GULF SHORES, Ala. — There’s a new BP claims process and a new group is in town to help those affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon and BP oil spill with claims against the giant company.

Georgia Environmental Consultants have set up an office, have a website and offer over-the-phone help for anyone in the state who wants to file a claim with BP.

“Basically on Dec. 22 of last year a federal judge in Louisiana ruled that everyone was able to file for a settlement under the Deepwater Horizon act,” Joe Pike of GECON said. “Before it kind of had to be a tourist-related industry and now if you lived in Montgomery, Ala., and you can prove that you sustained financial losses after 2010 it makes you eligible to make a claim.”

The judge ruled, Pike said, that because of the lack of tourist money coming into the state, the entire state suffered as a result.

“They’re basically saying because of the lack of tourist money for a couple of years down along the shoreline that that that money didn’t trickle up into the economy for the whole state of Alabama,” he said. “They made it a lot more widespread on the area, made it where the criteria are a lot easier to fall into the slot of being eligible to file a claim and get a settlement from BP.”

But, he cautions, be wary of new offers now in the works from BP.

“BP is going to start mailing out packets to people, they’re going to set up tents and invite people to come fill out paperwork, all these new people,” Pike said. “And the reason they are going to do that is so they can hand out $3,500 checks or $5,000 checks or $1,000 checks again. Basically they’re just buying people’s Social Security numbers so that they won’t come after them later and won’t sue.”

Pike says BP tried to have caps placed on the amount of money it would pay and on the number of new claims that could be filed, but the judge ruled different against them.

“BP said they were expecting to give out about $7.8 billion and we’re expecting about two million claims to be filed,” he said. “Well the judge said there is no cap, there is no number of claims. You will pay it no matter what it is until April 22 of 2014.”

So BP, Pike says, hopes to make a lot smaller payments to avoid bigger ones or more lawsuits in the future.

“So they’re trying to stop the bleeding,” Pike said. “Our research, we’ve come up with a number of about $65 billion is what they should pay out. But if people jump on this new bandwagon with BP and said ‘all right, we’ll take $5,000,’ then BP is going to save a large amount of money. They’re spending $150 million to try and save $20 billion.”

His firm, he says, is here to help. GECON will help claimants fill out and file paperwork to try and get a bigger, fairer settlement from BP. GECON will do that for 10 percent of the paid amount.

If you use a lawyer provided through GECON, the fee goes up to 25 percent of the claim. Pike says most lawyers charge 35 to 45 percent to file claims.

“We help people,” Pike said. “Are we going to make a profit at the end of this thing? Yes, if we get everybody’s claim settled for what it should be settled for, our company will show a profit and we’ll take that profit and invest it until the next hurricane comes or natural disaster or manmade disaster. That’s what our company does. We go in and we help people against their insurance company or in this case against BP.”

Pike says the process through GECON is a simple one which can be started by calling the company at 1-800-711-4714 or visiting geconrelief.com.

“They call in, we qualify them and that’s based on did you live in the zone,” he said. “If so, what zone did you live in? And we show them the map. Did you suffer any financial loss after 2010? We fill out the paper work for them.

“It usually takes us about 24 hours to get it filled out and uploaded. If you decide to go through the attorneys that takes about another 48 hours to get it uploaded to the BP claims administrator. Normally it’s a 90-day turnaround and we’ll have a check for you.”

GECON’s office is located at 1373 W. Beach Blvd. in Gulf Shores.

“If they call us, we’ll have representative come to their house or place of business there or they can go on the website and fill out the information and we’ll have somebody contact them,” Pike said.