The Sunday Times April 24, 2022 15
MONEY
CAN WE HELP YOU?
Email Jill Insley at
questionofmoney@
sunday-times.co.uk or
write to Question of Money,
The Sunday Times, 1 London
Bridge Street, London
SE1 9GF. Please send copies
of original documents.
Letters should be exclusive
to The Sunday Times.
Advice is offered without
legal responsibility.
We regret that Jill cannot
reply to everyone.believed John was being scammed, but
soon after you contacted me he
persuaded her otherwise by showing her
a supposed escrow statement in his
name with money in it. You said: “I think
Mum is partly afraid to admit that it’s a
scam and that they’ve lost everything
and also, I think she’s scared of John.”
Despite this, you do not think your
mum would support any allegations of
coercive control. Nevertheless I think
this is something NatWest should
consider when looking at the way it has
allowed her account to be used.
After you and your mum complained,
NatWest initially refunded £170 interest
your mother had paid on the overdraft.
It then increased this to £5,250, but you
have encouraged her to pursue her
complaint with the Financial
Ombudsman. NatWest has confirmedthat it will honour its £5,250 offer,
regardless of the outcome.
You asked why your mum’s overdraft
did not show up on her Experian record.
Some lenders only provide information
about customers to one credit agency, so
to get a complete picture of her debts,
she needs to apply to each of the three
main agencies — Experian, Equifax and
TransUnion — for a copy of her record.
You can only apply to see your records,
so you won’t be able to check John’s.
Experian said: “It is unusual for bank
accounts to not show on credit reports,
unless it’s one of those that was opened
(typically pre-2000) when banks
routinely shared nothing but account
defaults with credit reference agencies.”
I asked Experian if there was anything
your mum could do to help her resist
John’s requests for her to borrow moreM
y Mum’s husband, let’s
call him John, is being
scammed. It’s been going
on for about ten years but
we — my family, John’s
friends, his bank, Action
Fraud and the police —
have not been able to get
him to see it’s a scam.
He has sent the
scammers all his money, about
£100,000 that he inherited plus tens of
thousands that he has borrowed. Mum
has given John all her money and savings
worth about £300,000, which he has
also sent to the scammers.
We thought it had died off as neither
Mum nor John, who are both in their
eighties, had any money left. But we
have just discovered that a few years ago
John persuaded Mum to get an overdraft
and he sent more money to the
scammers. As soon as Mum pays off
some of the overdraft with her pension,
John persuades her that they need to
send more money, she transfers cash to
him and he sends it to the scammer.
Mum’s overdraft interest rate is
38.9 per cent. We have now spoken to
her bank, NatWest, and it has agreed to
waive the interest for three months
while we try to sort this out.
Do we have any redress with NatWest?
Why would it give an 80-year-old, who
has never borrowed any money and
always been in credit, an overdraft and
allow it to continue all these years while
charging her this exorbitant amount?
How can we check for certain if Mum
and/or John have any debts/loans/credit
cards? I did the paid Experian check on
Mum and it showed no overdraft, nor
credit card debt, so I’m assuming it’s not
100 per cent accurate.
Mum is telling me and my sister that
she believes now that it’s a scam and that
she won’t give John any more money,
but we have been in this situation before
and she has then given him more. I fully
appreciate that he is not behaving
rationally and these horrible people
have got inside his head and he, in turn,
is doing the same to Mum. We are notwealthy, far from it. My Mum’s money
was her savings, now gone, and her
monthly pension is substantial because
my father died 50 years ago and,
thankfully, Mum has been well provided
for by his employer. I can pay off her
overdraft, but I’m nervous in case there
is more debt we don’t know about.
What can we do? Any help or advice
you can give will be gratefully received.Jill replies
You told me that John has fallen prey to
a variety of scams, but the likelihood is
that they are all being operated by the
same fraudsters. Once they have their
hooks into a victim, they are unwilling to
let go, even when it is obvious their
activities have been detected. Early on
he sent money to a Nigerian called
Fabulous, and believes he has invested
in land that was sold for $59 million,
with the proceeds held by San Fransisco
Airport Authority. He has fallen for “a
distant relative of yours has died and we
have traced you as the beneficiary”, and
most recently he seems to believe that he
is investing in something run by JP
Morgan from the Philippines.
