My classic Mercedes can’t be worth only £400

Copart does not appear anywhere in my insurance policy and I was concerned that this could be a scam, so I continually refused their offer, saying that I would prefer to deal directly with Saga. Saga informed me that, if I disagreed with this valuation, I could provide information as to the value of the vehicle. This I did by the simple means of finding several identical vehicles of the same age for sale on the internet and sending these to Saga. The cheapest identical vehicle, but with a much higher mileage than mine, was £5,000. Copart refused to answer my question as to the basis of its valuation of £400 for this luxury vehicle.

Saga told me that Copart is a salvage company and, in a series of emails, Saga said it had “reviewed the comparison vehicles you have kindly provided” and that “in normal circumstances the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) would recommend that we as a minimum meet the average of two motor trade guides — Cap and Glass’s. In respect of your vehicle, due to the age our valuation specialist was unable to consult these guides so have compared market research for comparable vehicles which has helped formulate their offer of £400.” No attempt was made to justify such a preposterous valuation by the salvage company.

It seems improper to regard a perfectly running vehicle as “salvage” just because it does not appear in the motor trade guides used by the FOS. One would expect a level of compensation to at least offer a reasonable contribution to the cost of a replacement vehicle — £400 clearly does not do that.

The behaviour of Acromas and Copart could easily result in elderly drivers being left without the means of transportation at a period in their lives when it is most essential to them.

Can you help?

Jill replies

You and your car have history with Acromas. In 2017, when your car was insured with the AA and the underwriter was also Acromas, you sustained a serious dent to the driver’s door and claimed on your AA policy to have the damage repaired. The vehicle was otherwise undamaged.

You told me that Acromas declared the car to be a total loss and offered you its scrap value. You refused to accept this, cancelled the claim and paid for it to be repaired yourself. This involved having to reimburse Acromas for initially collecting the Mercedes before it would release the car to you.

I couldn’t find any similar cars of exactly the same age when I checked online, but older and younger ones were certainly selling for several thousand pounds, so I asked Saga to reconsider its offer to you.

It said: “We are very sorry to hear of our customer’s experience. Unfortunately this has been an extremely difficult vehicle to value. The reasons behind the delay and the original valuation stem from the fact that the car was retained from a previous accident, where the car was deemed ‘uneconomical to repair’ and that we were unable to find comparable vehicles for age and mileage during the valuation process.”

To provide what it regarded as the most appropriate valuation, Saga expanded the range of cars it looked at for comparison, took the four closest matches from this broader selection and adjusted the valuation to take into account the previous “total loss” (which advises a 20 per cent deduction according to FOS recommendations), mileage and condition. This suggested a valuation of about £2,500. It then disregarded the reduction for condition and offered you £5,000, which was what you suggested in the first place.

It also provided £844 to cover the cost of recovering and storing the car plus interest for the delay in paying you this money, and £350 in compensation.

You said: “It seems that, once released from under the foot of its underwriter, Acromas, Saga has behaved with the courtesy and generosity it has also exhibited in all other aspects of my insurance cover. I have no quarrel with Saga. Indeed I still insure my replacement vehicle with them. A most satisfactory conclusion to this saga.”

• Hunter Davis: Everyone needs a will. I’m on my fourth

Broken Beko, cold Currys

My son purchased a Beko fridge freezer on May 10 and it was delivered three days later. After 12 weeks it stopped working and he lost the contents of the freezer.

He called the Currys technical team and was told to turn it off, leave it for a few hours and switch it back on. He did this, and the freezer appeared to work again so he restocked it.

Two weeks later, the same thing happened and once again he has lost the contents of the freezer.

He asked Currys for a replacement product because clearly it was faulty and was told it has to fail three times in six months and have received three engineers visits before a replacement can be issued.

He is therefore in the unfortunate position of either using the fridge freezer but running the risk of losing a third freezer of food or not using the freezer. Neither are great options.

