An elderly couple were threatened with legal action after a Post Office fault sent their council tax payment to the wrong account. Roy and Jean Febrey, from Nailsea, received letters threatening court action despite paying their monthly instalment of £184 to North Somerset Council.
The couple had paid the money at the town's post office in June but were left horrified after receiving a letter saying the payment had not been made. They were also told that if the money wasn't made within a week, the outstanding balance of £1,472 would be due.
As reported by Somerset Live, the couple were threatened with court action if the payment wasn't made. Ron, 87, said: “For the last 17 years we have paid the council tax on time every month.
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“My wife Jean goes to the post office and always pays within the first four days of the month. She went and paid on June 1 as normal and thought nothing of it.”
On June 14, the couple received a letter from the council saying the payment had not been received. “I rang the council to say we had paid,” said Ron, “but the person on the phone said the amount was still outstanding. We had a receipt proving the amount had been paid, but they didn’t want to know.” The couple then went to Nailsea Post Office to investigate further.
Ron continued: “The Post Office staff couldn’t understand what had happened as the same card was used and all the numbers and payment details were correct.” However, after checking receipts and bank balances, they discovered that the payment made had been sent to the Hague Housing Trust - based in Surrey.
“When we told the Post Office they said it was a council issue. When we spoke to the council, they told us it was a Post Office issue. All the time we were stuck in the middle. North Somerset Council were completely unaware of this until I told them,” said Ron.
Not wanting to get behind with payments, Ron and Jean paid the June instalment for the second time. We will not be making any further council tax payments until we can be sure the issue is sorted,” said Ron. “We understand that we are not the only ones affected.
"There are others, possibly elderly people too, that use the Post Office to pay their bills. We have managed to get to the bottom of this, but others might have not.”
North Somerset Council said the Post Office had suffered a glitch with its payment system. A North Somerset Council spokesman said: “North Somerset Council is aware of a national issue with some council tax payments whereby residents paid their council tax at a post office, which has not shown on our records.
“This is a national Post Office issue following an update to their payment system, and they are carrying out a full investigation into what has happened. Before the issue was identified, North Somerset Council sent reminders to five households as we believed we had not received payments.
“As soon as we were made aware of the national Post Office issue, we took instant action. We have now made changes to our system and no further reminders will be sent to affected households. We expect the Post Office investigation to be concluded shortly.”
A Post Office spokesperson said: “We are aware of an issue and investigating as a matter of urgency. “
