Co-op wants to bill me £38 for car crash I didn’t have

I RECENTLY took out a car insurance policy with Co-operative Insurance. It wrote to me a couple of months later saying I have an undisclosed claim from December 2013 and I owe £37.71.

I have 12 years’ no claims, so I asked for proof, which it said it was unable to provide due to data protection. My previous insurance firm has confirmed I have not been involved in an accident and provided a statement to this effect. But Co-op remains adamant and has sent me a new insurance document with the increased price.

While discussing this with my wife, the penny dropped — my son has the same name as me and had an accident on that day in a car I have never owned, nor insured.

I told Co-op but it keeps rejecting the supporting documents, including those from my son’s broker. D. B., Hornchurch. How absolutely ridiculous. You might have thought it would take little effort to confirm the correct details, yet Co-operative Insurance kept rebuffing your attempts to resolve this problem.

And I really don’t see how data protection can be given as a reason for failing to provide details of an accident it says you were involved in. Is it really claiming to be protecting your data from you? This is too often used as a catch-all for ‘can’t be bothered’ or ‘we don’t want to in case it shows we are wrong’.

Co-op has now investigated, and it seems it got its information from the Claims and Underwriting Exchange database (CUE), which had incorrectly attributed the accident claim to you.

The firm has contacted Allianz, your son’s previous insurer, and they are now addressing this issue with CUE. It has also updated your details and reinstated the original premium.

Co-op admits this problem should have been resolved sooner and is compensating you with £90 to cover phone calls and £100 for the upset and inconvenience.

A spokesman says: ‘we’re sorry for the inconvenience caused to Mr B and his family. we pride ourselves on high levels of customer service, but recognise that in this instance we have fallen short, and that we could have done more to help resolve the confusion caused by the error on Cue.’ I DECIDED to change my phone and broadband provider from Post Office to BT, and notified Post Office of this on May 8.

The broadband was set up and working on May 15, but I noticed the next day that my phone line was dead. BT said Post Office was not releasing the line. Post Office said BT had not contacted it to take over the line. It seems both companies are supplying me with dead landlines.

Post Office says it wants payment for the landline up until the end of June. I am in my 70s and this is worrying me so much. R. F., Paisley. YoU’rE not the first person to be caught out like this, and I think telecoms firms should make the transfer process much clearer.

If the new provider is picking up your old number, then cancellation of your contract should be automatic. If, however, the new provider is setting up a new line and number, you need to cancel separately with your old provider.

I think that when a new provider is setting up a line and number, it should emphasise to customers that they must cancel their old service. This could easily be covered in the welcome letter sent out confirming the new contract.

BT confirms that it registered your order as being for a new service and not a transfer. The confirmation emailed to you on May 5 shows the new phone number in the summary.

A spokesman says: ‘This type of order means we have no contact with the existing provider, and the customer would need to contact them directly to cease service. If a transfer of service order had been placed, the process would be for BT to contact the losing provider to request to transfer the service and bring the number across.

‘There would be no need for the customer to contact the losing provider. This takes around 11 working days and once the service is active with BT, the service ceases with the previous provider.’

Post office confirms that after your initial contact it did not hear from you or BT again. You stopped paying your Post office bill because you — quite reasonably — thought you were no longer its customer.

Post office, having not been paid, put a restriction on the line — from its point of view you were still its customer.

Due to the inconvenience caused, Post office has written off the £47 outstanding payment as a gesture of goodwill.