Katie Morley Investigates Your Consumer Champion

‘My mother just died but Lloyds is acting as if she is still alive’

QMy mother died on Aug 17 and I have been sorting out the admin on behalf of my father, as I have a Lasting Power of Attorney covering his financial affairs and he didn’t fancy dealing with it himself.

I first phoned Lloyds, her bank, on the day she died to let them know. Then, on Aug 25, having obtained the death certificate that same day, I phoned Lloyds with the certificate number so they could formally close my mother’s sole account and remove her from my parents’ joint account.

Shortly after this call, Lloyds emailed my mother saying she had asked them to change to paper statements. Dad received this email which he found unsettling as they had emailed mum implying she had made a request a week after her death. I phoned the bereavement line and was assured the updates had been made correctly, and all was OK.

Then, four days later on Aug 29, Lloyds sent two letters addressed to my mother with her name, followed by the words “deceased deceased”, informing her that my father had requested the account revert to online statements. As you can imagine, it was very insensitive to send a letter addressed in this way. I understand why blanket marketing material may continue for a few weeks – but it surely can’t be right that a letter to a dead person is sent out to them addressing them as “deceased deceased”?

On Sept 1, I rang the Lloyds bereavement telephone line to complain and ensure these communications to my mother would stop. After being on hold over the course of two calls for nearly an hour, I received a text detailing my complaint number.

I didn’t hear anything for a week but I thought Lloyds must surely have sorted things.

On Sept 7, my father received a letter from Lloyds addressed to my mother, thanking her for her phone call on Sept 1 (two weeks after her death), and asking her to fill in a form in. So again, I rang Lloyds and was put on hold. Eventually, a manager said they would call me back the next day. On Sept 8, someone from Lloyds called me saying they could not understand what had happened, and didn’t know how to fix it, so they would “escalate” the issue.

No apology letter was forthcoming. They also told me the original complaint only said I had been cut off on the phone and didn’t mention about the issues with my mother. My father wasn’t very reassured when I updated him, but surely, I thought, they would now fix things, and perhaps write a simple letter to him apologising.

On Sept 9, I received a Lloyds letter addressed to me dated Aug 30 saying I had requested details of the transactions on my parents’ account between July and August, and enclosing them. This was not something either my father or I had ever requested.

On Sept 12, I received a text from Lloyds saying they had received my complaint and would be in touch.

My father remains unsettled that Lloyds thinks it is taking instructions from my mother after her death and that it is sending out transaction records without being asked to. All he really wants is for it to stop, and for Lloyds to write a simple letter of apology.

– JC, via email

Dear Reader

AYou say if this were your Lloyds bank account you would have closed it on the spot and walked away, because life is too short to deal with nonsense like this. However, you recognise that changing banks would not be so simple for your father, who is 87, and less able to cope with change. I was so sorry to hear of the loss of your mother, and the subsequent treatment you and your father had endured from Lloyds. Upsetting bereaved customers is usually the last thing banks want to do.

When I asked the bank what had gone wrong, its complaints team looked into your case and found that correspondence was mistakenly sent when a colleague was updating the records it held. It admitted this should not have happened. It has now spoken with you and your father to apologise and let you know it has fixed the error, meaning no further letters will be sent.

A Lloyds Bank spokesman said: “We recognise our service fell far below what Mrs C’s family expected of us at such a difficult time, for which we are very sorry. We’ve listened closely to what they’ve told us about their experience and we’ll be sending a hamper and a payment in recognition of the distress caused.”

‘Phoenix Life has kept my £86,000 pension against my wishes’ Dear Katie

QPhoenix Life has been keeping my £86,000 pension for a year against my wishes

I have been trying to move my pension with Phoenix Life over to a Fidelity Sipp for over a year after having been given a transfer value of £86,000.

However, the pension has still not yet been moved.

Most of the correspondence I have had with Phoenix Life has been ignored, or responded to via an automated email response.

Fidelity has contacted it several times to request that the funds be transferred, but still, nothing has been done.

I also had an email from Fidelity on June 12 this year saying that the funds would be in the Fidelity account on June 15. But still, nothing has been transferred.

On the last call I had with Phoenix Life (on the rare occasion I cannot get through), I was promised they would ring me back the next day on my mobile phone. No phone call was made.

Now I have had correspondence from Phoenix Life to say that my funds are going to be transferred to a separate entity called Phoenix Life Limited, which I find unbelievable.

Aside from being denied the opportunity to invest my funds, which has probably lost me a lot of money, I am also worried as to what the implications would be on my estate if I die before the funds are transferred. At

‘They say my funds are going to be transferred to a separate entity, which I find unbelievable’ this rate, I probably would be dead before receiving any money.

Phoenix Life has my pension fund and clearly has no intention of transferring it to Fidelity, but every intention of transferring it to Phoenix Life Limited against my wishes. To me, it feels like theft.

I don’t know where to go from here as I am being completely ignored.

– CP, via email

Dear Reader

The Daily Telegraph

A

It turns out you had two pension policies with Phoenix Life, both of which you requested to transfer to Fidelity last year.

Despite this, Phoenix Life told me it only received one request, meaning this £86,000 pension had been left behind, while your other policy was transferred across.

A Phoenix Life spokesman said: “We are very sorry for the delays Mrs P has experienced with her transfer and that we did not identify earlier that only one transfer request had been received.

“As part of our investigations we have found that there were two individual errors in our technical and processing areas that when combined have led to this poor customer outcome for Mrs P.

“We have delivered remedial training to members of staff to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

Following my intervention, Phoenix Life is now working with Fidelity to transfer your pension as an urgent priority.

It is paying you £1,000 in compensation and has agreed to top up your pension if it finds your Fidelity pension would have lost money over the period in question, so its own failings won’t cause you to be worse off.

You were told by the complaints manager that “this is not the level of service Phoenix Life wants its customers to experience”. However, with a staggering 68pc of one-star reviews to TrustPilot, you have a hunch you may not be alone in your dissatisfaction.