I am a Nationwide customer in the UK, but live most of the year in Brittany. In May I tried to take £411.60 out of an ATM in our village. It did not give me any money, but the sum was deducted from my account.
We went to Credit Agricole which operates the machine and were told not to worry, as it would all be re-credited automatically when the machine balanced itself up at the end of the week. This, indeed, happened.
However, in October Credit Agricole took the same amount from my Nationwide account, saying its account balancing process showed that I had had the cash from the machine in May.
I cannot prove I didn’t receive it, of course. Nationwide has been as helpful as it can but, apart from sympathetic words and a promised copy of the “evidence” from Credit Agricole with which to pursue my complaint, it can do nothing. Is there any other way that I could get my money back?
JW, Penzance, Cornwall
It turns out that you successfully withdrew £411.60 on 6 May then, unsuccessfully, tried to withdraw an identical sum a day later. Because it takes 24 hours for overseas transactions to appear on your account, the successful debit only showed up on your statement on 7 May, the day the ATM failed to deliver the second sum. You assumed this debit was for the withdrawal you never received and, when you reported it, the bank thought the same and “refunded” you. In fact, the second sum never was taken from your account.
Nationwide realised all this within hours of my contacting its press office so it’s exasperating that it never saw fit to explain it to you. In recognition of this it’s apologised and offered you £150 appeasement. Uncooperative ATMs are unusual, but if you encounter one make a note of the time, date and location and report it to your own bank, not the bank that owns the cash machine.
Usually, any erroneous debits will be automatically corrected overnight. If they are not, and your bank proves unhelpful, you can appeal to the Financial Ombudsman Service which says it would expect the banks in question to produce evidence showing that cash had, indeed, been dispensed.
£1,200 parcel was lost … but
all I was offered was £27
I am a book dealer and at the end of July I sent a package of antiquarian books worth £1,200 to a customer in La Canada, California, USA. It was sent via Parcel Monkey’s online site by Parcelforce. It was marked as delivered on the 6 August, but my customer emailed in September to say he had returned from holiday to discover that no package had arrived.
It turns out the parcel did not go to La Canada the town, but Canada the country. Someone signed for it in Kingston, Ontario. Now Parcel Monkey tells me it won’t process a claim because more than seven days have passed since it was “lost”. How could I know it had been delivered to the wrong country? It will only refund the £27.19 postage. Since I did the deal through Parcel Monkey, Parcelforce refuses to contact me directly.
GF, Skeabost Bridge, Isle of Skye
Third-party brokers, which Parcel Monkey is, can save you money but, as you’ve found, you have to complain through a middleman when things go wrong. Parcelforce admits that somehow the package was sent on to Canada by its counterpart in the US. Mysteriously, it ended up at a post office in Ontario from where it was equally mysteriously collected and signed for.
So far so bad, but the problem was compounded by the fact that you did not take out sufficient insurance – only the free cover of up to £75 offered by Parcel Monkey. “When making an order the form asks the sender to state the value,” says a spokesman for the company which says it has liaised with Parcelforce over your plight. “If he had put in £1,200 – the form would have stated that the item could only be insured to the maximum of £1,000. He would then be requested to pay £19.99 to cover. He had to manually enter that his items were worth £75 – and this is the insurance cover he selected.” You are therefore only entitled to the postage you paid.
Although you are outside its claim timelines, Parcel Monkey will pay the £75 maximum under the free cover. You’ve learnt in the most painful way always to inform a broker or delivery firm the full value of a parcel.
If you need help email Anna Tims at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number.
- This article was restored on 24 November 2014 after a production error led to the copy being excluded.
