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The mistake that could spell disaster for me
I recently applied for a £184,500 mortgage with Bank of Scotland. When I received the offer document I noticed a slight mis-spelling of my second name. The bank then said it would have to make fresh checks.
But when it had done that, it came back to say my credit rating had plunged, even though nothing had happened. It now refused to lend me the money to buy my home.
As I am currently renting and have given notice to my landlord because I was to move into the flat I am buying I risk homelessness if the loan fails as someone else is due to move in.
Please help me prevent that.
MW, London
This should never have reached the need for Capital Letters intervention.
Your middle name is Katherine, mis-spelt as Kathrine. This does not make you a different person, but raised a fraud alarm (even if the mis-spelling was the bank's fault).
Your surname is one of the most common in the UK, so when Bank of Scotland searched Experian again it found another woman with the same first name and surname (but not the middle name). The two were turned into one. And, as the other one was a bankrupt, the bank classified you as a bad risk. At this stage, Bank of Scotland and commonsense totally parted company. It ignored the fact that the other woman was nearly 20 years older and lived miles from you - or that she had a job where the minimum age is 25 (you are 23).
The bank relied on possibly confusing data from Experian. It says it was your duty to sort this problem, ignoring the difficulty you had of dealing with an information provider and absolving itself of any responsibilty to help a customer with a problem. It ignored your plight over many weeks.
But, just ahead of your potential homelessness, it restored its offer. The bank will now write to you to apologise, acknowledge your distress and send you £150 as a moving in gift in compensation.
Barclays may be wrong but can I put it right?
I opened an online Market Master account with Barclays Stockbrokers in July. In August, it demanded my bank statement to keep the account open.
I responded that it already had my account for identification purposes.
But it ignored this, closing the account at the end of that month.
Since then, I have been unable to access my portfolio - or receive the shares' value. Can you intervene?
ML, Manchester
You initially invested £1,850 spread across five mainstream - but speculative - shares, including HBOS and Bradford & Bingley. When it closed your account, because you could not send the same documents twice, your holdings were still worth around £1,850. Barclays admitted, early on, it had made a mistake in closing your account. But it seemed incapable of following that by giving you back either your shares, or your money.
It admitted it had sent your shares to their registrars, but did not appear able to retrieve them. By now your shares had collapsed to £600. Capital Letters argued Barclays prevented you from exercising ownership rights, including selling, should you wish.
The broker says your case was "complex and unique". But it will apologise and send you a cheque for £1,850 plus a £25 book token.
NatWest gives ... and then takes away
My son has a Nationwide savings account to which we, and other family members, sometimes contributed. Between November 2006 and May 2008 this account was credited with a total £1,900 in £100 slices by error by NatWest. He thought the money came from the family. So he went out and spent it on a small car plus insurance - as he was only 17, the insurance was far pricier than the car.
Then NatWest demanded its money back - giving him just seven days to refund £1,900 which he no longer had.
What should we do?
RG, Portsmouth
NatWest did not approach this sensitively. A letter from a "quality assurance associate" demanded the £1,900 back in seven days, naming its customer (an unusual name) and then repeating the same a week later.
Its only concession was a free postage envelope for the £1,900 cheque. These arrived in the middle of his A-levels, causing your son anguish when he least needed it.
The "customer care team" at the bank then retreated, offering monthly payments and £250 compensation leaving £1,650 to pay. This failed to address affordability. But, days later, a "customer service associate" wrote again to demand the whole £1,900.
As your son was under 18 at the time he spent the money, he should have been treated better - a point NatWest has failed to address.
The law surrounding "unjust enrichment" (where you get money by mistake) is complex and often uncertain.
But where the money has been spent, there is a defence against the bank's claim known as "change of position" - effectively where the recipient of money has spent it, so repaying it would be unjust - your son cannot return the insurance, while the car has little value. Unsurprisingly, NatWest rejects this argument out of hand without explaining why. But your son has also indicated he feels he should repay.
NatWest agreed to a new deal after Capital Letters became involved. It will make your son an interest-free £1,650 loan which he will repay over five years starting in three years time when his student course is finished and he is earning.
Paying the price of 'free' travel insurance
I have had travel insurance "free of charge" with my LloydsTSB bank account for several years.
In late 2006 I suffered a serious heart condition and, as I am in my late 70s, the insurer imposed an extra £100 fee to cover recurrent cardiac illness abroad from October 2007.
Since then, I have recovered to the extent that my only medication is aspirin and statins. But I realised I am an extra risk and, when the bank contacted me in August about renewal, I was happy to pay the extra £100. Shortly afterwards, the bank wrote again saying it had withdrawn its offer and would not cover me for heart conditions at all. Please help.
JB, Bath
It is hardly treating customers fairly to make an offer and then withdraw it.
But that is what Axa, which provides the LloydsTSB cover, did.
It ignored your medical discharge notes and the verdict of your doctor. And, other than saying "underwriting" had changed, was not able to say what made you a greater risk now than a year ago (when your condition was worse) or why it had invited you to renew and then reneged on that.
But after Capital Letters intervened, the insurer finally saw the absurdity of its position, "reviewed the situation" and offered travel cover on the same terms as last year. This shows you should never treat "no" as a final "no".
Update: from the gym
Gym memberships often feature in the Capital Letters postbag - complaints regularly include dirty premises or contracts enforced, even if consumers fall ill or move away. This week, the Office of Fair Trading received "assurances" from Fitness First, the UK's biggest operator, that it would remove unfair terms. Its contract must now specify members can cancel and receive some refund of fees if there are genuine medical reasons, or if the gym is in breach of contract (such as not supplying a clean or safe environment). This fairer contract is now likely to be followed by other operators.
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