Davis & James Avis 

Initially very communicative then nothing when they get the £££'s from HMRC. HMRC then on my back to pay it back plus interest. Absolutely disgraceful fraudulent crooks. We will be lodging this company and their despicable activities of Cybercrime to National Fraud office.

My wife and I have been victims by Benjamin Duffy and RJN Holdings Ltd. Company traded as Davis and James Ltd in the past. HMRC has paid Benjamin Duffy and his company for refund of Stamp Duty of £21,500 in December 2024.
Benjamin Duffy and his partner Amy Pamler have disappeared and disconnected their mobiles, WhatsApp and website.
THIS IS A SCAM and have been reported to Action Fraud and has been sent to National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) for review.
NFRC250507379026

I am continuing to pursue both civil and criminal action against Benjamin Duffy and RJN Holdings Ltd for funds retained after a Stamp Duty refund was issued by HMRC on my behalf. Despite repeated promises to repay and sign formal agreements, no money has been received.

HMRC has confirmed that both the refund and interest were paid to Ben’s company in December 2024. After months of excuses and delays, I have now submitted a County Court Money Claim and formally reported the matter to Action Fraud.

If you are another victim of similar conduct by Ben Duffy or Davis & James, please contact me so we can coordinate further legal action.

Action Fraud reference: NFRC250507360361
Contact: claimagainstbenduffy @ gmail . com

This appears to be part of a wider pattern. The more people who come forward, the stronger the case we can build to escalate this further.

This review reflects my honest experience and is supported by documentation.

HMRC SDLT refund confirmed; update-
Although this is a clear case of fraud, Action Fraud want more evidence to support any action by the police.

Can I urge anyone who has a negative review of Ben Duffy on Trustpilot, to register a complaint on Action Fraud for them to strengthen the case for action.

Yesterday, I discovered that Davis & James Website had been suspended!

Benjamin james and Amy palmer from Davis & james they .. they were dealing with over paid stamp duty worth £7,500 as other people have mentioned they seemed v professional at first .. Amy was our claims main contact they had all our details seemed genuine then everything went quiet ! We then couldn’t get hold of them after a few months past .. at this point we realised we had probably been scammed .. we checked the company and sure enough came across the trust pilot reviews of how others had fallen victim to them so I left our version of them as well on trust pilot .. shortly ( next day) Ben ( so he said) was calling me ( on his own personal number apparently ) asking that I take Amy’s name of the trust pilot review as apparently she was only a receptionist innocent party to it all ??? ( not the case I have clear messages saying what her title was and she was our only point of contact with the company .. she was the only person asking for our details and the only person I spoke to .. she kept asking for info for the claim as well .. basically she knows everything about us !!! Ben .. he then his
Was saying our claim was still going through and that we would receive all the funds plus commission … this is still ongoing …there’s been excuses to delay and I’ll contact you tomorrow etc etc .. then nothing until I text him ? This is obviously looking like a scam .. however he has sent me a few messages asking for account details and what money I was expecting? I have at this point said I think it sounds like you’re scammers or if not being up front with your clients to save from all the mis understandings if that be the case ! I will update this post as and when things if they get resolved. My gut feeling is not good about the company right now ? Before this edited review Ben asked me to take it down otherwise he’d go down another route? No sure but sounded a bit threatening 🤔

Davis & James - a trading name of RJN Holdings Ltd were engaged after reading the long list of excellent reviews on Trustpilot. The initial engagement was professional and timely. However, following a successful SDLT claim for tens of thousands of pounds in overpaid stamp duty in October 2023, HMRC made the payment to Davis and James and the communication stopped. I finally made contact with the sole director, Benjamin James Duffy who gave numerous, often conflicting reasons for the delay. The payment still outstanding nearly 5 months later. If you have engaged Benjamin James Duffy to recover overpaid SDLT, please report him to Action Fraud and HMRC before he has chance to collect your money.

Davis and James, run by Benjamin James Duffy, appears to be a case of a good company gone bad.....acting on their brilliant reviews we engaged them to recover a SDLT refund of £12500 back in December 2023 and 18 months later we have received nothing but endless excuses and procrastinations. We now learn from a very helpful lady at the SDLT office that our claim was accepted as long ago as February 2024 and was actually paid, with interest, to RJM Holdings Ltd , which appears to be Davis and James's holding company, as long ago as 21st February 2024! Where is our money now? We know where it isn't, and that is in our pockets.... The SDLT people tell me that they have now put a stop on any further claims made by Davis and James, and are investigating them. They also implied that there are other people in the same situation as us.......we are not prepared to put up with this and intend to pursue this man, who needless to say, has now evaporated...all of us people in the same situation need to get together to take collective action, try to recover our money and to prevent others from being duped by the errant Mr Benjamin James Duffy.... none of the firm's quoted phone numbers etc now work and the office addresses now seem closed.His once very helpful assistant Amy Palmer also seems to have gone AWOL and all my recent emails have gone unanswered....what a surprise! Bill

HMRC confirm SDLT refund remitted to Davis & James on 19 September 2024, however to date we have not received a penny!!! Cannot understand, with so many positive reviews, our experience would indicate quite the opposite. No response from this company. Where is our money?

