We’re stuck with $2,000 of travellers’ cheques we can’t cash
MANY years ago, my wife and I were regular visitors to the U. S., so we purchased a lot of travellers’ cheques. Now we are both in our 80s and unable to travel there due to ill health.
I have well over $1,000 in Visa travellers’ cheques. The problem is, Visa no longer issues new cheques and I cannot cash these in.
I have tried the Marks & Spencer store where I bought them, but they would not honour them, even though I have the original purchase receipts.
I have tried phoning M&S Bank, which was not helpful. I have also tried other banks and a travel agent. L. R., Liverpool. You are not the first person to come to me after having problems cashing in old travellers’ cheques. Having issued the cheques, which do not carry expiry dates, surely it should be incumbent upon the banks to honour them?
I went to Visa, where there was some surprise at the difficulties you are facing. Even though it no longer issues travellers’ cheques, it does still support them.
I also contacted M&S Bank. After looking at your case, it has offered to cash in the travellers’ cheques as a goodwill gesture.
In fact, you have $2,000 worth. And there’s an extra piece of good news, because when you bought them in 2004, the exchange rate was running close to $1.90 to £1. Today, it is closer to $1.30.
So you should get considerably more back in pounds than you paid 14 years ago — even allowing for the different rates banks use to buy and sell currency.
M&S Bank says: ‘Following a significant reduction in demand for the cheques, due to a decline in outlets accepting the payment method, we stopped offering and encashing them in 2013. Due to the customer’s personal circumstances, as a gesture of goodwill we will arrange the encashment of travellers’ cheques previously purchased from M&S.’
Visa suggests other readers who find old travellers’ cheques should try Travelex (01733 279865 or tcassistance@travelex.com). I SOLD my old, perfectly good Amazon Kindle on eBay on a ‘no returns’ basis, but the buyer complained that it did not work. I advised him how to reset it, but he said the fault had recurred and he wanted a refund.
As he said that it was faulty, I agreed to let him return it. However, I found nothing wrong with it and sought from him a return handling charge.
He refused and asked to go to arbitration, where eBay found in his favour.
It then charged my PayPal account for the return postage and the full selling fee.
It refuses to issue any refund. I have subsequently resold the Kindle at a lower price and have also been charged by eBay for this sale. P. S., Watford, Herts. THE difficulty for eBay is that it’s your word against the buyer’s — although, presumably, the second buyer is happy with the Kindle.
The fact that you talked about resetting it makes me wonder whether it really was functioning perfectly. I also understand that while the buyer was initially happy to pay the return postage, you also wished to make a 15 pc handling charge.
It was at this point that he decided to go to arbitration.
eBay declined your request for a credit for the selling fees because you had not resolved the buyer’s issues. If you had resolved them within the ‘Seller Make It Right’ period, then the fees would have been credited back.
So, while the buyer may have been pernickety, you made things worse for yourself by digging in your heels and attempting to charge a handling fee.
In this case, eBay believes there was a genuine breakdown in communication between you and the buyer, so it will refund your postage as a gesture of goodwill. NPOWER is trying to force me to pay £1,993.17 for gas and electricity used by a tenant years ago. After I complained, it wrote off the money, but has now reinstated it and threatened to follow up on its demands.
I am nearly 83 and have owned the house for many years. It has had a succession of tenants but, since 2015, I have lived in the house while in the UK.
I was never in any contractual agreement to pay for the gas and electricity, but Npower is insisting that I produce the tenancy agreement. Mrs M. B., London. I AM very uneasy about this case on a number of levels.
Npower confirms that you made contact in April 2015 to say you had moved in at the start of August 2014. Yet, for some reason, it chose not to believe you and instead billed you back to April 2013. So it appears it is assuming you were in occupancy without any evidence.
There is also the scale of the bill, which you argue is far larger than your actual usage since you have been in the property.
Npower says it simply wants you to produce a tenancy agreement to confirm you were letting the property.
This doesn’t seem unreasonable — yet you haven’t done it. I can only assume this means you lost it or never had one.
Npower has suggested that you contact your council for evidence of who was paying the council tax, but I suspect you will hit General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) problems with this.
At this stage, I am going to step away, as Npower has provided you with a final decision. You cannot give it the evidence it requires, so you should contact the energy ombudsman on 0330 440 1624 or