Tesco won’t let me pay my son’s mobile phone bill
MY SON cancelled his Tesco Mobile account to move to another network. He then went travelling.
While he was in Cuba, I received a letter from Tesco, saying the account had been disconnected and there was an outstanding bill. It warned that his credit rating could be affected.
I tried to pay the bill on his behalf, but Tesco would not tell me what the outstanding balance was, citing data protection regulations.
It insisted that my son must make contact personally. This was very nearly impossible, owing to hurricane disruption. It also said it reserved the right to pass on details to a debt collection agency. Yet it’s making it impossible for me to pay this bill.
Mrs C. S., Cheltenham, Glos.
SOMETIMES I want to tear my hair out when I hear how companies interpret the data protection regulations.
They are clearly necessary to protect our personal information, but surely do not exist to prevent parents paying a phone bill on behalf of their children who are trapped in a hurricane-ravaged country. If ever there were an example of a jobsworth attitude trumping common sense, this would be it.
Surely those working for Tesco Mobile watch the news? at the very least, your inquiry should have been escalated to a senior person who could help. Tesco Mobile has since apologised for the inconvenience and cancelled the remain-ing balance as a gesture of goodwill.
In its defence, it would have been sensible for your son to leave his direct debit open, so that any remaining balance could be paid or any amount owed to him repaid.
It is always worth doing this for a couple of months after closing a contract with a utility. I would also suggest that, before going away on a world tour, it is sensible to give written permission for a parent, sibling or child to deal with any financial issues while you are away.
You could base it on the permission letter template used for my column — which can be found at thisismoney. co.uk/permission — and add start and end dates.
Leaving letters giving the main organisations you deal with — such as your bank and credit card companies — permission to speak to some-one you trust could make life a lot simpler for all parties.
I TOOK out a motor insurance policy with AA to start on August 1, costing £519.49.
On July 28, it wrote that the Claims and Underwriting Exchange had found I’d been involved in a claim in 2016. It requested an additional sum of £146.56, though it also sent a certificate of insurance.
Ignoring my letters, emails and phone calls, it cancelled my insurance on August 23.
I have been unable to obtain cover since, due to the requirement to declare a cancellation, and, at the age of 88, have been without my own transport.
I have established that my wife’s name was submitted to the database in error.
We have proof from her insurer at the time that no payment of any sort was made on either side and that it was happy to maintain her no- claims bonus. I have never had a claim against me in 54 years of driving.
P. T., Leicestershire.
aa INSURANCE has invest-igated your case thoroughly and is, I’m afraid, standing by its decision. It says your wife is a named driver on your policy and you failed to disclose a claim under her name.
You say that no money was paid on either side and that the other insurer was happy to maintain her no- claims bonus. however, I suspect the key point here is not whether money was paid, but whether an incident occurred and was recorded.
Insurance firms operate not on how much money they have paid to you, but on how they perceive the risk.
The very fact that someone has been involved in an incident — even if they were not at fault — can apparently raise the risk of them being involved in a second one.
aa Insurance tells me you made contact by phone on July 31 to query why you had not received the document-ation, and its systems show you were told the additional fee would need to be paid, otherwise the policy would be cancelled. You said you would call back when you had a payment method available.
Your son then emailed aa regarding the same matter, saying that you wished to dispute the claim shown on the Claims and underwriting exchange search.
In the meantime, six weeks passed, so the cover was cancelled and a refund of £451.09 — your premium minus the amount of cover you had already used — sent to you.
If there was no incident, you could demand that the insurer that put the claim onto the database removes it.
however, from the wording of your letter, I suspect there was an incident, but that no payment was made.
aa Insurance has written to you to explain its position.