Capital letters

But Winterthur's ultra-cautious lawyers refused. Another idea was to go for "presumption of death", as he had not been seen for seven years. But that can be tough and the £26,000 life cover fell to the surrender value when you stopped paying premiums.

After weeks of discussion, Winterthur will now help point you towards a compromise - asking for a legal declaration to confer sole ownership. This will need a solicitor but the insurer says the costs are moderate.

And you should be able to reclaim these expenses from the negligent solicitor who failed to advise you to have an Absolute Assignment - a legal document - drawn up at the time the two of you were dividing assets.

Counting the cost of a spelling mistake

My 19-year-old son booked a £420 return flight via BA to Boston in June on the ebookers website - his first ever air ticket purchase. But after clicking "go" he realised that, in his excitement, he had not put his full name on the form and had misspelled his surname. He emailed ebookers immediately with the correct information and received a phone call asking him to contact them as a matter of urgency.

But ebookers said this change was a "cancellation", so he would lose his flight and only get taxes refunded (less £30 in charges), losing all but £95 of his £420. I also tried BA, but with no success. Please help.

LM, Nottingham

He put him name as Danny (instead of Daniel) and left out a letter in his surname - easy to make errors and easy to rectify. Capital Letters pointed this out to BA and that it would be unfair to cancel the ticket on these grounds as the seat could then be sold again.

Happily, commonsense broke out at BA. The airline speedily agreed to amend the ticket at no cost as it was a genuine spelling error. Next time, he will doubtlessly check before confirming details but, in the meantime, he can enjoy his trip to the United States.

Dell's approach just does not compute

I bought a £529 Dell computer in November. It never worked. It went back twice for new motherboards and while it returned a little better, the case was severely scratched. I complained and complained over three months. But I got nowhere. Can you do better?

GT Huddersfield

Dell's customer service department works with all the speed of a 20-year-old Amstrad word processor - problems have apparently to be "escalated to the most appropriate levels within the organisation".

But like the ancient Amstrad, it can eventually get there - when helped by a little nudging from Capital Letters. Dell has sent a cash refund, which you say will not be spent on another Dell, and a goodwill gesture for your hassles.

Net result ... educating the branch staff

For the last couple of weeks your best buy tables have featured a monthly interest account at Bradford & Bingley. You have to put in at least a £1,000 deposit - the interest rate is 4.75%. But when I tried to open this account at the city centre Bradford & Bingley last Saturday, the counter staff said it did not exist. So after queuing, I had wasted my time. Who is right? The tables or Bradford & Bingley?

AW, Birmingham

We are. The account exists (and continues to do so). But it is only available online. The convention we use is to say "via branch" or we give a phone number or an internet site depending on the way to approach the account.

B&B branches have details of phone and net accounts. So you should have been told. The company admits its staff made mistakes, and will send the branch off for re-education.

It will apologise and post you book tokens as compensation.

· Contact: We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Write to: Capital Letters, Money, the Guardian, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER or email capital.letters@guardian.co.uk. Do not send original documents but do enclose a daytime phone number. Information is general and offered without any legal responsibility. Always take professional advice if in doubt.