Caught in a net of debt

DE writes: Please help; my wife and I have been driven to distraction by Pipex. I called the company nine months ago, advising that I wished to discontinue using its broadband service at the end of my contract (two weeks hence) and switch to another provider. I was told to call again on the day the contract expired and it would then give me a migration away code (Mac).

My new service (with Sky) started a fortnight after that. A month later, Pipex sent me three emails saying my broadband had just gone live. On querying it I was told my account was still active and it needed proof that I was with another provider. This I sent. But the firm continued to debit my account with £14.99 a month.

Then a whole series of communications followed, on the one hand chasing you for the money but when you called to query this, telling you the debt had been written off. This continued back and forth over the next few months with the “debt” reaching debt collectors, and you were then threatened with court action. By the time you wrote to me you were, you say, “quite desperate” and unwilling to spend further time and money in defending the matter in court.

All this happened at a time when Pipex was being merged with Tiscali (owned by the TalkTalk Group). The firm now accepts that you did, indeed, cancel the contract nine months previously when you said you did. It confirms it has written off all outstanding debts, has sent you £30 for goodwill and apologised for “any” inconvenience caused.

Real problems over Real World

JS writes: I am a university professor from Mississippi. I rented a flat in Chelsea and brought my family to London on holiday for two weeks. The flat was rented from a firm called the Real World Rental Company. The contract required that I pay a security deposit of £780. Since my return, I have had trouble obtaining my deposit back.

You contacted Question of Money a month after you had left the flat, during which time you had sent numerous emails and made a number of phone calls, which had had no result. When I called the company, it said it would investigate and rapidly returned my call, saying it was repaying the full deposit immediately; it had not done so before because of an “oversight”. Given the number of times you had reminded the firm, this seems surprising; you did, however, get the money back the following day. Other customers of this firm appear to have suffered similar oversights with a number having had to go to court before obtaining a refund of their deposits.

The Housing Act 2004 has made it mandatory for all deposits to be protected — in other words, held by a firm independent of the letting agents — but this only applies to assured shorthold tenancies.

B&B hands work to customers

KM writes: In June, I asked Bradford & Bingley to transfer my original Tessa-Isa to Julian Hodge Bank. The bank requested the transfer late that month. Nothing happened despite three requests from Julian Hodge, and three phone calls from me. Twice, B&B gave me (different) fax numbers asking that I convey these to Julian Hodge so it could fax the details again. Nothing happened.

Well, that sounds a good way of cutting costs: getting your customers to do all the work for you. In fact, your diligence did pay off as by the time I contacted B&B, the transfer had (at last, but only just) been made. You have now been sent a goodwill payment of £120, comprising £70 for lost interest and £50 for the inconvenience.

Lloyds registers Isa confusion

RJ writes: My wife and I both have holdings of Lloyds Bank shares. We were contacted by its registrars some months ago regarding several stopped cheques. It transpired that neither of us had received the dividends for some time. I subsequently received three dividends going back to 2007; some time later my wife received payment of one dividend.

You had earlier had a “drip” — a dividend reinvestment plan, whereby the dividends were automatically used to purchase additional shares in the bank rather than being paid out to you in cash. When you decided to stop this arrangement, Equiniti reverted to an old bank mandate it had for you, long since out of date, so the cheques could not be cashed. A stop was placed on these cheques but the first you heard of it was almost two years on from that point. This was resolved after I contacted the registrars and you were sent £25 each as an apology. There was no mention of interest but after further prompting cheques for a little over £40 have been sent.

Charitable view of Barclays mess

JH writes: A month ago I wrote to Barclays Bank about a problem with transferring my cash Isa into a stocks and shares Isa with another provider. As I have not had any acknowledgement so far, I can reasonably assume I am unlikely to. Can you help?

First, a reminder: the rules allow transfers to be made from cash Isas into stocks and shares Isas but not vice versa. In your case, the delay of a month between the closing of the Barclays Isa and the new provider’s receipt of the money did not simply result in your losing interest. The price of the units in M&G Strategic Corporate Bond Income had risen significantly during this time. Your independent financial adviser, Hargreaves Lansdown, provided you with unit price figures that allowed you to calculate that you had lost £176. So what had happened to the money during this time? Barclays initially said that HL had received the cheque in good time but had returned it as the details were incorrect; HL was adamant it had never either received or returned it. When at last the firm received a replacement cheque with the original transfer form, it was evident that the money had been sent, not to HL but to Halifax, which had then returned it to Barclays.

You asked for the refund of the £176 for your loss, plus £100 for your trouble and expense. Barclays agreed to both. You are giving the £100 to charity.

Something for the balance sheet

RP writes: I find your answers incredibly arrogant and if your help to the general public were more objective then perhaps banks would not be hated so much. The bottom line is that people need to start taking responsibility for their own actions.

Yes, indeed they do but that is hardly the whole story. As you “work in the banking industry”, perhaps you can explain why is it that some banks provoke practically no complaints while others feature over and over again in my postbag? First Direct, for example, admittedly one of the smallest banks, rarely if ever features in this column. A statistical quirk, maybe? Unlikely; the Financial Ombudsman Service figures for complaints resolved in the six months to June this year show that First Direct had a grand total of 10 complaints, none of which was upheld in favour of the customer. Lloyds had 6,947 complaints, 81% of which were upheld. So here’s another “bottom line” for you: some banks do get it right, all (or nearly all) the time. Others, quite plainly, do not.

Email Diana Wright at questionofmoney@sunday-times.co.uk (no attachments please) or write to A Question of Money, The Sunday Times, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1ST, giving a daytime telephone number and full postal address. We cannot send personal replies or deal with every letter. Please do not send original documents or SAEs. Advice is offered without legal responsibility.