I enclose copies of correspondence between myself and Windsor Life from . which you will see that protracted delays on its part have resulted in me
losing out on my pension policy.
losing out on my pension policy.
Part way through this long-running saga, Windsor Life offered me £100
compensation. I rejected this and now it has made a further derisory offer
of £50 for loss of interest. This I am also rejecting.(Further help and advice
can be obtained by visiting (http://www.enjoy-your-retirement.com )
compensation. I rejected this and now it has made a further derisory offer
of £50 for loss of interest. This I am also rejecting.(Further help and advice
can be obtained by visiting (http://www.enjoy-your-retirement.com )
You may be interested to know that it was never my intention to hold a
policy with Windsor Life. It was originally with National Mutual, which was taken over by GE Life, which then subsequently sold the business to
Windsor Life
policy with Windsor Life. It was originally with National Mutual, which was taken over by GE Life, which then subsequently sold the business to
Windsor Life
AG
Brasted, KenBrasted, Kent
Brasted, KenBrasted, Kent
This Section 32 buy-out pension fund came from a final-salary pension scheme. The tax-free cash was linked to the final salary rather than a percentage of the fund, the latter not having grown as much as might have been hoped.
Your IFA contacted Windsor Life to request information regarding this old-style policy. It responded three-and-a-half weeks later asking when you had left the scheme as this was essential for its calculations. Windsor Life received the information back two months after that and a retirement quote was issued just a week later. However, what Windsor Life sent turned out to be incorrect.
Some five-and-a-half months later, after further delays, some of which were caused by Windsor Life, the policy proceeds were transferred to Legal & General. By now though stock market volatility had taken its toll and the £32,000-plus you had expected had dropped to £26,164.
Then Windsor Life received an instruction from you saying you wanted the maximum tax-free cash and to purchase the annuity with L & G with the remaining funds.
Legal & General returned the funds, which were received back on October 30 2008. However, Windsor Life did not pass them to you until January 8 2009. There was still enough to pay the £25,902 lump sum but, because of the fall in value, it was not feasible to buy an annuity. The £262 fund balance was sent to you.
My involvement over a long period of time led to Windsor Life pitching the date when, but for the delays of its causing, you would have received the funds at August 8 2008. It then made good the shortfall between the value then and what had actually been realised. This additional £6,806 was used to set up an annuity.
By the time Windsor Life had transferred the money, annuity rates had slipped so you were due to receive £35 less per year. An uplift of £617 was then paid to Legal & General. A £366 interim annuity payment you had also missed out on was also paid to you. Along the way the £150 promised before my involvement was sent for goodwill.
In all, you have £7,789 more than you would have received from the earlier offers. Understandably you feel it has come to a good resolution albeit it took quite a while getting there.
INTEREST ASTRAY
I wonder if I could enlist your assistance. I have not received interest of approximately £2,500 net due three months ago from Abbey. This is because the bank sent it to the wrong bank sort code. It told me this.
I also feel £600 compensation is due because of all this.
Can you please help?
ER
Taradeau, France
Taradeau, France
This is about a matured Bradford & Bingley bond that migrated to Abbey. When you complained, Abbey kept insisting you had already had the £2,647 interest at issue. You insisted you had not. Meanwhile, you wrote nine letters from France about this, sent 10 emails and phoned six times. Your letters to me revealed your understandable frustration.
My contact meant that at last you received the interest that had been missing and also £600 for goodwill.
EBAY ANGST
I sold an item on eBay to an American buyer. When he received it he said it was damaged. Obviously I would not send out a damaged item with a 100pc eBay record. PayPal made itself judge and jury and decided I must be lying and refunded the buyer the cost of the item and postage. This put my PayPal account into a negative balance. I clearly stated on eBay that I operate a non-return policy.
When the buyer returned the damaged item, he did not mark it as ''gift''. Therefore it incurred custom charges of £18. As no item had been bought or sold and I already owned the item I declined to pay the charge. It was returned to the US. PayPal is saying that, as this happened, it does not want to know.
I have spoken to the buyer by email and he states that he is not prepared to pay for shipping unless someone pays the postage cost.
It is part of eBay's and PayPal's policy that items must be sent correctly. As it is, I am already out of pocket for postage and it is now damaged.
PayPal put a debt collection agency onto me. I paid this agency because I did not want to get involved with bailiffs and bad credit rating.
Cheers.
WB
Portsmouth, Hants
Portsmouth, Hants
The item at issue was described on eBay as an early French antique fob watch stand with a thermometer. The buyer said the thermometer was broken. Most likely this was the result of something that occurred in transit.
