I wonder if your readers are aware of a glitch in the government’s warm home discount scheme? The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) issues a list to the energy companies of pensioners who are eligible, which is effective on one day — in 2014 it was July 12.
My mother, 86 years old, was in hospital for five weeks up to July 17.
I told the DWP that she was in hospital, as I am supposed to; it then suspended her benefits. However, as this one-day deadline is involved, she is not on the qualification list for the warm home discount scheme. She only lost her benefits for one week in 2014, but because it was across July 12 she loses all £140 of warm home assistance [for this year]. This applies to all pension credit guarantee recipients hospitalised on that date but only if their carer was “dumb” enough to advise the DWP on a timely basis!
Bob Essex, via email
All those who receive the guaranteed element of pension credit are entitled to a one-off £140 rebate on their winter energy bills (assuming that you are with a supplier that is part of the scheme — all of the Big Six are signed up). The DWP boasts that it has helped more than 2 million “low-income and vulnerable households” this winter, “And we’ve just extended it to next winter.”
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I wonder, however, how many older people might have been in hospital at just the wrong time last summer, in July when the last thing you are thinking about is heating.
DWP emphasised to me that Bob had done the right thing by reporting that his mother was in hospital; not doing so would have been fraudulent.
It is not policy to stop the warm home discount reaching those who are in hospital temporarily, I’m told (though he added that those who are in hospital long term wouldn’t need it because they wouldn’t be using heating at home), but more the case that Bob’s mother had slipped through the net. DWP has now agreed to make sure she receives the full £140 and encourages others to contact the department if they too think that they have missed out because of a quirk in dates.
A spokesman says: “Core group customers will have been sent a letter from the government setting out if they were a ‘matched’ customer who would receive the rebate automatically. Those customers who were ‘unmatched’ are required to call the helpline to confirm their eligibility before being provided with a rebate during this scheme year.”
Car hire woes
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Reading your article last weekend about Holiday Autos reminded us of our own issue with Europcar. On January 17 we went to collect a pre-booked and paid for hire car at Geneva airport. We had paid £215.54 but I had forgotten my credit card. This is needed on collection. Fortunately my wife had her credit card, which has a different number but is from the same issuer and the same joint account. We had all our passports and driving licences as ID.
Europcar refused to honour the deal and use my wife’s card as a guarantee or accept cash. I was told we must cancel and rehire. I was then given a new hire rate for exactly the same car: £437.38 — more than double the price. On our return I contacted Europcar UK, which was totally unhelpful and has not replied to subsequent emails. I suggested as a goodwill gesture a credit note against a future hire, which guarantees Europcar a return booking. This has been rejected.
Alan and Jana Blake, Newton Abbot
A small administrative fee for his error would have been understandable, says Alan, but to pay twice the price again for a car that was waiting, insured and ready to go, just because the couple had the wrong card for the same joint account, is “outrageous”. What was the cost of this error to Europcar?
Since January Alan says that he has checked the price of hiring the same car every Saturday, including for busy half-term dates during February, booking at the last minute, and has come up with little more than £330.
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“As per the terms and conditions it is stated that customers must present a credit card in the name of the driver,” says a spokesman for Europcar. “Europcar Switzerland accepts that the station could have put Mrs Blake as the renter and Mr Blake as the driver, but the rental agent was new and followed Europcar procedures. As the rental was rebooked locally, the station could only add a local ‘walk-in’ rate, based on the rental costs for that day. Europcar accepts that more could have been done to assist Mr and Mrs Blake.”
The company has agreed to refund the difference in cost of the hire cars, adding: “Europcar extends its apologies to Mr and Mrs Blake for the inconvenience and concern caused.”
Scam warning
I thought your readers should be aware of a scam which would have conned my 83-year-old mother out of nearly £2,000 had it not been for the vigilance of the online banking team at Barclays.
My mother received a phone call from someone purporting to be from BT to warn her that her direct debit had been cancelled. The caller persuaded her to give her bank details to “set it back up”. They then said they were having problems doing so, and would get in touch with her bank. Minutes later she had a phone call from someone at “Barclays” who told her the problem was a suspected fraud — a criminal had tried to buy nearly £2,000 of goods online a few days earlier.
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She was persuaded that the only way to cancel this was to log on. The caller helped guide her through the steps to take using her card reader. In reality they were getting her to set up a payment for £1,998.
Having done this, she phoned me. We went to the local Barclays branch, whose staff were extremely helpful and established that the online banking team had suspected fraud and cancelled the payment. My mother was wondering how the fraudsters knew she had a BT account — they were only guessing. She is now telling all her friends about this fraud.
Martin Higgs, via email
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