To begin with brilliant communication. Then nothing they obviously realised they couldn’t make any money from me. All I wanted was a straight yes or no to my case but was totally ignored on multiple occasions. I was trying to sort my late mother’s estate. At a high time of grief nothing. Uncaring insensitive humans. Amy and Ben particularly. Stay clear of these heartless sharks

*WARNING THIS COMPANY IS DISSOLVED BUT HAS STILL BEEN DEALING WITH US OVER THE LAST 12 MONTHS AS IF THEY ARE STILL A FUNCTIONING BUSINESS. THEY ARE IN BREACH OF CONTRACT AND BEN JAMES HAS DEFRAUDED US OUT OF THOUSANDS**
We started dealing with Ben early 2022 after we received a letter from him suggesting we were likely to be eligible for a potential refund on stamp duty land tax. He was great and managed to get us a refund after an extensive review between him and HMRC which Ben managed through himself. However, HMRC did a review post payment and decided that we weren’t actually eligible a refund and requested the full amount to be repaid plus interest. Our contract with Davisandjames meant that our liability here was purely to repay the monies we received and Davisandjames limited were responsible for repaying back their commissions received plus any interest accrued. I reached out to Ben to get this resolved, we had many conversations over message and phone call over the course of the last 6-12 months - at no point did Ben disclose that the business had actually dissolved in January 2024 and he continued to communicate with me in the normal manner so there were no alarm bells on our side. He continued to lead me to believe he was sorting this right up until last week and said he was chasing their funds to cover their liability from their insurance company.
However, this money has not been paid and Ben is now ghosting me, removed his picture from WhatsApp and turned his phone off. Office phones are also disconnected. My last communication from Ben was on the 4th March 2025 advising me that the money had definitely been paid and that he was emailing HMRC to resolve the matter. And then nothing!
Davisandjames are in breach of contract with us and have defrauded us out of £2,500.
DO NOT TOUCH THIS COMPANY OR BEN JAMES!!!
We will now be seeking legal advice.

Like many others we received a letter from Davis & James saying we could be eligible for a stamp duty rebate based on our annex purchased as part of our home. We followed up and received great customer service, Amy in particular was so helpful at every step of the claim submission. Very impressed with how easy they made this, we had quite a lot of questions and were sceptical initially but everything was made clear to us.
Davis and James were very quick to resolve any problems and questions.

Clear, professional and efficient. They handled everything and sent the payment direct to my bank account. I would highly recommend them, great service.

After putting several letters in the bin regarding possible stamp duty refunds , I reluctantly opened one from Davies & James , I duly got in touch and supplied all the details they asked for , since then it’s been seamless, they updated me on progress and last week I received my refund, whilst being a little miffed that my own solicitor had overlooked this matter , I can’t praise Davies & James enough and would recommend them to anyone in a similar position

The team at Davis & James were excellent from start to finish. I was originally sceptical about pursuing such a claim, but any questions I had (and there were a lot) were answered quickly by Amy my AM or Ben who leads the business. My refund was achieved in full within 6 weeks of making the claim and I can't thank the Davis & James team enough for their help with this.

I had several letters claiming I had overpaid the SDLT on my new property.
I was very sceptical at first, I then received a very professional letter from Davis & James outlining their services.
They said the process would be very straight forward and they guaranteed success, I had a simple form to fill in which they helped me with.
6 weeks later the overpaid SDLT money was in my bank account - Success !
The whole experience was very smooth, I would strongly recommend Davis & James to anyone with their claim.

Really professional and efficient. Did a great job and I cannot recommend highly enough. A big thank you to all at Davis & James

Thanks to Davis and James and particularly to Ben and Amy who acted with great efficiency and courtesy. We recommend this company without reservations

Very easy and convenient

After instructing Davis & James I was immediately impressed with their expertise and very professional approach which was born out by the suucees they achieved on my behalf.
On a more personal note my main contact Amy kept me a breast of progress at all times and nurtured a high degree of trust which was very reassuring.
I would not hesitate in recommending this company.
Ian Reeves FRICS

Very happy indeed with the service provided by Ben and Amy. They made it a smooth and straightforward process from start to finish, and the stamp duty refund I got was exactly what I'd been told to expect. I'd add that the commission they take is fair, and a good bit less than some of the competition.