On the basis that you had been a customer since 2005, my involvement led to PayPal refunding £97. This included the postage you had paid. PayPal also agreed to cover the cost of returning the object to you. At this stage though, the buyer went quiet and did not respond to PayPal's overtures. When at last he came back it was merely to report that he had thrown the item away. You say that if it had been returned you could have had another thermometer made.
DEBTS CLEARED
I am writing in the hope you may be able to get a response from Capital One for me.
Last year my husband suffered a heart attack and died. This left me with a multitude of problems to deal with and overcome. Following that shock I was diagnosed with cancer and have struggled to recover. Friends have been assisting me with correspondence, but I seem unable to raise a satisfactory response or conclusion from Capital One.
My husband had a credit card in his name and, as well as using it himself, he occasionally booked flights and so forth for me. Trying to be efficient, I reacted immediately to a statement that arrived soon after his death. I paid off the outstanding sum and cut up his card.
I probably did make some errors and misunderstood some requests but I was really in a difficult period. I received and sent the following letters and made these phone calls.
JG
Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The activity list about this was long and the various correspondence quite copious.
On the back of a statement dated three days before your husband died, you paid off £338.80 believing that cleared all debts on the card. At the same time you notified Capital One of your husband's death and sent a copy of the death certificate. The cheque was not debited from your bank account until nearly a month after you sent it. After that you began to receive notices of arrears along the lines that you had missed or failed to pay the last two contractual minimum payments on the card in full. As no statements were being sent out, you had no way of knowing that a debit reflecting a purchase from a sports shop made shortly before your husband died had subsequently appeared on the card.
Indeed you had thought that anything remaining would effectively be paid off by £45 which had been returned by a ferry company. In fact, charges on the card for supposed late payment whittled this down to £15.
Further to my involvement Capital One apologised to you for any distress caused. It says that it has not dealt with this as sensitively as it would have liked. Also it seems the balance you paid off may not even have been your liability. Having investigated the circumstances and identified areas where it should have handled this case better, Capital One has reviewed its processes and assures me it is going to make any changes that are required to avoid a similar situation recurring.
It has apologised to you and refunded the £338.80 you paid as well as wiping the account's slate clean. It has also paid you the £45 ferry refund.
BROADBAND IRE
We are having various problems with our broadband provider including getting it to repay money owed to us. It has reached the stage now where it simply will not deal with us.
What should we do next?
JC
Brighton
Brighton
I have suggested you first approach the Internet Services Providers' Association, ISPA, the UK's trade association for many providers of internet services but not all. Its website is www.ispa.org.uk The telephone number is 0870 050 0710. For complainants who, like you, have tried their best to resolve the matter themselves and where a member appears to have breached the association's code, ISPA will do what it can to prompt a response from the recalcitrant member after the complainant has notified it of the nature of the complaint by filling in a form. Often one or two nudges to a top-level complaints person will do the trick.
Where the company is not an ISPA member, consider contacting Consumer Direct. Its website is www.consumerdirect.gov.uk The telephone number is 08454 040506.
Even more importantly, telecommunications companies come under either Otelo, the Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman, or Cisas, the Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme. Both have procedures for dealing with complaints about companies coming under their aegis.
To find out more go to www.otelo.org.uk or call either 0330 440 1614 or 01925 430049 for Otelo. For Cisas the website is www.cisas.org.uk or for first calls the telephone number is 020 7520 3827. Once a complaint has been lodged 020 7520 3814 may be the faster option.
Good luck.
CITI NOT SO SLICK
My wife and I both have Shell credit cards administered by Citibank. Late last year, fraudulent transactions occurred.
After attempting to contact Citibank by telephone and letter and receiving no replies I am more than a little frustrated. I quite understand that you are extremely busy and do not exactly have an army of helpers. I do, however, hope that you have time to read this increasingly growing file of correspondence and help me to reach a solution.
IP
Burnham, Bucks
Burnham, Bucks
I contacted Citibank, which then completely missed the point about what you were complaining about. I went back explaining that there were still two fraudulent claims outstanding on the card. These having been registered eight months earlier for £50.84 and £153.54 respectively. Both were deemed to be for purchases made in far-flung places that you have no connection with. It was not until over a month after I first contacted Citibank that this money was repaid, along with the charges the transactions had incurred, with £80 added for goodwill.
Write to Jessica, Your Money, Telegraph Media Group, 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT
