Giving an exact figure of the amount gained for readers has been difficult, partly because the benefit in a couple of cases depends on the lifespan of the reader. The most significant of these concerned an incorrect pension forecast from the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP). Based on this information, T H, a single woman from Tooting, gave up her job, believing that, after years of caring and working, there would be just enough for her to retire on.
I spoke to the DWP and, after confirming with her former employer that T H could indeed have continued working, her state pension was increased by £38 a week. This is to be uplifted in line with everyone else's as time goes by. I calculated that this concession could be worth some £60,000, should T H live a long time.
I helped Heather Doyle to win £60,000 from her insurer. Under her Skandia Lifetime Plan, Ms Doyle had selected "Total Permanent Disability Benefit". This covered her on an "own occupation" basis should she become totally, permanently and irreversibly disabled before the age of 60. Ms Doyle has eminent witnesses to the fact that she can hardly sit down and consequently cannot pursue her chosen career.
Nearly 10 years after Ms Doyle had retired on ill-health grounds and four years on from her first letter to me, Skandia settled her claim with a £60,337 payment. While doing all she could to convince the insurer that her condition really matched its demands, Ms Doyle sensibly increased her cover as and when she could. As a result the settlement was £15,000 more than it would have been without the delay.
Recurrent themes over 2010 included struggles to get money back from providers, particularly from bonds that had matured.
One such case on which I reported concerned a couple from Stockport and £65,082 from their Bradford & Bingley matured bonds. These had been subject to a series of mishaps emanating from an account number being input wrongly.
In another instance, M E of Surrey couldn't extract money from her Barclays fixed-rate bond after an administration error meant options for further investment were not sent and the money defaulted into a new bond she didn't want. Five months after the previous bond had matured, and four days after I contacted the bank, recently widowed M E received her £51,956 at last.
C S of Bermondsey had battled on behalf of an aunt's estate to get Alliance & Leicester to release what had become £64,417 by the time I sorted it out. Even then the provider, now Santander, had to be nudged into paying proper interest, which came to £544.
Then there were cases that, even though they had been turned down by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) or had simply missed their deadline, were, at my instigation, reviewed. A quirky example involved a young football fan who had found himself in an insalubrious bar in Madrid. An MBNA card, on which his mother was the first named cardholder with himself as an authorised user, was compromised to the tune of nearly £4,000. Money was taken without his knowledge until, towards dawn, four attempted transactions for decreasing amounts were declined by the bank. The fan's sister, V W, who had been travelling with him but had not gone to the bar, doggedly sought redress from the card provider.
Difficulties included the fact that her brother could not identify the bar. MBNA turned down the claim on the grounds that the chip had been read and the correct pin input. I pointed the family in the direction of the FOS. An adjudicator there supported MBNA's position but I felt the family should have taken it a stage further to an ombudsman. That companies and individuals have this option is something I reiterated in the columns throughout the year. With the deadline gone I pleaded with MBNA to no avail.
The FOS, however, then agreed to reopen the case on the basis of extra information I had elicited. The service now reasoned that, had the payment been orthodox, the bar would have tried to process it again for the same sum. With reimbursed fees, charges and interest also added in, £4,595 was credited to the mother's card.
With rates at an all-time low, forfeiting good interest as a result of a provider's mistake became even more unwelcome. In 2008, when rates had been high, D O of Norfolk, now aged nearly 90, had instructed Nationwide to transfer more than £30,000 from a maturing cash Isa bond into a two-year one at 6.15pc and at the same time also buy a £3,600 6.15pc bond.
He duly received a certificate for the smaller bond but nothing about the larger one. Numerous attempts to sort this out had failed while the money mouldered in a variable rate Isa which reflected the unattractive rates now being paid.
Only when I became involved did the building society admit that D O's original instruction had been overlooked. Actioned retrospectively, this brought D O more than £3,000.
Fraud continued to be a problem. Three readers nearly lost out when strangers rang touting "dream" holidays. Credit card details were extracted on the understanding that there was a "cooling-off" period. When the victims tried to get their money back nothing was forthcoming. Only my involvement led to the card providers – Tesco Bank, Nationwide and Bank of Scotland – producing three happy endings.
For sheer volume of complaints, Santander was the "winner". With Abbey and Alliance & Leicester now integrated into the brand, I hope the bank will address what strike me as some of the most salient flaws of these two entities.
Some way behind, the next highest number of letters I received concerned Lloyds Banking Group. It, like Santander, has had to integrate other businesses, with some inevitable teething problems. Letters about Barclays have increased, as, following some easing off the year before, have those about Nationwide Building Society.
Ending on a brighter note, complaints about Equiniti, the registrar, which were so rife in the past, have dwindled to less than a handful. A triumph I feel for an organisation that has indeed taken the task of improving its complaints handling seriously.
