RT writes: BT recently imposed a £1.50 monthly fee on customers who don’t pay by direct debit. My account has been in credit for more than nine months and I have neither been offered my money back nor interest. Now they insult me by taking an extra £4.50 from the money they owe me!

Many customers have written in commenting on this notorious charge, including one 92-year-old reader, who asks: “Whatever happened to freedom of choice?” (To which the answer can only be, at BT it’s no longer free.)

However, your experience really takes the biscuit. Your latest bill, which still shows you in credit, has had £4.50 deducted because you are not “paying” it by direct debit. Your letter and e-mails pointing this out merely prompted standard replies, starting “Every single customer is important to us and we take your views seriously” – but evidently not seriously enough.

Eventually, you managed to elicit a reply from BT which at least acknowledged your position. As a one-off gesture of goodwill, it will waive the £4.50 quarterly charge, but it makes it clear there will be no such concession in the future.

Abbey’s deadly probate centre

PH writes: I am the executor of my mother’s estate which originally held two separate accounts with Abbey. I have been struggling for almost a year with the probate and bereavement centre to finalise matters.

I have been inundated with letters regarding the Abbey probate and bereavement centre. Most readers appear to be routinely told that the department is behind with its work and their letter will be dealt with in about four weeks – but then get told the same story when they call back four weeks later.

Abbey clearly has a serious problem with this department, so I arranged a meeting with Vim Maru, its director of service quality, to put across my concerns directly.

In your particular case, following my intervention, your business has at last been successfully concluded, and the bank has offered you a £300 gesture of goodwill, which you have accepted.

Meanwhile, JL, HM and JH, who had been battling with the centre for between three and nine months, have also had their business concluded, with gestures of goodwill ranging from £150 to £300.

Maru accepts the quality of service at this centre has been frankly bad in recent months. The root cause, he said, was losing five key members of staff late last year. Extra staff have been recruited and trained, and the system overhauled. He said the backlog is being tackled, although he believes it will be another month or so before the service is back to an acceptable level.

I have passed on many other cases to the bank, and am beginning to get some feedback that they are being sorted. Meanwhile, I would urge anyone who has experienced unacceptable delays to make a formal complaint to Abbey and to ask for compensation.

Isa transfer was a matter of interest

MJ writes: My wife and I both transferred our Isas last December from a variable-rate account with Nationwide to a fixed-rate deal. In my case, the accrued interest on the account was capitalised, and the full sum including interest transferred. As an ex-banker, this seemed to me perfectly correct. In my wife’s case, however, interest was not added and when I questioned this, I was told it would be added at the end of March. In my case, it said, the interest had been capitalised in error.

The benefits of capitalising interest are simply that you earn interest on the interest. While you accept the amounts involved are small, you felt that correct banking practice, on the closure of an account, should be to add the interest earned so far to the capital sum.

You wrote two extremely polite and well argued letters to the society, including one to the chief executive, but heard nothing in reply – hardly the behaviour appropriate to an organisation which prides itself on putting members’ interests first. Once I contacted it, the society did have an answer. It argued that because it was not “closing” your Isa, only “transferring” it, there was no need to add the interest at that stage.

I guess it is allowed to do this, but it should certainly make it clear, which I am not convinced it has. While the effect is likely to be relatively small for individuals, the society no doubt benefits quite substantially.

As an apology for ignoring your letters, Nationwide has sent flowers to your wife and offered you each a £50 gesture of goodwill, which you are donating it to your local hospice.

Bank wouldn’t give me a statement

GM writes: I have a buy-to-let mortgage with Clydesdale bank, and need the information from the mortgage statement to complete my tax return. Hitherto, statements have been quarterly; now I am told they will only be sent out annually. I like to get my tax return done as soon as possible but must now wait some months before I can do so.

You are clearly a man after my own heart – I hate to have the tax return hanging over me. The bank had told you it simply wasn’t possible to let you have an earlier statement, which is odd because as soon as I called it said there was no problem – and you have now got it.

US cheque needs a good home

ML writes: A year ago I was contacted by an American law firm concerning a potential claim re Cable & Wireless, in which I am a shareholder. I have now received a cheque for $1.99 that my bank will not accept because of the charges. How can I pass this cheque to charity?

In this case, the cheque was not crossed, so it was not “account payee only”. This means you can endorse it and a charity like Oxfam will be happy to accept it.

Tracking down old pensions

JM writes: I have a problem tracing a pension from a previous employment. Can you help?

Your best bet is to contact The Pension Service. It runs a pension tracing service and has details of some 200,000 schemes on its database. You can contact it by calling 0845 600 2537, writing to: Pension Tracing Service, The Pension Service, Tyneview Park, Whitley Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE98 1BA, or visiting www.thepensionservice.gov.uk.

E-mail Diana Wright at the address below (no attachments please) or write to A Question of Money, The Sunday Times, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1ST, giving a daytime telephone number. We cannot send personal replies or deal with every letter. Please do not send original documents or SAEs. Advice is offered without legal responsibility

questionofmoney@sunday-times.co.uk

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