It took Fidelity NINE months to open Junior Isas for my grandkids
I TRIED to set up Junior Isas for my two grandchildren with Fidelity, planning to contribute £100 per month.
On January 28 I got a letter from Fidelity saying the applications were proceeding and they would contact me if they needed further information.
In late April, as neither my daughter nor I had heard anything, she contacted Fidelity. After some delay she was told it would be sorted out.
We received a letter saying one Junior Isa would proceed on May 25 — but there was no mention of the other so we chased again and again without success. How can such a large organisation cause such a fiasco?
R. D., Kent. Fidelity made a mess of this one. it couldn’t identify you electronically so asked for your passport (as you’re 86 it was lucky you had one!). Once it had identified you, it swung into inaction so you were forced to start chasing. On April 26 it opened your grandson’s investment but had still done nothing about your granddaughter’s.
you complained to the head of client services and the head of client engagement — but Fidelity responded to your daughter. this was because they had made her the registered contact, which presumably happened when she dealt with the issue by phone.
Fidelity admits the failure to explain this to you was a mistake. it offered £50 to apologise for the delay in resolving your case.
However, when i intervened it looked again and has paid a £250 goodwill gesture to you as well as £300 (including the original £50) to your daughter.
An apologetic spokesman says: ‘We’re sorry to hear your reader’s recent experience with Fidelity has fallen short of the service he should expect from us.
‘We have spoken to him and his daughter and the Jisa account is now set up.
‘in addition, we have offered to make the necessary amendments should they wish to invest any missed contributions.
‘We recognise that this has been a time-consuming and frustrating experience for them.’ I AM seeking help over savings interest calculations being charged by HMRC. I received £1,358.64 interest in the 2017/18 tax year. After taking off my savings personal allowance of £1,000 this leaves a balance of £358.64 on which 20pc tax is payable.
A letter from HMRC confirmed that I would have to pay £72.80.
I then received a tax demand for £157.80 in February, corrected to £72 after I pointed out that they had included the same lot of interest twice.
Then it was changed to £76. More recently I received a calculation showing £262.60.
This would imply untaxed interest of £2,307, which I have not received. We pensioners always seem to get a hard time.
D. R., Cardiff. What a shame you are retired. your arithmetic appears to be far superior to that of those you are dealing with at HMRC.
Perhaps they should offer you a job to go through and highlight their errors. yours is one of a number of cases i’ve received from pensioners whose interest has been well and truly cocked up by HMRC.
As you point out, it shouldn’t be difficult to get it right as HMRC is in receipt of exactly the same information we receive from banks and building societies.
HMRC admits the problem here was ‘an incorrect tax calculation issued by us, caused by issues with the way the untaxed interest was recorded’.
it has corrected this and explained everything in a letter to you along with an apology.
As you correctly calculated you owe just £72.
An HMRC spokesman says: ‘We are sorry that our customer did not receive the high level of service she would expect from us. We have now corrected the issue and written to her to explain what happened.’ I HAVE a problem with British Gas. I have always paid my energy by direct debit yet am receiving letters claiming I haven’t paid and owe money.
When I received the first email I thought it was a scam so phoned using a different number to that on the email. The person I spoke to confirmed it was a scam and should be ignored — so imagine my surprise when I received another letter making the same demand.
I phoned again and was told it was an error by British Gas and I should ignore the letter.
Several days later I received another letter saying £13 would be added to the bill if I did not pay immediately.
This has been going on for weeks and I feel emotionally distressed by it all.
R. W., Essex. British Gas apologises. it had previously agreed to write off the amount it claimed was owed so another letter should not have been sent. yet it was!
someone has now phoned you to apologise.
the issue has now been resolved and they have paid £50 credit to your account in recognition of the inconvenience and distress you have suffered.
Well done for your reaction to the initial contact. Phoning on a different number to the one supplied is precisely the thing to do when you are not sure if a letter is a scam.
if you receive a phone call you think is dodgy, try to ring back from a different number just in case the scammer has kept your line open.