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Questions of Cash: The Pickfords removals lorry pulled up - six weeks late

 

Paul Gosling
Friday 13 February 2015 21:00 GMT
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Q. We booked a removal with Pickfords from Yorkshire to Cambridgeshire last July – for a slot between mid August and six weeks later, maximum.

We paid £250 plus VAT and insurance in July. The consignment was not delivered until 11 November, despite a number of enquiries. Am I entitled to a refund for the six weeks' inconvenience? Pickfords has offered compensation of £50 after many emails. AN, Huntingdon.

A. Pickfords has now agreed to refund your fee fully, and you are happy with this outcome. A spokeswoman for the company explains: "We have looked into [the reader's] case and apologise for the late delivery of his consignment. We are investigating the details with our local branch to ensure that the error will not be repeated in future."

Q. I have exactly the same problem with Skype as your correspondent RW [Questions of Cash, 31 January). I got the password wrong twice and the account was instantly suspended, with no sensible answer from Skype to my enquiries. I have lost my credit. KH, by email.

A. As a result of our intervention, Skype has contacted you and re-established your access to your account.

A spokeswoman for Skype explains how to resolve problems if an account is frozen after an incorrect password is used repeatedly. Log on to skype.com, go to the support request page and then select a topic; this should generate a response on how to resolve the issue.

If this does not fully answer the problem, click the "next' button", select a preferred contact method and then describe the problem and send.

Skype tells us that its customer services team responds to all such queries within 24 hours.

As we have now had two complaints that the system is not operating as it should, we would be interested to hear if other readers have the same problems.

Q. I have become very frustrated with BA trying to obtain a refund of £62. I booked a return flight between Heathrow and Basel for my husband and myself. Usually, airline sites let me complete the outgoing leg and then the system jumps to the return leg date. Somehow when I was booking this time, for a four-day round trip, the date jumped from November to February.

The next evening, a confirmation email from BA told me I had booked the return leg for February. I went on to the site and found I had 24 hours to correct a booking – but the function for doing this was not available on the site. When I phoned BA's premium rate number, there was no reply.

I spent several months trying to make the change. In the end I had to go onto BA's European site to book my required return leg for November, paying in euros. I then completed a complaint and sent it off, but got no reply. I then wrote again. When I eventually had a response, I was told to call the premium number again. When I got through, I was told the mistake was my fault.

Eventually I found that although I am entitled to a repayment, the administration charge for processing it is more than the value of the repayment. LG, by email.

A. A BA spokesman says: "We offer customers a range of different tickets. Restricted tickets often carry a fee to make changes or to cancel the booking. Unfortunately, in this instance, the amount due to be refunded was less than the change fee applied. However, we recognise the customer made a genuine attempt to contact us within 24 hours to try to amend the booking and, as a gesture of goodwill, we will be providing a refund for the unused part of the booking."

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