Letters

Letters

I applied to close my late father's Post Office card account but for 'security and confidentiality reasons' the Post Office would not tell me the balance because I am neither a legal nor financial organisation.

SM, Ascot

The Post Office believes it is a recent phenomenon for individuals to act as executors so has only just started addressing this anomaly. If your request to close the account had gone smoothly, you would have quickly received the paperwork and the money and would not have needed to ask. But the Post Office had no record of the death certificate you provided. Instead of pointing out that it had not received the certificate, it sent several standard letters listing the documents it needed to close the account. As you had already sent them in, you had no way of knowing that you needed to send them again.

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Now that the confusion has been cleared up and you have provided another copy of the death certificate, the Post Office is closing your father's account.

Scottish Power's meter mix-up generates a big bill

Scottish Power sent us an electricity bill for £22,274 covering 2001 to 2006. Is it right that suppliers cannot send bills for energy used more than two years ago? I asked for more detail but was told the account had been handed to a debt collector and that, if we didn't pay, we would get a visit from bailiffs.

PB, New Barnet

The two-year limit, dropping to one year in July, applies only to domestic customers and yours is a business account, which explains the big bill. Scottish Power became the registered supplier for your business address in June 2000. The property was classed as vacant so Scottish Power did not open an account. For the next six years, the network provider read the meter regularly but Scottish Power did not raise a bill, believing the premises were still empty.

It then decided to remove the meter and only at that point noticed that the meter readings had been steadily moving forward. A meter reader visited and found you in occupation. That is why you received the bill. Scottish Power has agreed to charge you just from May 2001 and, to compensate for the delay, will deduct 25 per cent from the bill, saving you £5,568, if you pay the balance in full.

A prompt refund would have been the best policy

In February I bought car insurance from Quinn Direct but it set up two policies and deducted the premium twice - £578 in total. It refunded one premium but then demanded proof that I had a two-year no-claims bonus or the premium would double. I had been a named driver on my husband's policy, but his insurer would not confirm this. So I cancelled the second policy as well, within the cooling-off period, but I am still waiting for the second refund.

BC, London

Quinn Direct admits that the second refund took longer, but says it was returned to your Halifax debit card on 4 April. Nothing appeared on your statement. We checked that Quinn had the correct card number and found two wrong digits. This was confusing because Quinn had successfully taken two premiums, and refunded one, to this card number.