Broker loses cash, then waffles

I have been trying to transfer my money from Stocktrade to my bank account for a couple of months.

I would be most grateful if you could help achieve this simple feat where I have failed. SM, HERTS

You had cashed in a stocks and shares Isa, which needed to be linked with a live current account but it seems the relevant information had not been updated.

Meanwhile, the sale proceeds had been diverted into a holding account.

While you were trying to find out where they were, Stocktrade, which was bought by Alliance Trust Savings last year, failed to do a thorough search. It was only with my involvement that your £9,000 was located and sent to you by cheque.

It seems both you and the broker played a part in what was going wrong.

Alliance Trust Savings, in a waffly statement for which I had to wait more than a month, said: “As a business, we are always disappointed to learn that a customer is dissatisfied with any aspect of the service we have provided.

“Customer service is at the forefront of our minds at all times and we treat any complaints, concerns and feedback surrounding our business and service provisions very seriously.

“We are unable to comment on any of our customers’ accounts or circumstances specifically. However; I can confirm that we address all complaints received directly and with the utmost importance.”

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

Business, which supplied the gas. We gave final gas meter readings and contact details of the new owners.

Three years later, we received an email from British Gas asking for an up-to-date gas meter reading at the property with the flats. I explained the situation and yet I heard nothing more until three months later.

Then we received a bill for £850 – and then one for more than £17,000.

Worse was to follow and we now urgently need your help, please. ML, WEST OF ENGLAND

British Gas Business should have registered the change of ownership so it could close the account and send a final bill. When you spoke to its adviser following the email you mention and gave all the relevant information, it was thought that things had been put right. Instead, seven months after that, British Gas sent you two further bills – this time for £27,735 and £28,666.

After I contacted the firm, it spoke to your son and asked him to send confirmation of his right to act for you.

This came a month later and the account was then closed properly.

Catrin Miller of British Gas said: “We’ve let Mr L down badly. We’re really sorry for the length of time this problem went uncorrected and for the considerable inconvenience this caused Mr L and his family.” Yours had been classed as a larger business so you do not, I am told, qualify for a gesture of goodwill, which I had asked for.

You could not understand why, when you had notified the supplier twice of your sale of the flats in 2012, no checks seem to have been made on the fact that no payments had presumably been received for the gas supplied to these flats over the long period since the sale of the property.

You said you had always paid gas bills monthly and not three-yearly. You are curious as to whether any meter readings were taken in those three years and if so, why no bills were raised on them. British

Gas said that, because of data protection, it could not comment on any other occupants there.

You also wondered why the current bill was for 14 flats rather than 16.

British Gas said this was due to an error when it put the information into its billing system.

The issue has now been fully resolved.