Why is bond worth so little?

Four years before he died, several years ago now, my father invested £25,187 in a Capital Investment Bond with Standard Life. As joint trustee of this investment bond and sole beneficiary of my father’s estate, I left the money invested after his death in an attempt to maximise returns.

Then I applied to cash it in. I expected to receive at least £30,000 but have had only £24,228. This is what it was worth when my father died plus a little interest. Can this be right? PM, DERBYSHIRE

Standard Life says that it was a “single life” bond and so finished effectively once your father died. It was not informed of his death until recently.

In such circumstances the termination of the bond is backdated to the date of death and it is the value on that date that it pays out. I quizzed it on whether it would have paid out on the same basis had the investments been worth more on the date of death than on the date of notification. It assures me it would have done.

Not all companies apparently treat such policies in precisely the same way, so it is always worth scouring the terms and conditions.

For probate purposes it is of course the value on the date of death that calculations will be based on.

Standard Life also added minimal interest when the claim was settled in recognition of it being a late claim.

Where a policy is set up on a “joint life” basis, the investment is allowed to continue.

Many readers complain that the financial institutions that are keen to take their money are less willing to answer legitimate questions.

The educational establishment assures me that it has been paid back. My bank, Lloyds, says no refund has been received.

My credit card statement, however, did show a £51 payment to a holiday company that had nothing to do with me.

The bank cancelled the card, issued a new one and refunded the wrongly taken £51.

When inquiring about the £360 refund, I explained that the card number had been changed and was advised that the refund would automatically be transferred to my new card.

Time and again, Lloyds has said it doesn’t have the money and, if it did, it would automatically transfer it to the new card.

I have received £3 for the cost of one of my calls and £10 for goodwill but there is still no sign of the refund. Please can you help? SR, GLOS

Your daughter had won a bursary for a course but had wrongly been sent the information for fee-paying students. Not realising that this did not apply to your daughter, you paid the sum with your card.

Now it transpires that the bank did receive the refund but it was placed in an internal fraud holding account. This was because your previous card had been cancelled as the result of fraud.

The money should simply have been moved from the holding account to your account when you first contacted the bank. I am told the first person you spoke to should have looked into matters further and did not.

When you drew this to the attention of the bank’s disputes department, instead of simply transferring the money to you without any further fuss it initiated the process for a “chargeback”. Part of this involved paying £360 into your account, where it would or would not remain, depending on the outcome of the chargeback.

There was even, after that, an unaccountable delay of nearly three weeks until Lloyds actually attempted the (unnecessary) chargeback. Predictably, the

educational establishment pointed out that it had already processed the refund and provided proof to substantiate this. Just before you wrote to me, the bank redebited your account because the chargeback had been rejected.

Only when it heard from me did the bank unravel all this and get the funds moved over to you. An extra £150 has been credited, £50 of which you are giving to charity.