M L writes: I have been in contact with Abbey over the past three months about my investment in a three-month e-bond. I was told I would be contacted prior to maturity, so I could decide what to do with the funds. I heard nothing and later discovered the proceeds had been placed in an account paying less than 1%. As I already had a 50+ saver account (paying 6.05% at the time), I immediately requested it be transferred there; after two unsuccessful attempts the money was eventually transferred to that account almost a month after the bond matured. I have been offered £80 in “full and final settlement”. Do I have grounds for complaint?

You had invested more than £333,000 in this bond, so we are talking pretty big figures here. My initial memo to Abbey contained my own, back-of-the-envelope calculations that suggested you were due at least £1,292, given the difference between the rate you actually earned for the month succeeding the bond’s maturity and what you could have earned in the 50+ account. It has taken several more months for Abbey to come round to my way of thinking, but it has now got there. It accepts that in effect you lost nearly one month interest at the higher rate and, having done its own calculation on something slightly bigger than an envelope, concedes that you are due £1,367.02. It has offered you £1,500 — rounded up, with the extra to compensate you for the trouble you have had. You say you are happy with this.

Debt collectors on the wrong trail

G D writes: I am being chased by three debt- collection agencies in relation to a debt I did not incur. It seems that a man with the same surname as me, living in Romford, Essex, has a debt with Choice, a shopping catalogue owned by Shop Direct. I have never lived in or even visited Romford and have no association with anyone of that name who lives there. My problem is that this has been reported to the credit-reference agency Experian, and I have been unable to remove this from my file. Can you help?

You believed that this happened because Shop Direct, or its agents, simply picked you out as having the same (rather unusual) surname, but it appears to have been rather more organised than that: a case of identity fraud, where the fraudster gave your address as the one he had just moved from. This, says Experian, is becoming a very common form of ID fraud. Although it took some time to sort out, Experian confirms that it has removed your address from its files relating to this debt, and is writing to you with advice on precautions you might want to take for the future in case this fraudster tries to make use of your details elsewhere.

How close does a relative need to be?

J G writes: My wife and I were due to go on holiday in May. Three weeks before departure, we had to cancel as my wife’s 94-year-old aunt fell ill and was taken to hospital where she died 10 days later. Aunt C was no ordinary auntie; she gave my wife lunch every working day in her younger days and made her dresses. She was like a second mother, and there was no way we could have abandoned her. My wife was also her next of kin. However, our insurer, Axa, has refused our claim for holiday cancellation.

Your claim failed on the grounds that “aunt” was not included in the (lengthy) list of relations that count as “close relatives” for the purpose of the cancellation clause in the policy. I have long argued against this practice of defining exactly who should count as a close relative; it seems to me that policyholders are most unlikely to go to the lengths of cancelling a holiday unless the relative concerned was indeed close to them. I cannot believe that more flexibility in the contract would result in a rash of spurious claims.

Instead, we have this situation where policyholders are initially turned down and insurers will have another look — and sometimes relent — only if and when people complain. This is what has happened in this case: Axa has, without much prompting by me, agreed that there are circumstances in which it must “look pragmatically” at a claim and it expects to be able to settle your case shortly.

Old direct debits just fade away

G F writes: I wonder if your readers know this: when you have a direct debit in place and it is not used for 13 months or more, it is automatically cancelled. Even though I always read the small print as best I can, I was caught out by this and as a result got a bad-debt note on my credit files (now resolved).

You’re absolutely right: this is part of the direct-debit scheme run by Bacs (Bankers’ Automated Clearing Services, a system for the electronic processing of financial transactions). It is meant to be a safety measure. Direct debits are designed for regular payments and the automatic cancellation is to prevent people suddenly finding that sums have been withdrawn because of an old direct debit that they had forgotten about or thought they had stopped.