Extra Energy can’t decide if I’m in debt or owed £100

IN AUGUST 2015, I decided to switch from British Gas to Extra Energy.

The email welcome letter had an attachment with the terms and conditions, but I could not open it because it had become corrupted.

I twice emailed asking them to resend it, but heard nothing, so I decided to cancel and stay with British Gas.

Extra Energy continued as though nothing had happened. It took me several months to cancel and then I received an email saying there would be a fee to do so. I received a bill for £97.56 on March 14, 2016.

I contacted Ombudsman Services and was awarded £100 compensation.

But Extra Energy emailed again in January this year demanding £131.85. Letters from its credit agent followed. How can it demand payment for a service it has never provided? P. S., Cambridge.

You contacted ombudsman Services about the second demand for money but they said that this was a new issue and you should allow Extra Energy time to resolve it. Rubbish! This is obviously a continuation of the first problem.

on January 20 and February 27 this year, letters were sent to you by the debt collector demanding the £131.85 which Extra Energy claimed it was owed. These both threatened legal action.

This was almost a year after ombudsman Services had found in your favour and ordered that you be paid compensation.

Well, Extra Energy has now corrected the error and reduced the balance to zero. It admits it attempted to take the £131.85 by direct debit from your account in october 2016. This apparently was down to a system error, which has since been rectified.

It has now apologised to you.

I PUT £20,000 into an index-linked bond five-and-a-half years ago. It paid 30 pc, which equated to £6,000. It matured on April 11, 2016 which meant the interest was paid gross. If it had matured a few days previously, the bank would have deducted tax.

I contacted HMRC to ask if tax was due on the £6,000. On May 10 last year, they wrote saying that no tax was due. A week later I received a second letter saying 20 pc would be due.

So I wrote again requesting somebody call me. I had rung several times, but never got through. Weeks later a lady called and said I was to pay tax, but they would not hear from the bank about the interest paid until the end of the tax year. So it could be 2018 before I know how much, if any, tax I owe. B. R., Northampton.

ThE new regime where interest is paid without tax deducted is a double-edged sword. on the one hand, interest is paid gross and we wait a little longer before paying tax.

on the other, we also have to wait to learn just what we owe.

As you suspected, the first letter you received from hmRC was total baloney. The author had gone into some complex calculations involving the amount of savings income you can receive without paying tax, but had not looked at your other sources of income thoroughly.

In fact, you do owe tax on the £6,000. however, at least you’ve been able to earn some interest on the money in the meantime (even if it was a piffling 1 pc).

hmRC has now been in touch and arranged the tax to be paid.

LIKE many grandparents we bought Premium Bonds for our granddaughter when she was born in 2000, and added more in 2009. She turned 16 last year so we let her have them.

We wrote to National Savings & Investments, enclosing the original certificates, but it would not deal with us.

So we asked our granddaughter, who now lives in France, to submit the form. She received a reply saying that the holder’s number no longer exists.

NS&I has refused to discuss the situation with me, but we have been advised that our granddaughter should write with the details.

She wrote months ago but we still have not received a reply. J. H., N. Yorks.

A SpokESmAn for nS&I says they wrote to your granddaughter on october 19 last year but she does not seem to have received the letter. It has been sent again.

As a general principle, grandparents can invest on behalf of grandchildren in these bonds. however, a parent or legal guardian must manage the account on behalf of the child.

The grandparent will receive an acknowledgement of the investment, but only the guardian will be able to cash in the bonds until the child is 16. All communication is with the parent until the child is 16 and becomes responsible for the accounts themselves.

This makes it imperative that when investing on behalf of grandchildren you make it very clear to the parents that they are responsible for the investment.

The only situation in which the nominated account holder could be the grandparent is if they were the child’s legal guardian.