M&S waived my sick husband’s debt but Co-op Bank refused
MY 89-YEAR-OLD husband, who has dementia, had to go into a care home, as I could no longer manage after he had a stroke.
While sorting out his things, I came across two credit card statements — one from Marks & Spencer and the other from The Co-operative Bank.
Age Concern wrote to both and a letter was sent from the care home confirming his condition.
M&S sent back a lovely letter and wrote off the nearly £700 owed.
But Co-op Bank ignored the letters, then sent back one saying a Power of Attorney was needed. I said I couldn’t understand it giving this money to someone who was 88 and not well. K. B., Hampshire. The Co- op credit card balance you sent me showed that your husband owed just over £1,900. It looked as though the minimum — around £40 — was being repaid each month on direct debit. With £18.83 interest being charged, the debt was reducing by a little over £20 each month.
Co-op Bank tells me that your letters had not fallen into its automatic vulnerable customers process because your husband was not in arrears.
however, when I pointed out the details of the Age Concern and care home letters, they agreed that you should fall into that category.
Co- op Bank has now promised to write off this money.
But I had one further concern: the letter it sent you saying this was couched in such abstruse terms that you may have been hard-pushed to work out what was going on.
It starts by noting how both you and I have made contact and that you have requested for the balance to be written off, but ‘this hasn’t been agreed’. There then follows a wholly unnecessary paragraph defending Co- op Bank’s stance. Finally, you are told that the balance will be written off.
The Co-op Bank has taken this point on board and feedback has been sent to the team. IN DECEMBER, I switched my energy supplier from Avro Energy. An adviser said I was owed more than £200, which would be refunded when the meter readings had been finalised. I was told this should take around three weeks but, due to the Christmas holiday period, it may not happen until the end of January.
On February 19, I was advised my refund of £202.52 was due to be made by close of business that day. Nothing happened.
On March 5, I phoned for the third time and, once again, the refund was confirmed. I then sent an email, to which I’ve had no response.
I am 85 and could do without this high-handed treatment. Mrs D. M., Spalding, Lincs. Avro finally made your refund on March 14 — approximately three months after you left it.
A spokesman said the delay was caused because you cancelled your direct debit, which meant it could not be processed automatically. once this happens, it either has to do a manual money transfer to your account or a cheque must be issued. It has called you to apologise.
As I’ve said before, it is sensible to leave a direct debit open when switching supplier, to allow any rebate to be paid promptly.
however, I don’t feel that your initial complaint was dealt with as well as it could have been. Nor was the rebate paid in anything like the good practice guidelines laid down by the industry.
The energy Switch Guarantee, an agreement signed up to by 23 companies, says that you should receive any credit from your old energy account within 14 days of your final bill.
Notably, Avro energy is not signed up to this and its terms and conditions make no mention of how quickly any money owed to customers will be repaid. MY PART-TIME employment ceased on June 30 last year. My tax code was then wrongly altered in August.
I contacted HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the adviser quickly rectified the mistake.
Standard Life, which pays my pension, made a bigger-thanusual payment of £125.75 in September, then began deducting 50 pc tax on subsequent payments. It suggested I contact HMRC, but when I spoke to the latter, it confirmed it had sent the correct tax code to Standard Life on August 30.
I believe Standard Life has made a mistake. S. W., Oxford. LIke many retired people, your tax situation is relatively complex because you have four separate pensions.
When you ceased your part-time job, hMrC actually increased your tax allowance against the Standard Life pension by changing the code from 65L to 279L.
This allowed Standard Life to refund £ 73.80 tax that you’d already paid, which boosted your September pension to £125.75.
however, after you contacted hMrC, the code reverted to 65L. This meant that, with the refund, you had actually underpaid tax, which was why 50 pc tax was deducted from your october 2017 to February 2018 payments.
There’s another complication. Tax codes can either operate on a cumulative basis over a year or on a month-by-month basis.
Yours had been operating over the year, hence the adjustments when you had apparently paid too much or too little tax.
however, on February 12, hMrC wrote to you to apologise for the incorrect tax codes.
So, from March 1, you were then moved to a monthly basis for calculating your tax, which meant that your pension moved to the original payment of £51.95 without any tax being deducted.
I am assured by Standard Life that your pension is now correct and hMrC has confirmed to you that it will review your tax liability from the beginning of this tax year.