We owe £490 for a 15-hour call we could not hang up

O2 HAS sent us a £490.14 bill for a 15-hour phone call. We had been having trouble ending calls on a Samsung Galaxy mobile phone.

I phoned O2 customer services and sent an email outlining the problem.

O2 said they would investigate. After further chasing by us, we were eventually told we had to pay. We explained that we were pensioners and could not afford it.

On September 2 they took the money. O2 then suggested we phone our bank and request the money back, which I did. After more phone calls we were told O2 would credit £200 and we would have to pay £290. Can you help?

L. B., Essex. I HAD a chat with O2, which investigated the issue and quickly came to a far better resolution.

First, you did have a valid connection so this is not really O2’s fault. It is a problem with your phone.

Despite this O2 offered you £200 credit, albeit after having taken the full £490.14 from your account.

O2 has now applied the credit properly and added a further £290.14 as a goodwill gesture to clear the whole balance.

O2 has also advised you to contact Carphone Warehouse where you bought the phone last October. It will still be under warranty.

An O2 spokesman says: ‘We apologise for any worry this caused Mrs B and have cleared the full amount for her as a gesture of goodwill. We encourage customers to make sure calls are ended to avoid situations like this.’

They also suggest using a number lock on your phone. This not only helps to protect you if it is lost or stolen, it can also prevent you making calls accidentally when it’s in your handbag or pocket. CAN you help regarding me possibly selling my Co-op 91/4 pc preference shares?

Like many others I have made a severe loss on these. Can I claim a capital gains tax loss if I sell them now so I can, in turn, sell some profitable shares above the £10,900 exemption?

Also could you confirm that being preference shares I am unable to claim anything under the £85,000 financial compensation scheme. My broker can’t/ won’t help, as I am execution only.

A.C., Lancashire. THESE preference shares paid an income of 9¼ pc. Within the past year they were trading at 137.75p each compared with their launch price of £1. But now they trade at a little over 40p, having lost nearly 70 pc of their value. Why? The Co - op Bank’s disgraceful decision to make these and other holders of similar bonds and shares help to carry the can for a £1.5 billion black hole that exists in its finances.

By this one act, this self-styled ‘ethical’ mutual showed it is quite capable of competing with the very ugliest examples of corporate banking behaviour.

As an aside, I should say that Money Mail never recommended these investments, as we were concerned by the high levels of income being offered and the lack of invest or protection if something went wrong.

Anyhow, I put your questions to investment f irm Hargreaves Lansdown and the short answers are ‘yes’ and ‘yes’.

You can sell the shares at any time between now and the end of the tax year, April 5, 2014. You can then deduct the losses you have TWO years ago, my husband lost his suitcase along with around £500 worth of contents while on holiday. He claimed under his Post Office travel insurance and we received a payout.

Recently, I tried to move to a cheaper home insurer.

One firm offered me a good deal, but then said I would in fact have to pay more because their records showed I had claimed under my previous home insurance.

I said this was not the case. But I later found the Post Office had recovered some of the cash from the suitcase claim under my home cover. Is this allowed?

J.H., Ducklington, Oxfordshire. THE answer is yes. A little known agreement between made from any profits made on selling other shares. If the total profit you have made from all your deals is less than £10,900, there will be no capital gains tax to pay.

You should bear in mind that you have already made a huge paper loss which you will turn into a real loss and you may want to wait for the next announcement.

It is also the case that you cannot make a claim for losses on the shares or bonds affected under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. I VISITED Canada to see my son and daughter-in-law. When I arrived at Calgary airport my son could not collect me due to severe flooding where he lived in Canmore.

Roads out of the area were closed and a state of emergency had been declared.

My other son booked me into a hotel, where I had to stay for three nights. Unfortunately, it was in the middle of an industrial estate with no means of transport so I had to eat there. I informed my travel insurer, Ageas, which told me to submit my claim when I returned to the UK.

Ageas paid for the accommodation but refuses to cover the food or extra phone calls I had to make.

I can see nowhere in the policy that states they do not cover food but their reply was that they cannot put everything in writing.

S. C., Glasgow. YOUR claim was an extremely modest £78 for three days’ food. The amount of time Ageas has spent i n administering and reinvestigating your claim will surely have cost much more than this.

I’m not quite sure who told you that ‘they cannot put everything down in writing’. This may be true. But insurers are obliged to put all significant exclusions down in writing and draw them to your attention.

Ageas says its policy wording is clear that in the event a trip is disrupted by a catastrophe, such as flooding, cover is provided for the cost of reasonable extra accommodation and t r avel expenses up to the value of £500 per insured person.

However, it has now reviewed your claim. As you were unable to l eave your hotel, i t has now decided to cover the cost of your additional, unexpected food expenses.

A spokesman says: ‘ We are pleased that we have resolved this case to Mrs C’s satisfaction.’