You believe he has sunk so much
money into his schemes that he cannot
afford mentally and emotionally to
admit he has been conned. His bank
manager realised what was happening a
few years ago and his bank has blocked
any further payments that might be
going to the fraudsters. But John now
takes cash to a foreign exchange outlet
and sends payments from there instead.
There is no helping him, but you want
to do anything you can to protect your
mother. She banks with NatWest, and as
she was transferring money to her
husband — something spouses do all the
time — rather than to the fraudsters,
NatWest was unaware of the situation.
It had allowed her an overdraft of up
to £7,500 starting in 2013. As your Mum
is in her eighties and you say she had
previously never borrowed, I would
have expected the bank to ask why she
needed the money and how she was
going to pay it back. Unfortunately
because the overdraft has been running
for so long, NatWest apparently has no
record of the reasons she gave or
whether her husband was with her at the
time, controlling the conversation.
Likewise in 2015, when the overdraft was
increased. “Further overdraft
applications were done via telephone or
online so we cannot prove it was John
instigating them, not Mum,” you said.
Your mum assured you that she nowMum’s husband has given £400k
to scammers. Please make him stop
QUESTION
OF MONEY
JILL INSLEY
money. It suggested that she ask to have
a statement placed on her credit record
saying something like “I am a vulnerable
person and I ask any lender to not grant
any credit I may ask for.” She needs to
ask each agency to attach the statement
to her credit record.
The fraud prevention organisation
Cifas runs a protective registration
service that alerts prospective lenders to
the possibility that someone might try to
use your mum’s ID to take out credit.
There is no suggestion that John might
do this, but this measure costs just £25
for two years and will protect her from
anyone who has obtained her details.
You can find out more at cifas.org.uk/pr
Finally Andrew Kidd, a partner with
the solicitors Clintons, suggested your
mum set up a lasting power of attorney
(LPA), appointing you to act on her
behalf in regard to her financial and, if
she chooses, health and welfare
decisions. LPAs must be set up while the
donor is able to make decisions for
themselves, and all LPAs must be
registered before they can be used.
A property and financial affairs LPA
works as soon as it is registered, so the
attorney can start making decisions on
your behalf, even if the person setting up
the LPA is still capable. If you don’t want
the attorney to do this straight away,
make sure the LPA says this. Kidd said:
“An LPA does not countermand the
donor’s ability to deal with their affairs.
But it is still a good idea. I have seen a
donor say, ‘It’s not my decision — my
attorney controls my spending.’ While
this may not be the legal position, it can
help to deal with appeals for money.”
This week you told me further very
sad news — that your mother has cancer
and is undergoing treatment. You said:
“Mum has been poorly and John has
been hassling her for more money as
he’s been given ‘one last chance’ to get
his millions, by paying some £5,500 fee
to an investigator or some such
nonsense. Luckily, Mum stuck to her
guns and didn’t give John any money.”
Ironically the one person who has a
(slim) chance of claiming a refund is
John. He banks with TSB, the only bank
to guarantee to refund money lost by
innocent victims of fraud. Other banks
require the victim to have made checks
on the person or company they sent
money to. However, you say he has been
warned by friends, family, his bank and
even the police that he is sending money
to fraudsters. TSB does refuse refunds in
a few situations, including if a customer
deliberately ignores safety information.Car insurance premiums are
at an 18-month high, despite
new rules aimed at cracking
down on unfair pricing.
From January, the
Financial Conduct Authority
(FCA) banned insurers from
offering different prices to
new customers and those
who are renewing their
policy. The removal of this
“loyalty penalty” was
intended to make the market
fairer, protecting customers
who were unlikely to shop
around.
But customers who stay
with their insurer are still
paying more than those who
move: 42 per cent of
customers surveyed by theprice comparison site
Confused.com said their
renewal premium had gone
up this year. The average
increase was £39, taking the
price of comprehensive car
insurance to an average of
£550 a year.
