3:05pm Wednesday 13th June 2007
J. C. asks: A couple of years ago I received a Christmas present of Choice gift vouchers. When I tried to spend them in shops listed on the vouchers I was told the company had gone into liquidation and the vouchers could not be spent. Is this right?
Close, but not completely right. Choice Gift Vouchers Limited went into administration, which is not quite as bad as being liquidated. Some customers tell me they have been offered 80p in new replacement vouchers for every £1 in Choice vouchers. Contact the administrators Price- waterhouse Coopers, 33 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4JP.
Mrs M. W. asks: We have paid the last instalment on our mortgage and been sent our house deeds. These are obviously valuable so where would be safest to keep them?
Some homebuyers deliberately leave a small sum outstanding on their mortgage so the bank or building society will take care of the deeds. Your bank will store them for a fee, or your solicitor might do this for nothing, particularly if the solicitor has prepared your wills and is already holding them in safe keeping.
N. J. W. writes: I purchased two flight tickets with my visa card The travel agent swiped the card twice, then explained that the bank would repay the second charge of over £800 in seven to ten days. Why can my payment be debited in seconds yet a bank takes so long to repay overpaid funds?
If you paid in seconds, I am guessing you paid by debit card. These are like your car, five forward gears and only one reverse!
The whole system is built to take money from shoppers and pay it to shops. To reverse this, the travel agent's bank will wait until it has physically got the money. Then it will need authority from the travel agent, and finally, the money must be sent to your bank.
All this inconvenience was caused by your travel agent, and I think you are entitled to some gesture from her to make up for this.
P. J. R. asks: Is it true, as my bank says, that you can only claim replacement for a damaged banknote if it is still intact? I have a £20 note that is missing a large piece of one corner after an accident involving a garden bonfire, and the bank will not accept it.
Banks are allowed to accept notes with minor damage. For example, the serial number must be complete. Even very badly damaged notes will be accepted and replaced by the Bank of England. You can get a claim form from the Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, London EC2R 8AH.
Mrs M. H. writes: I recently got married but we had been living together for four years and we have a two-year-old daughter. We both made wills when we bought a house and moved in together, so will we need to make any changes now?
Getting married automatically cancels any previous will unless you mentioned in it that you were going to marry. If you and your husband did not mention this, then neither of you currently has a valid will and you need to make one.
R. H. asks: My partner enquired at her bank for a business loan of £15,000, which she reckons she can repay over three years. She was quoted 15.9% interest. Meanwhile, I asked my credit card company, MBNA, and they offered to lend me the money with no interest at all until next February. Can you suggest anything better?
Unless your partner can repay the MBNA pretty quickly, interest will soon add up after the interest-free period ends.
Masterloan (0800 056 6223) will probably be cheaper. Its rates for unsecured loans start at 5.90%.
R. M. writes: I retired on ill-health grounds a few years ago and claimed incapacity benefit. But every time I sent for a state pension forecast, I was told I had national insurance contributions missing. I will shortly be 60 and my latest pension forecast shows two years of contributions are unpaid. After a lot of telephoning I have been told they will be paid for me, but I would like to warn people on incapacity benefit about this.
The key point is that while you are on benefit your national insurance contributions are supposed to be credited to your account. You have been told that when the missing contributions are added, your forecast state pension will go up by £4 a week!
So yes, I am happy to pass on your warning. Let me add to it though. Top accountants Grant Thornton have just revealed that up to 500,000 women may be missing out on a full state pension, also because of faulty records.
Since April 1978, women receiving child benefit are entitled to Home Responsibilities Protec-tion, which cuts the number of years national insurance contributions needed for a pension. For many, those cuts in qualifying years were never made, so it looks as though they have underpaid towards their pension.
Like you, everyone approaching state pension age should get a forecast from the Pension Service (0845 606 0265) and double-check it.
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