Scammers stole £3k but Tesco said I was too late to complain

I WAS contacted regarding potential fraudulent activity on my Tesco Mastercard in early October 2019.

In total, £ 3,700.20 of illicit transactions were refunded. On December 5, Tesco phoned to say one company was claiming its £2,900.53 was genuine. Tesco said it would be sending a letter I must respond to.

It arrived on December 12, but on that day my father died. I travelled to my mother’s home to support her and deal with funeral arrangements.

On December 29, I finally had a day at home and read the letter, which had required a response by December 19. I emailed Tesco answering its queries and explaining the delay. I tried to call but its office was closed, so I called the next morning. I was told it was too late, as the ‘final’ deadline was December 27.

Tesco called on January 2 to say its procedure, and Mastercard’s, did not allow it to accept my late response. Tesco said it would now re-debit my account for the £2,900.53. The firm the money went to gives tips on financial investment products I have never bought. An email address is given in the letter which I have never seen.

G.H., Hants.

This seemed an extraordinarily rigid approach to someone who had suffered a bereavement so had a genuine reason for missing the deadline. And Tesco agrees. having reviewed your case, it has refunded the entire amount.

it says it must generally adhere to timescales laid down by the chargeback process, which lets customers reclaim money on fraudulent transactions or when there is a consumer dispute, so issues can be resolved swiftly.

Tesco has also paid you £50 and sent some flowers to compensate for the experience. A Tesco Bank spokesman says: ‘We understand Ms h experienced a difficult set of circumstances which impacted her ability to respond to us within the normal required timescales.

‘We work hard to ensure our customers can benefit from their chargeback rights. having reviewed her case, we are pleased to refund her the full value.’ BT KEEPS sending me bills for services I don’t have to the wrong address. I don’t have broadband or a landline.

The firm refuses to accept that I use none of its services. I moved home at the end of June last year and have been in a dispute with BT ever since.

D. K., Weston-super-Mare.

BT SENT you a letter on June 26 confirming your move and promised to stop your services on June 28. Yet bills were still sent to your old address and redirected to you. When you complained, BT promised to investigate but again wrote to your old address. This culminated in a demand for £89.46 to be paid, in order for you ‘to avoid losing your service’.

BT now sees that while you made some phone calls at your new address, the internet was not used. You had told BT that services at your new address were not working. BT says it offered to send an engineer but you preferred to cancel your utilities. its tests show the broadband line was working, so it may be that the fault was in your home.

BT has waived any disconnection fees and cleared your balance so there is nothing to pay. As regards your address, it seems someone made a mistake when processing your move. WHEN I turned 64 last June I decided to access my personal pension pot built up with Phoenix Life. I used a broker who filled in the paperwork.

Phoenix Life wrote a letter stating my fund value on July 1 was £90,337.69. It said this was not guaranteed and would be recalculated before payment.

I received a call from the broker stating that the fund value at July 5 was £92,394.45, but when the transfer was made on July 10 the lesser amount of £90,337.69 was transferred.

I complained but Phoenix Life has merely offered me £200 by way of apology, whereas I am asking for £ 2,056.76 — the difference between the values.

J. M., Twickenham.

Phoenix Life admits that its level of service fell short. it misled your financial adviser and sent you two letters which contained incorrect information.

Phoenix Life tells me that the transfer value was calculated on July 1 and was then set in stone. Yet four days later it told your adviser the value had risen. Then on July 9 it sent a letter containing the correct valuation, but saying: ‘The figures are not guaranteed and will be recalculated before the payment is made.’

in september a complaints officer told you that the value of the fund on the date it receives a transfer request is the key figure. This was not correct either.

The amount that was transferred was right, and the transfer was more efficient than the following administration and customer service. Phoenix Life offered £200 for poor customer service.

This sequence of events is so bizarre that i triple-checked with Phoenix Life to ensure i’d not misunderstood. But as i’ve spent much of my life writing about the catastrophes caused by misselling and mismanagement of endowments and pensions by insurance companies, i’m not surprised.