My £18,000 nest egg has vanished into thin air

BACK at the start of this year, I initiated an £18,000 investment Isa transfer from Barclays Smart Investor to Fundsmith.

It is now August and the transfer has not been completed.

I have raised complaints with both Barclays and Fundsmith, but neither party seems to be taking the matter seriously nor making any real attempt to resolve it.

My Barclays Isa now shows a zero balance and it claims to have transferred the funds. However, Fundsmith says it has not received the payment.

The last time I spoke to Barclays, the customer services agent said they had a massive backlog of complaints to deal with.

I am an 83-year-old woman who has been trying to cope with a husband whose advancing dementia has led to hospitalisation.

N.M, Bexleyheath. This turned out to be such a simple issue that you really have to wonder what is going on with the customer services departments that could not get to the bottom of it.

Barclays says it received the documentation for the transfers on March 12 and sent a cheque on April 29.

Astonishing isn’t it that taking six weeks for a simple transfer is deemed acceptable? Are investment firms and banks still doing everything by paper and abacus?

Fundsmith then confirmed receipt on May 27 (so that’s another four weeks). however, it still could not complete the transfer as the cheque was in the wrong name and there was some missing paperwork. You really couldn’t make this up could you?

Now, if you or i received a cheque with the wrong name on it, we might phone or send an email.

But Fundsmith wrote and Barclays says it didn’t get the letter.

Your transfer has finally been completed and Barclays has added £2,263.05 for lost investment growth on the Fundsmith fund rounding it up to £2,500 as a goodwill payment.

I asked Fundsmith to check the figures and they do agree with them. Fundsmith has also given you £350 compensation.

A spokesman says: ‘We wholeheartedly apologise to Mrs M for this very frustrating situation and for not ensuring that her transfer and subsequent complaint were dealt with properly.’ I HAVE built up an outstanding credit balance with Vodafone on pay as you go for £954.85.

It’s my fault for not checking my bank statement properly!

My grandson rang Vodafone on my behalf.

It confirmed my outstanding balance and cancelled the £40 monthly subscription which I do not recall either asking for or agreeing to.

The call centre said the refund would be in my bank account within seven to ten days.

Four months and six more phone calls later I am still waiting for the refund. On our penultimate call we were asked to take 26 sheets of bank statement printouts showing all the £40 monthly payments to our local branch. That was on May 16 but I am still waiting.

S.B., Banbury.

Well, it took a little time for me to get a response from Vodafone and even then the company didn’t say very much.

So I really still have no idea why you were asked to take 26 pages of bank statements to a branch when Vodafone would have known from its systems that you were almost £1,000 in credit.

It’s almost as though someone was deliberately messing you around, wasn’t it? A spokesman says: ‘We apologise to Mr B for the delay in refunding his credit — we can now confirm we have processed a full refund, plus offered an additional sum for the inconvenience caused.’

Actually you are a woman, but this, too, seems to have escaped Vodafone.

EARLIER this year I went to my local Post Office in Stirling, Scotland, to pay my 86-year-old mother’s Mastercard bill. I am her registered carer and have power of attorney to allow me to handle her affairs.

I handed over £290.04 in cash and the member of staff stamped the credit card receipt and told me it had gone through. However Mastercard did not receive the money. I raised this with the Post Office but it told me it does not accept Mastercard payments and does not have my mother’s cash.

We now have to pay the bill again and the Post Office is saying the matter is now closed. Can you help?

E.P., via email.

The Post Office told me there was no evidence that the money was not returned.

It confirmed Mastercard payments are not accepted and suggested this was explained to you and the cash handed back. You strenuously deny this.

However as a gesture of goodwill it has now offered to give you the £290.04 that mysteriously disappeared, without it accepting any liability.

A spokesman for the Post Office says: ‘in line with our investigation into Mrs P’s complaint, we found no evidence to suggest that the cash was not returned to her in-branch, as there was no surplus in the end-of-day branch accounts. however, in respect of Mrs P’s experience and as a goodwill gesture to resolve the matter fully, Post Office ltd has provided Mrs P with a payout letter to the value of £290.04.’

It now considers this matter to be closed.