By comparison, the price
of a new policy increased by
just £12, year on year.
Some people have
misunderstood the changesbrought in by the FCA with
19 per cent believing their
premiums would not go up
and 21 per cent expecting
them to be cheaper.
The authority expects its
new measures to save
consumers £4.2 billion over
the next ten years.
However, inflation is
adding to the costs of
insurance as everything from
car repairs to auto parts and
medical costs gets more
expensive.
Louise O’Shea from
Confused.com said: “It’s
worrying that so many people
believed the FCA changes
would guarantee them a
cheaper price. I have no
doubt they had quite a shock
when they got their renewalnotice and it was higher. This
is purely down to the cost of
insurance going up, and
stands for renewal prices too.
We’re driving a lot more now
than we were 12 months ago,
so the number of claims
insurers are paying out on is
likely to have increased too.”
Car insurance has been
creeping up for the past six
months, with drivers today
paying an average of £36
more than those who bought
a new policy six months ago.
But young drivers are
paying less on average than
they were 12 months ago.
Premiums for 17-year-olds are
down £83 to £1,166, the
cheapest for this group on
record, while for 18-year-olds
the fall was £23 to £1,419.... and your car cover is up too
Yasmin ChoudhuryIf you are booking your
summer holiday, be warned
that travel insurance has
become more expensive
since the pandemic.
The consumer site
Compare the Market found
that the average cost of a
multi-trip insurance policy
has risen 45 per cent since
March 2020, from £42 to £61.
For someone aged 55 to 69
the average price has risen
from £66 to £91, while a
traveller aged between 25 and
34 would pay £41, up from
£33. The cost for a child
under 16 is £36 instead
of £27. Here’s what you
need to know.Shop around
Which?, the
consumer
watchdog, said that a
30-year-old with no existing
medical conditions wanting
cover for a single-trip to
France was quoted £10.89
with the AA, but £24.04
with LV for a similar policy.
A 65-year-old with arthritis
seeking a policy for a singletrip to Austria including
winter sports was quoted
£66.05 by the Post Office,
but £99.74 by Admiral.
A 60-year-old with
high blood pressure and
cholesterol buying an annual
global policy including cruise
cover was quoted £168.67 by
the AA, but £355.33 by Direct
Travel Insurance.
Rory Boland, the editor of
Which? Travel magazine, said:
“One eye-watering quote for
an older traveller with pre-
existing health conditions
taking a two-week trip to the US, for
example, came in at £451 —
more than the cost of some
transatlantic flights.Treating
Covid in a US hospital could
cost up to $10,000 a night
and repatriation costs about
two to three times more than
from Europe.”Try your bank
Travel insurance offered
by some banks has lower
age limits than other policies.
Barclays and Lloyds have
limits of 80, but Sainsbury’s
Bank and Tesco have no age
limits. Barclays, Lloyds,
Santander, Sainsbury’s and
Tesco Bank cover some
existing medical conditions,
but you have to call first and
declare them. NatWest will
not consider existing
conditions at all.Get a GHIC
When travelling in the EU,
you used to be able to rely
on the European Health
Insurance Card, which
covered you for “medically
necessary” treatment,
including some routine
medical or maternity care.Since Brexit, this has been
replaced by the UK Global
Health Insurance Card
(GHIC). This gives access to
free or subsidised healthcare
in the EU, but is not valid in
the non-EU European
countries Norway, Iceland
or Liechtenstein.
You can apply for the
GHIC on the NHS website
without paying — watch out
for third-party websites
charging for the service.
A GHIC isn’t a substitute
for travel insurance with
medical cover. It will not
cover repatriation, for
example. Nor will it cover
you anywhere other than
the EU and Switzerland.
Look for policies that
cover medical expenses up to
£5 million, cancellation cover
of £2,000, cover of £1,500 for
your personal belongings,
and personal liability cover of
at least £1 million.
Most policies now cover
cancellations if you or a
family member tests positive
for Covid-19 or if you catch
coronavirus abroad and need
to extend your trip or get
medical help while overseas.Travel insurance costs soar...
David ByersCar premiums are up