I contacted Currys on his behalf and was told I would receive a response in 48 hours from its customer services team. I waited a fortnight and no response was forthcoming.

I then wrote to the company’s chief executive on September 17 and to date have received neither an acknowledgement or response to this letter. I called Currys again last Wednesday and spent over 45 minutes being bounced from one department to another. I then spoke to an individual who informed me that because the product was less than 12 months old, it could be replaced. He then went to transfer me to the manufacturers Beko to organise this replacement but I was promptly cut off. I found a telephone number for Beko and it maintains that he is not entitled to a replacement.

My son has lost about £150 in food products and stands to lose more if he continues to use this freezer. Making a claim against his home insurance is not an option as there would be an excess to pay and an increase in premiums at renewal which will ultimately cost him even more money.

I noticed Curry’s chief executive had been posting positive articles on LinkedIn about how the company supports its customers through the cost of living crisis and wonder how this possibly applies in my son’s situation.

Jill replies

I reminded Currys that under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 your son was only obliged to give the retailer one chance to repair or replace the fridge freezer before offering a refund. I don’t know where its staff got the idea that the fridge freezer had to fail and for repairs to be attempted three times before you were due a refund.

Two days after I contacted Currys you said: “I’m not sure what you’ve said to Currys but they are bending over backwards to help us now and have offered a full refund.”

The faulty fridge freezer was collected the same day, your son was refunded its full price plus delivery and disposal charges for his old freezer. Currys also sent him £75 towards the cost of the food he lost.

My not so smart Octopus meter

Our energy was provided by Octopus and all seemed well until solar panels were installed last autumn and an export meter fitted so that we could be paid at a rate of 15p per unit. Our first generation smart meter had been changed to a second generation meter and was working fine by the time the export meter was fitted. However, the export meter wasn’t sending readings, so to begin with I supplied meter readings to Octopus on demand.

Then I suddenly appeared to use £250 of electricity in one day.

Octopus agreed that there was an error in the billing system and produced an amended bill stating that all bills since the export meter had been fitted were wrong.

I found the amended bill very obscure but I accepted it and a refund. That was in the summer but the problem persists, with me contacting the energy company whenever I notice an unusual figure for electricity usage on my Octopus app.

Octopus has looked into the issue and says that something in its automated billing keeps both crediting me for exported electricity but also charging me for it at a much higher rate. So the more energy exported, the bigger the overall debit to my account. A second consequence of this is that my direct debit is also increased automatically using a system that ignores corrected bills.

I have been visiting my brother in Australia since September 30 and received yet another email apologising, saying everything is now fixed, offering me £30 compensation and asking if I would close my complaint.

I said I would but first I would need a simple bill with clear figures for electricity used and electricity exported. Instead I got a very complicated bill which is impossible to understand, although at least my credit balance has increased. Today I checked my Octopus account using my app and the problem has cropped up again. I am selling my home in November and will end my relationship with Octopus then. While that will put an end to my problems, I really don’t want the new owner to have to wrestle with Octopus.

Jill replies

You included your most recent bill with your email, which showed that your account was in credit to the tune of £135. But far from being the £100 a month you expected, your monthly direct debit payment was now set at £153, and was recommended to rise to £170 the following month. The bill included eight reverse charges, including two marked as being negative, and was completely incomprehensible.

I asked Octopus to explain what was going on.

Octopus said: “We did a meter exchange at the property in March, where we switched our customer over from first generation smart meters to second generation, ahead of her having an export meter fitted for her solar panels. However, the national database never deactivated her old meter so our system was sent some sporadic meter readings from that for billing which were applied to her account. The previous team members who looked at the issue fixed it from our side without being aware that the national database was still holding the incorrect meters.

“We are very glad that this issue has now been resolved and the account is in a healthy state.”

You said that best of all, you now have the contact email address for a helpful person in customer service “which I can also pass on to the new owner [of my house] in case the problem recurs”.