Latest news with #TonyHetherington
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
TONY HETHERINGTON: Help! Storage firm lost entire contents of our five-bed home
Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below. Mrs J.P. writes: We put the contents of our five-bedroom home into long-term storage, costing £200 per month. We had retired to Spain, but returned to the UK and contacted the storage firm to have our goods delivered to our new home. It then informed us that it had accidentally disposed of them. Tony Hetherington replies: It has taken months of enquiries to unravel everything that took place. You first put your belongings into storage in 2017, but in 2018 your mother-in-law was nearing the end of her life so you returned to the UK and your belongings were returned to you. In 2019 you and your husband put everything into storage again and went back to Spain. Last year you decided to return to this country, but were then told your belongings had gone. The name of the storage company you gave me was Herts And Essex Removals Limited, which you told me was run by Martin Sontag. But this was impossible. That company did not exist until 2021, and it was compulsorily dissolved by Companies House in March last year so it cannot have been trading when you came home several months later. I asked you to search out your agreement and you came up with a slightly different company name, Herts & Essex Removals & Storage Ltd, based at Matching Green in Essex. The agreement pledged: 'Your furniture and effects are covered to a substantial £100,000.' I checked, and this company was formed in 2011. But no one named Sontag was involved, and it was voluntarily dissolved in 2013. Judging by the dates, you should have been dealing with another of this crop of similarly named companies, Herts and Essex Removal and Storage Ltd – not 'Removals', with an 's'. This was set up in 2012 and, yes, it was run by Martin Sontag. The snag was, it went bust in 2018. Martin Sontag borrowed over £30,000 before the business collapsed, and is repaying this gradually. So you may have put your belongings into storage with this company in 2017, and got them back in 2018, but when everything went into storage again in 2019 it cannot have been with this company because it was in liquidation. So just who were you paying? No surprise, you were paying Martin Sontag himself. Your husband told me: 'We always paid him cash as this was his preferred method of payment.' The money was handed over by a family member and you repaid them. When the bad news came about the loss of your possessions, Martin Sontag explained that he told his employees to prepare your belongings to be returned, and on the same day other items that were not yours were to be dumped. The instructions were accidentally reversed. He stressed he had a 'gold plated insurance policy', but his inventory of your possessions was on a corrupted computer drive. You put together your own list, and insurance giant Sedgwick, the company handling the claim on behalf of Axa, offered you £4,700. You asked me, how could you replace the contents of an entire house for £4,700! Armed with your signed authority, I asked Sedgwick for a copy of the policy. It refused, but did tell me that the insurance did not provide 'new for old' replacement cover. And Sedgwick then slashed its offer to just £2,800. But who would pay £200 a month to store goods worth only £2,800? Martin Sontag was more helpful, and gave me a copy of the policy. It was made out to him personally. He also produced his agreement with you, in the name of one of the companies that had ceased to exist. He told me he had bought its customer base. Without realising it, you had been switched from a contract with a company to a cash-in-hand deal with an individual. On the brighter side, Martin Sontag told me the damaged computer had been repaired, but the inventory did not match your own. He said your inventory showed items not on his, and you told me that he had failed to list some items. I explained to Sedgwick that there was no way I could encourage you to accept £2,800. It had to think again, and it did. When you received the new offer, it had rocketed to just under £15,000. Absurdly, it was accompanied by an alleged copy of your storage deal – in the name of the company that folded in 2013. I invited Sedgwick's legal team to explain this. The question was clearly too difficult as they failed to answer. I have discussed the offer with you, so I can now report that you have accepted it. Isn't it amazing that an insurance payout can shoot up by 400 per cent! And, of course, the payment you have accepted lets Sedgwick and Axa off the hook, but Martin Sontag could still be impaled if you feel it falls short. Handing over your worldly goods to a storage firm should not involve sleepless nights, loss of belongings or a lengthy battle for fair payment, yet that is what you faced and you deserve a fair outcome.
Daily Mail
24-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
TONY HETHERINGTON: I was hounded over an £11 road toll in Hungary - which I'd paid!
Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below. J.W. writes: Trace Debt Recovery UK, acting on behalf of Euro Parking Collection, is attempting to fine me £303. The alleged offence is non-payment of a road toll in Hungary, where I was driving my motorhome in 2023. I paid the correct toll of 5,500 Hungarian forints (about £11) at the time, and presented my vehicle registration document to the cashier, but they mistakenly recorded the letter D on the numberplate as a letter P. Tony Hetherington replies: Trace Debt Recovery UK, based in Northampton, sent you a mass-produced threatening letter. Headed 'Final Notice', it warned that if you failed to hand over £303, you could face county court action which might damage your credit rating. What makes me think the letter was mass-produced? Well, it refers to the 'date of the parking charge notice', completely contradicting the allegation that you have an 'outstanding unpaid Hungarian toll roads penalty charge notice'. There's a bit of a difference! I asked the debt collectors to take no action while I contacted their client, Euro Parking Collection (EPC), and they immediately agreed. This was sensible, since you have the receipt proving you paid the toll fee in Hungary, and the mistake was not made by you. Surely EPC would understand? Well, no. It ruled that you were at fault for failing to spot the cashier had got it wrong. Grudgingly it scrapped the demand for £303, but replaced it with a £49 bill – it described this as an 'administrative charge' to alter its records to show the correct registration. It would have been easy for you to give in to any of these threats, but you told me: 'They are bullying people into paying up. Not me! Twenty years in the RAF has given me a thick skin.' EPC told me it was just obeying rules set by its Hungarian client. Fine, I replied, so this is a civil debt case, not a criminal matter. Surely it should be considered in a civil court in Hungary? Or, if EPC believed it could sue you in a UK court, then you could name the cashier and the cashier's employer as witnesses. So I asked EPC to provide their details, and heard back that it was unable to speak on behalf of its client – yet this is exactly what it is doing when it issues demands. On top of this, EPC is a member of the British Parking Association, the trade body which says its members should accept minor keying errors as long as the driver has paid the parking fee. I also reminded EPC that paying the DVLA in Swansea to hand over your name and address did not comply with its data protection rules, where motorists' details 'may not be shared with any organisations based outside the UK'. In a nutshell, the Hungarians lost no money because you'd paid the toll road fee, but they demanded more money because of the mistake made by their own employee. They hired EPC to collect the cash and EPC hired Trace Debt Recovery UK to threaten you. But none of them are a penny richer because you had the guts to stand up to them. Now let our Government explain why it caves in to every attempt to regulate the sharks who inhabit the car park industry. My £1,100 gas bill – for an empty house A.R. writes: My father died in June. I informed British Gas and the electricity supply was put in my name, but the gas account was unchanged for months. In November, I smelled gas. Cadent Gas came and found the meter was leaking, so they changed it and recorded the readings. British Gas then sent me a big bill. Tony Hetherington replies: You told British Gas the house was unoccupied, and it said it would cancel the bill, but two weeks later an even bigger demand arrived. An engineer confirmed the new meter was faulty. However, the bills kept coming, and by the time you contacted me you were facing demands totalling more than £1,100. You were asked for a meter reading from when you moved into the house – but you had never moved in. I asked British Gas to investigate, and staff quickly found that Cadent Gas's meter readings were incorrect. The readings have now been amended to show that you used no gas at all. British Gas was willing to offer you a goodwill gesture of £100 too, but you declined this, telling me that all you wanted was for the demands to be sorted out, and this has now been done.
Daily Mail
10-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
TONY HETHERINGTON: I inherited a £117 BT debt which ruined my credit score
Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below. R.B. writes: According to my credit agency report, I owe BT £117. It says I defaulted on this in 2019 and every month since then, which is having a bad impact on my credit rating. However, this has nothing to do with me. I have called BT about this many times and it agrees, but it does not seem able to remove the default as it does not exist. Tony Hetherington replies: The frustration you have experienced in trying to sort this out was clear from everything you told me. You contacted all the leading credit agencies, but the only response you received was that if there was no such debt, then it was up to BT to delete it. And BT told you it could trace no such debt. You are not even a BT customer, but you offered to pay the £117 just so the debt would disappear. BT refused your money because it could find no bill to set the payment against. I gave BT your current and previous addresses, including an address from years ago when you lived with your parents – and this turned out to be the key. Unknown to you, your mother was a BT customer, and when she died more than seven years ago, the BT account was put into your name. There is no record now of why this was done, or why the account was not closed by BT. Just as importantly, there is no explanation of why BT could not trace any record of the debt when you complained about it, nor why you were never pursued to pay it. BT told me: 'We have reviewed and located the account in question. Our records show an account set up in Mrs B's name in March 2018, which was moved to Mr B in 2018 after she passed away.' BT has cancelled the £117 bill, so it should disappear from your credit file. It offered you £25 by way of saying sorry. This was a silly amount, given that BT failed for years to take your complaints seriously. After having second thoughts, it has upped its offer to £225, which you have accepted. Is this bond offer too good to be true? R.A. writes: I am sending you a copy of an offer to invest in a Lloyds Bank bond yielding fixed interest of 6.50 per cent. Is this too good to be true? Tony Hetherington replies: This is a scam, but Lloyds Bank is not to blame. The offer you received says it came from Worldwide Capital 4U Ltd. Except that it didn't – that's just another part of the scam. The bonds the crooks claim to be selling were actually issued by Lloyds Bank 15 years ago. They are not aimed at ordinary savers. In a nutshell, this is an investment for professionals. Why would Worldwide Capital 4U be working hard to sell these bonds to the public? They do not plan to deliver the bonds. They will take your money and run. The information they sent you is just window dressing. The crooks claim to be authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, with FCA registration number 975509. And, sure enough, the registration exists and it does belong to this company. But the real Worldwide Capital 4U Ltd is an ordinary business based in Solihull in the West Midlands. It does not even have a website. The crooks, though, have a big, flashy website at where they boast about their upmarket offices. Surprising, then, that their website was set up as recently as February this year, with fees paid for just one year. The site is registered to an address in Burlington, Massachusetts, in the US, rather than the address the tricksters use at One Mayfair Place in London, where anyone can have their mail delivered for £133 a month without really being there. I asked John Nolan, who runs the real Worldwide Capital 4U, whether he had a posh office in London and an all-singing, all-dancing website. 'No, we are not in London and we don't have a website,' he told me. 'I think I had better report this to the FCA. This is nothing to do with us,' he added. Let's see whether the FCA investigates or simply adds the scam to its list of dodgy dealers. Meanwhile, nobody should give a penny to the online crooks.
