Ruth Ellery
Managing Director
MCIArb · CeMAP
Eleven years handling complaints inside two high street banks before founding the firm. Ruth set the rule that we tell people when they do not need us, and audits a…
About us
About Personal Chargeback
A regulated claims management company that tells two thirds of its enquiries to go and do it themselves, free.
Personal Chargeback was founded in Glasgow in 2016 by two people who had spent years on the other side of the desk, handling complaints for a high street bank. What they saw there was not usually dishonesty. It was that a great many perfectly good claims were declined because the customer did not know which rule applied, could not evidence what they were told at the point of sale, or simply gave up after the first refusal letter.
Almost none of that requires a lawyer. Chargeback is a card scheme process. Section 75 is one section of a 1974 statute. Unauthorised payment claims turn on a regulation that puts the burden of proof on the bank rather than on you. The barrier is knowing that, and being willing to keep going after the first no.
So the firm was built on an uncomfortable premise for a claims company: most people should not use one. We publish the letters, the checklists and the deadline guidance free, and around two thirds of the enquiries we receive are answered with instructions for claiming directly and nothing else. There is no follow-up call, because a claim you can run in an afternoon is not worth paying a percentage on.
The claims we do take on are the ones where that is not true: a bank that has refused twice, a scam with a long paper trail, an insolvent retailer, a purchase where more than one route runs in parallel and the wrong one has already been tried. We are also clear about what we are not. We are not a law firm and we do not conduct litigation. Where a case needs a solicitor, we say so and stop, rather than running a weaker version of it ourselves.
How we work
Four commitments we will put in writing
We say when you do not need us
Roughly two thirds of the people who contact us are told how to claim free through their own bank, and sent away with the letter template to do it. There is no follow-up call. If a claim is straightforward enough to run yourself, paying anyone a percentage of it is a poor trade.
We turn work away
If a claim is weak, out of time, or simply not worth the effort it would take you, we say so and close the file. Taking on a case we expect to lose wastes months of somebody else\u2019s life.
We claim what the rules support
Every claim we run cites the specific provision it turns on and the evidence behind it. Where the facts do not support a claim, we say so at the assessment rather than taking it on and quietly letting it fail.
One handler, start to finish
The person who assesses your claim writes the complaint and prepares the Ombudsman submission. You get their direct line and their email, not a case reference and a queue.
What we work from
The rules your claim actually turns on
Every claim we run is argued from a specific published rule rather than from how unfair the situation feels. These are the ones that come up most, and they are all free for you to read.
Unauthorised payments
- Payment Services Regulations 2017, reg. 75–77
- FCA BCOBS
- Strong Customer Authentication rules
Card disputes
- Visa Core Rules
- Mastercard Chargeback Guide
- American Express dispute rules
Credit purchases
- Consumer Credit Act 1974, s.75
- Consumer Credit Act 1974, s.75A
- Consumer Rights Act 2015
Scams and fraud
- Mandatory APP reimbursement rules
- Contingent Reimbursement Model Code
- Payment Systems Regulator directions
Complaints
- FCA DISP
- Financial Ombudsman Service approach documents
- Limitation Act 1980
Our own conduct
- FCA CONC 8 (claims management)
- FCA Consumer Duty
- UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018
History
Ten years, one claim at a time
-
Founded in Glasgow
Started by two former bank complaint handlers who had spent years declining claims they knew would have succeeded had the customer argued them properly.
-
FCA authorisation
Authorised to carry on regulated claims management activity when responsibility for the sector transferred from the Claims Management Regulator to the FCA.
-
Section 75 practice
A dedicated team for credit card provider liability claims, after the pandemic left thousands of people holding vouchers for travel that never happened.
-
APP fraud reimbursement
Built a scam-reimbursement practice around the Contingent Reimbursement Model, and began publishing our own guidance on what banks were getting wrong.
-
Mandatory reimbursement
Adapted the practice to the new mandatory APP reimbursement rules, which shifted the balance decisively towards consumers for in-scope payments.
-
Crypto and negligence claims
Extended into card-funded crypto losses and professional negligence, the two areas where people were most often told, wrongly, that nothing could be done.
-
Free-first as policy
Published the proportion of enquiries we turn away with self-help instructions, and committed to keeping every template on the site free to download.
People
The people who run your claim
The people named here assess claims, write the complaints and prepare Ombudsman submissions. One of them will be your named handler.
Callum Reid
Head of Card Disputes
CICM
Several thousand chargeback and Section 75 claims. Callum wrote the internal reason-code guidance the whole team works from and retrains everyone whenever the scheme rules change.
Marta Nowak
Ombudsman Referrals Lead
CILEx Level 3
Prepares every submission that goes to the Financial Ombudsman Service, with a long record of overturning final response letters that looked settled.
Ben Whitfield
Head of Consumer Guidance
Writes the free guides and templates that let people run claims without us. Aware of the tension in that, and considers it the point.
Sana Iqbal
Vulnerable Customer Lead
Reviews every case where a client may be vulnerable and sets the adjustments we make. Came from welfare rights advice and takes a dim view of firms that treat vulnerability…
Gregor Lang
Compliance Manager
ICA Diploma in Governance, Risk and Compliance
Responsible for our permissions, fee transparency and the quality assurance file. Reads our own marketing before anyone else does, and cuts most of it.
Priya Shah
Client Services Manager
Runs the case handler team and owns the promise that you speak to the same person throughout. Watches how long clients wait for a reply and escalates when it slips.