I think the company who stated in those hightly reputable "newspapers"
that they only charge a flat fee are slightly misleading, becuase if you read on they then say they will go on to charge time related fees, and if their fee for getting a BDM certificate (if i have read it right) is £50,
then equate that to possible fees they charge,
then i am afraid they won't be getting the part of snow white in the next pantomme.

That's just the tip of the iceberg...

[FraserandFraser]

Yes they said to the paper that they would charge between £250 and £350 plus VAT to find an heir. That is fine when you are given the name of the heir and relationship to find; F&F would  charge less, I think. they also fail to mention that they would charde 250-350 pound for every heir the had to find so from the £7500 had more than 17 heirs the estate would have nothing left ( as a small point most estates we look at to cousin levels have 15 to 20 heirs minimum, on Av we think there are probably 30 heirs per case.)

[LizzieW]

Fraser - Is it worth your while sending your point of view to the newspapers?  Mind you, I suppose like everything else, the untruths are printed in foot high words on the front page and apologies lost somewhere in the middle of the paper in tiny print.

Lizzie

[Redroger]

Lizzie, Good point, I believe we need legislation to enforce equal prominence to retractions etc. as was given to the original publicity, but we are not likely to get it. In view of the work involved, probably a commission of 30-40% is usually reasonable in these cases.
Estates revert  to the Government if no heir can be found. Think for a moment is this a bad thing? There seems to be a trait in Britain that we want Scandanavian levels of service, paid for by North American levels of taxation. This leaves a huge gap, and miscellaneous revenue like this makes a tiny contribution to it.
Estates that go to Government do lower taxes by a tiny fraction.

[FraserandFraser]

The amount of money the Government gain from unclaimed estates does nothing to dent the amount of tax that you have to pay. They get a few million pounds, when you think of the expenditure it is nothing.

Very few cases pay 40% fees they are cases where more than just us have to get paid. In the US we must employ an attorney and a local genealogist, in several states we also have to fly the heir and a researcher to the court, to give evidence, there system is not as easy as it is here.

The press didn't want to listen last week, we were trying to explain that yes we have a few cases that we have had to charge high fees on, but wording it how they did is crazy. It is like saying that a Ford Ka cost £1/2 million just because that is how much a Ford GT costs.

[violeign]

Of course the press don't want to listen, doesn't make for such good headlines.

The fact that this other company are working on outdated information (from over 3 years ago), are distorting the true picture and have their own agenda they are trying to forward doesn't help matters, but how much would their own practices stand up to scrutiny?