KATIE MORLEY INVESTIGATES

CONSUMER CHAMPION OF THE YEAR If a company has let you down, Katie is here to fight your corner

LETTER OF THE WEEK I bought a horse and he’s mysteriously disappeared

I was looking to buy a riding horse and came across an advert for a black and white cob called Trojan. On Boxing Day I contacted the seller to express my interest and on Dec 28 I went to see him.

Trojan was advertised as being 15 hands high, but he seemed a bit smaller to me. It didn’t concern me too much, though. He was caked in mud up to his belly. I rode him and he was strong and very friendly. I decided he was going to be mine.

I asked the seller about her terms and conditions. She replied “These are animals, not commodities” and provided no details. We agreed on a sale price of £3,600 and she offered to deliver him on Dec 30. I paid a £200 deposit. Later she texted saying: “We’re so pleased he’s going to you.”

The following morning I sent the seller the delivery address, as per her request. I heard nothing all day. Then at 8pm she texted me three photos of a black mare for sale. Just before 9pm she texted me again to say Trojan had been taken from the farm by his previous owner.

I thought this was very strange. I asked to speak to the previous owner, but the seller refused to give me their name, citing “data protection”. This horse was supposed to be mine and I am very concerned for his welfare. I still want to buy him and will happily pay as long as he comes back to me safely. Can you help me find him?

SS, VIA EMAIL

I’m not surprised you were worried about this horse’s whereabouts after waiting all day for him to come trotting up the driveway, only to be told he had been unexpectedly seized. How very mysterious. I decided to speak to the seller to see what more I could find out.

This North East-based seller was happy to talk and very sympathetic. She said she realised Trojan’s disappearance must have been terribly upsetting for you and she promised to return your £200 deposit. She told me the horse’s previous owner had handed him over to sell in return for a £500 fee, but had failed to pay her a penny.

She said this person owed her £1,800 for various costs that had been racked up while a buyer was being found. She said the owner had turned up unannounced with a horsebox and ushered the horse inside it. She said she was now in the process of taking this previous owner to court to recover the £1,800, plus compensation. She wasn’t able to provide a name, she said.

I told the seller that I was

Write to Katie Morley, Telegraph Money, The Daily Telegraph, 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT

Please do not send original documents. Include an address, phone number and separate notes addressed to all organisations authorising them to talk to Katie. For full terms see p3 or visit telegraph.co.uk/go/ consumerchampion. You can also email kminvestigates@ telegraph.co.uk planning to find the horse’s previous owner to ask why they took off with him and to check he was OK. She said she didn’t want me to investigate, explaining that her solicitor had advised her not to talk to me as it might interfere with the court case.

But I was working on behalf of you, not her, so I went ahead and tracked down the owner.

When I spoke to the owner, who was based in the North West, she relayed a wildly different version of events. She flatly denied seizing Trojan in December last year. She had no idea where he was, she said. Was she aware of any legal action being taken against her in relation to the horse, I asked? None at all, she said.

She denied owing money to the seller and said she had actually swapped Trojan for one of the seller’s own horses last year, as he hadn’t been a good fit for her farm. I asked the woman for proof of this claim and she quickly sent me correspondence backing it up. I suggested she could help me find the horse by providing me with a photograph to share in this column and on social media. She sent me an image of him straight away.

Someone had lied to me, and I wanted to know who. If I couldn’t get to the truth, I realised we might never find Trojan.

I phoned the seller again and began to tell her I had tracked down the horse’s previous owner. She cut me short. Could we speak in an hour, she asked? I agreed. After that she stopped returning my calls and replying to messages. Despite my requests, she has been unable to supply me with a single piece of evidence to back up her claims.

When I phoned the solicitor she said was handling her case, he said she was not a client and he’d never heard of her. This left me seriously concerned that the legal case was just a fabrication to cover up the mess she seemed to have got herself into.

One possibility is that the seller

I have discovered that my 97-year-old disabled father has been paying an extortionate amount for breakdown cover on a Beko fridge since 2011. Today the fridge costs £149 to buy new. His insurer, Domestic & General (D& G), charged £169 to insure it last year and wanted £190 this year. I dread to think how much my father has paid for cover on what is essentially a throwaway item.

I complained to D& G but it did not uphold my complaint. Instead, it asked my father if he would like to start the policy again for £83 a year.

TB, VIA EMAIL

Your father bought this fridge for £140 in 2011, taking out insurance at the same time. I have established that back then D&G accidentally calculated his premiums based on a £300 fridge, instead of a £140 one. So from the start this policy was significantly dearer than it should have been.

Then these already bloated premiums were allowed to escalate rapidly and, absurdly, eclipse the price of a new fridge.

Over the nine years your father paid £700 to insure his fridge – almost enough to buy five brandnew ones. This policy has ensured that your father was royally ripped off. It is a disgrace. D&G must urgently review premium rises and check that pricing errors haven’t seriously harmed other customers.

Your father has now received an apology and £2,400 from D&G. This includes the fridge premiums, £200 compensation and £1,500 for premiums that were paid on a separate washing machine policy. D&G has paid this despite there apparently being no problem with it. Needless to say, your father will no longer be insuring his white goods.

Annual fridge insurance costs more than a new one