Bad press for heir hunters

[Redroger]

Fraser and Fraser, "Every little helps" as the saying goes.
Violeign, the press have their own agendas, only one of which is to sell newspapers, the others are ancilliary to this end.

[Lemontree]

If an heir hunter comes to your door - you are never forced to sign, you can chose not to...

[Lemontree]

If the money goes uncliamed the goverment get 100% - but i the person dies and makes a will the probate searchers and the goverment can often walk away with nothing - its a no brainer really get all your relatives to make a will

[Nick29]

That's a Lemontree, my dear Watson ! 

Sorry, couldn't resist 

[syzygy]

As usual with these things the truth is somewhere in the middle.  It's not surprising the tabloids pick at cases which may well be the exception rather than the norm. Also it's not surprising that it is Fraser and Fraser as they've put their head over the parapet so to speak by being so prominent in the program.

But there are surely some concerns about some of the charges. Being commissioned based I think is the issue.

If an heir hunter is charging 40% on an estate of £10000 say and there are 5 beneficiaries, well the beneficiaries get around a grand and are likely to be happy and £4000+ of of effort on behalf of the heir hunters reasonable.

But lets jump that that estate to £250,000 , The beneficiaries may well still be happy with £25,000+, but the heir hunter with £100,000? That does not feel right.

Nobody would deny a fair return for a fair job done. Perhaps, if more honesty were shown when signing up heirs .i.e. as to the size of the estate (It is known in many cases) people would be happy to pay for the work done.

Regulation need to come to the industry, if only to control smaller companies that may have established themselves based on the success of Fraser and Fraser promoted by the TV program, who may see signing up heirs as a way to a quick buck. 

[les_looking]

While i agree that charges WHERE possible should be clear and upfront,
i am not sure that is always possible
day 1 they go and see an Heir, who knows from there on how many will surface, in what country, what expenses they will incur, IF they find 3 Heirs pretty easily and then take 40%, agreed totally OTT,
as i said in an earlier post, i see a company wanting to charge £50 to get a BDM certificate for something that costs them £7, THAT IS A RIP OFF!!

Just because it's in the paper, is it the truth, i have seen bisto on the side of buses but i havn't found one that sells any yet, as many have said they signed of their own free will and also have a cooling off period,
Agreed some won't understand the procedure, but who do we blame for that?

Without being contacted these Heirs would get NOTHING,  0% of a million aint a lot,
maybe the question a lot should be asking is WHY should the goverment receive 10 million a year? i havn't seen many complaining about their cut, maybe a good idea is that heir hunters fees should come out of this pot, i will bet my life the heir hunters expenses would be less than expenses claimed by Politicians!

That pot could also be used to help people submit their own claims, i would think the majority of people are daunted by the system and are glad of people like F&F, Firstly informing them and also helping them get their £££'s,

MY opinion the goverment have no right at all to this money, and could be used in a multitude of ways!!

[DudleyWinchurch]

as i said in an earlier post, i see a company wanting to charge £50 to get a BDM certificate for something that costs them £7, THAT IS A RIP OFF!!

MY opinion the goverment have no right at all to this money, and could be used in a multitude of ways!!

two points here.  First, that in order to get the first claim in, the heir-hunters are presumably paying the "emergency fee" for certs, which I understand is likely to be £30-£40 pounds, not seven.  A strict cost benefit would be ridiculous as there would be no case for making a business of doing this.  And what about all the certs bought for cases that go cold (no provable living heirs found) or where the heirs later decide to prove their own case, or those that sign up to another company.

The other points is that the government use of this money is, presumably, the same as the use for which they apply our taxes etc. and so is providing a multitude of benefits.

Perhaps you are suggesting that it should be a nationalised industry to avoid any duplication of costs?

I must say that if heir-hunters approached me, I would try to negotiate a discount for the information that I could give to them but would probably be prepared to pay a reasonable fee to them for taking on the work of preparing the legal proof for the case.  After all, it would be unlikley to be anyone that I could easily trace and fully prove all the heirs for, or it wouldn't have got to the heir-hunters in the first place.

[les_looking]

re the certificates you have misunderstood me/not read earlier posts,
had nothing to do with Heir Hunting, it was a firm that were quick to jump on the bandwagon when the press got hold of it, and stated they only charged a flat fee, THEN in small letters plus time related, and then reading their website re family history if you didn't know how to obtain certificates they wanted £50 per certificate plus any charges for doing your searching.

The approx 10 million a year that the goverment takes each year, has been paid tax on many times over the years, so why should the goverment have this money?
you get fined by a local council for parking etc and the cash goes to that council (supposedly)
speeding etc the spin is it goes toward roads/safety,
i am not advocating someone else should benefit from this 10 million + but as above it should be used for something related to the reason it was taken,
some of these poor people are given what you would describe as Paupers funerals because no one is allowed to access the funds,

i don't actually think the fund should be used to benefit the heirs, it was just an example, but i would deffo like it to be used in some way that benefits the future forgotten.

[syzygy]

It really annoys me that people like MPs and bankers who are ripping us off on a regular basis attract little attention, whilst those trying to run honest businesses are hounded by the press.

Well 4 MPs are going to be charged, many have had to repay, Banking bonuses are under severe scrutiny and it's hardly been out of the press.

Heir Hunter's have had little attention in comparison, and honest businesses should not worry about it.