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Charity ends for homeless after HSBC stops donation
Two years ago, HSBC stopped a monthly payment I had been making for the previous 15 years to St Martin's Trust, a charity that helps homeless people. To my shame, I did not notice, and it was only when the charity told me last August that I realised. I have been trying to find out what happened but, after asking repeatedly for four months, HSBC can still give no explanation.
MM, Bedford
Margaret: You have two problems here. One is the missing standing order, and the second is HSBC's appallingly dismissive treatment of your request which, not surprisingly, became a complaint.
The bank has now tried to discover what went wrong with your monthly payments, but can find no evidence. The standing order might originally have been set up with an end date after 15 years. The bank has now set up a new one.
It admits to making several mistakes in handling your complaint and has apologised both to you and to the charity. Initially, it offered £100 each to you and the charity. You asked that your compensation also go to the charity and that the total be increased to £350, which is half the amount it would have received from you over the past two years. HSBC has agreed.
Confidentially, the bank has no case to answer
My wife and I agreed to separate and that I would close our First Direct bank account. She was distraught when she found out at work, surrounded by colleagues, that the bank knew about the separation.
I had assumed my conversation with the bank would remain confidential. I complained, but the bank refuses to concede that it breached confidentiality.
AH, Edinburgh
Margaret: I find it difficult to understand why your wife should be so upset at the bank knowing your situation. First Direct doesn't have branches, so nobody local had found out, and her work colleagues already knew. She chose to phone the bank from work.
She had phoned twice that morning and it was during the second call that the clerk realised she was distressed. Wanting to be sympathetic, she explained that she knew what was happening. Unfortunately, this upset your wife even more.
Banks cannot keep any information secret from joint account holders unless it would jeopardise one partner's safety - perhaps they changed address to avoid an abusive relationship - or the information had nothing to do with the joint account.
Your separation is, indeed, irrelevant to closing the account so, if you had thought, you could have asked the bank not to talk about it to your wife. But, of course, that is not something that would occur to anyone to mention and, as you didn't, the bank has not breached any confidentiality rules.
The bank staff were acting with the best intentions and this is not an issue you can complain about to the information commissioner.
Identity fraud? It's Capital One making me see red
In June, I received a letter from Lowell Portfolio saying it had bought a debt of mine from Capital One and it wanted £400 from me. I do have a Capital One credit card, but it was not my card number and I have never been in arrears as I have a direct debit. The following day, I had a letter from Red Debt Collection Services, but I believe this to be the same company as Lowell as they have the same address.
Lowell told me of a previous address that I moved away from in 1997, so I assumed somebody was using my name to obtain credit at my old address. I wrote to Lowell, Red Debt and Capital One explaining that the debt was not mine.
I separately contacted Capital One four times asking someone to look into it, and every time received a fairly dismissive response saying someone would be in touch. No one ever has.
In August, Red Debt said it would be pursuing me through the courts. I am most aggrieved at Capital One for its complete lack of interest despite its advertising campaign claiming that anyone who is victim of identity theft will be allocated a dedicated adviser.
HP, London
Margaret: Lowell says it sent you the two letters a week apart, and blames Royal Mail for delivering them on consecutive days. It recorded your letter saying this was fraudulent activity and placed your account on hold for 30 days while you informed Capital One. The 30 days expired before Capital One confirmed that the account was fraudulent, so Lowell started chasing you again with more intensity.
It uses the Red Debt name, it says, to show customers that they are moving up the collections ladder because they have failed to respond to Lowell. I can't see why customers would draw that conclusion, because it looks more as though they have passed you over to a different company.
But Capital One jumped into action when I called. It bought back the debt from Lowell and has written it off as fraud. The company apologises for failing to sort out your problem sooner and says it is reviewing its processes to "identify improvements we can make to prevent this happening again".
I waited a couple of months and asked Capital One whether it had succeeded. It says it has identified an area for improvement in tracking messages received through the secure online messaging service and has updated its processes accordingly.
The day my overdraft went down the tube
I am a student on a 12-month placement in France. On a weekend trip back to London last August I used the wrong plastic card to buy a tube ticket and fell £2 overdrawn on my Alliance & Leicester account. Two other A&L accounts have hundreds of pounds in them.
Being in Paris, and not using my UK bank accounts, I knew nothing about it until my parents opened a letter a month later demanding £70 overdraft charges. My mother immediately paid £100 into the local branch to cover the debt. She was assured that the account was now clear and nothing more needed to be done. In October, I have been charged another £125 in overdraft charges.
AH, Paris
Margaret: The fees are correct, says A&L, but it admits the branch misled your mother and it agreed to refund the £125 charged since she visited.
It still insists you pay the first £70 unauthorised overdraft charge. I argued that this, too, was unfair but A&L refuses to budge any further.
The Office of Fair Trading's quest to investigate whether unauthorised overdraft charges are fair is still dribbling through the courts.
No deal! Students can't escape from loan interest
My wife took out a student loan seven years ago. The outstanding balance is about £7,000.
She has never earned enough to have to make repayments and now works only two hours a day.
For moral reasons, we think we should make an effort to repay this loan but we do not have the full amount. Would the Student Loans Company consider a lesser amount for immediate settlement?
This is completely voluntary on our part as I do not foresee my wife earning anywhere near the minimum threshold amount in the near future.
MM, Slough
Margaret: The Student Loans Company doesn't do deals.
It points out that customers can pay off their loans without penalty or extra interest charges.
But it says there can be no exceptions to the rule that interest accumulates from the date the first payment is made to the borrower and continues until the loan in repaid in full.
• Email Margaret Dibben at money.writes@observer.co.uk or write to Margaret Dibben, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU and include a telephone number. Do not enclose SAEs or original documents. Letters are selected for publication and we cannot give personal replies. The newspaper accepts no legal responsibility for advice.
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