Tax refund to Agen

Like so many of you on here I received a message from Brooksdale informing me of a Tax Refund they had received for me from HMRC. I made contact with a HMRC who confirmed they had forwarded the funds to Brooksdale. I had never heard of them. HMRC told me they had received a signed authorisation for from me, I asked for a copy and found that my signature had been forged, it looked nothing like my signature and even misspelt. HMRC told me there was nothing they could do and I had to report it to Action Fraud which I did, only to be told that this is not a reportable crime. So the criminals win, take our money and HMRC are aware of this scam and just hand over our money willingly?! Clearly crime does pay. I am absolutely staggered at the response I have received, the lack of help and incredulous that they are not prepared to do anything about it!

Hi @Polly57 - I've just seen your comment on here about Brooksdale telling you that you wouldn't have got your money back had it not been for them claiming it. What they've told you is both accurate AND inaccurate in that if checking your own income tax returns isn't something you do routinely, then you wouldn't have had it if they hadn't done it on your behalf. BUT (and this is a big "but") you absolutely CAN get your own returns without an external agent doing it for you and taking a huge chunk as their "payment", because 48% is quite extortionate isn't it? I've had an HMRC letter today saying a cheque has been sent to Brooksdale. I'd gone down that same route of using TheClaimsGuys for PPI returns and I vaguely remember getting a text message to give Brooksdale permission to check if I had an HMRC return due to me, but it didn't say what their cut was - I didn't even know they were going to do it more than onece (more fool me)! So when I get my next refund with their huge chunk taken off it I'm going to do to see what I can to get this "agreement" cancelled. Also, with the exception of this current one, the money I've claimed back myself has been a much larger amount than the one claimed back from Brooksdale. And yes I know companies like that keep people in jobs and stuff, but it's a refund on MY income tax, not theirs, so it should all be coming to me, as yours should be to you and the same for anyone else's they're claiming back. They certainly know how to charge, don't they?

I am in same boat with brooksdale got a letter from hmrc saying they were sending check to them then day after got a letter from hmcr saying I owe them money this was for tax year 2019/2020 tried all day to get through to hmrc can anybody help ?

Hi veron Megson,

You will need to keep trying to contact our helpline or write to us to discuss this further

Income Tax: general enquiries

Thank you