I want a £1,000 refund from the doctor who botched my op

LAST October, I paid £1,000 for a nonsurgical filler treatment. The work was not satisfactory for several reasons. The filler was injected with a needle instead of a cannula, which made me suspect that they had not used the product I had paid for, and there were other issues.

I consulted a plastic surgeon who confirmed my fears — that I had some nerve damage to my eye, lumps and an unnatural and uneven look.

The practitioner was not willing to do anything about it or refund my money.

In December 2014 I contacted Barclaycard and they did agree to a refund. A month later Barclaycard phoned to say that as the practitioner had used an intermediary, I couldn’t have a refund for the transaction. I did not understand the convoluted explanation.

On April 17 I received a letter from Barclays saying my complaint about how the affair had been handled was upheld and awarding me £ 50 compensation for being mis-advised.

It now seems that I might have to take the case to court.

A. W., Aberdeen I’ll put my hands up here and admit that when I began to read your letter, I did not have a clue what non- surgical filler treatment was. I suspected you’d had a problem with your dentist.

But further research has enlightened me to the fact you’d been seeking to smooth out the odd wrinkle. Clearly, I need to pay more attention to Femail and Good Health.

Your difficulty in reclaiming money is down to a technicality in the Consumer Credit Act.

Section 75 offers wide- ranging protection by making a credit card or loan company jointly liable for delivering a service or goods worth between £100 and £30,000. All you need to do is pay a small deposit of the cost on your credit card — £1 is enough — and you will be covered for the whole amount.

But there’s a nasty exception. There must be a direct link between you, the supplier and the credit card company.

If this triangle is broken, then Section 75 no longer applies. This can happen when a retailer uses a third party to process their credit card transactions.

It is a consistent problem with internet shopping, especially using marketplace-type sites where the credit card transaction might be handled by someone other than the retailer.

This happened in your case, with the cosmetics firm using a thirdparty company.

However, Barclaycard has spent some time looking at your case again and has decided that you were eligible for a refund under its chargeback scheme.

The company involved initially resisted this, but Barclaycard has rejected its arguments.

So the good news is that Barclaycard has retrieved and refunded your £1,000.

Chargeback is a scheme offered by the card networks ( Visa, MasterCard and American express) in which representations are made to the merchant’s processing bank to request a refund. These are subject to card scheme rules rather than being a consumer right.

Barclaycard advises keeping an eye open for companies that use third-party providers. Check with the supplier or merchant as to your legal rights. IN APRIL I signed a contract to switch my broadband to EE from Sky. Sky wrote to confirm I wanted to leave and, when I called Sky, offered a better deal. I contacted EE and told it I was staying with Sky. I was within my 14-day cooling off period so asked for my £10 deposit back. I have phoned and visited the store in Harrogate but still do not have my money.

A. F., Harrogate I’Ve tackled your letter for a reason: £10 might seem like a trivial amount of money — but it can be all the more frustrating when we have to spend hours pursuing a small sum. At what point do we decide to write it off because we can’t be bothered with the hassle any longer?

I’m convinced some firms — or perhaps just some managers within firms — have a deliberate tactic of ignoring small complaints in the hope that we will just go away.

Of course, I cannot say if this is the case with ee; your case was probably just an oversight.

Personally, I think the right approach when you’re being ignored is to write to the chief executive’s office and make sure your problem is costing them more in staff wages and wasted admin time than it’s costing you.

The good news is that your cheque is finally on its way to you. An ee spokesman says: ‘We apologise to Mr F. after an administration error meant we did not issue a refund of his deposit. We apologise for any inconvenience.’

ee has also reminded its store staff of the correct procedures in cases like this. I HAVE a £41,000 pension pot that I want to cash in under the new pension freedoms.

However my insurer says I have guarantees in my pot and must show I have taken advice before I can have the money.

Surely this can’t be right?

A. C., Surrey. YES, your insurer is right to demand you take advice.

This is because your pension comes with a perk in the smal print, known as a guaranteed annuity rate.

This promises payouts of a much higher level than you would normally receive when you retire.

The City watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority, has said that anyone with one of these deals with a pot of more than £30,000 must take advice before cashing it in.

The idea is to protect savers from giving up valuable perks without realising it.