Your consumer questions answered

Perplexed at owing Irish tax on a UK bank account

JANET FROM Cork lived in the UK for more than 10 years and, while she was there, she had many different types of bank accounts – as you might expect – including a current account, a mortgage and a number of credit cards.

“I opened a credit-card account with Mint (a Royal Bank of Scotland company) on August 3rd, 2006. I was in credit for most of this account’s life and the card was rarely used.

“I moved addresses while in the UK and subsequently changed the UK addresses with the card,” she writes.

Eventually, she moved back to Ireland, and as the card was £5 in credit, did not take much notice of it. It was not used for four or five years. “There was no activity on the card while I lived in Ireland.

“After I moved to Ireland, I did eventually close the account. I admit I was slow to close it as it was not high on my list of priorities.

“In November 2011, I wrote to Mint closing the account as I was settling into Ireland and the prospect of returning to the UK grew more and more remote.”

As the account was in credit they asked her for a new address so they could send her the money owed to her. So far, so good.

Then, in February, she got a letter from Mint saying she owed an Irish Government tax on the account.

“I told them it had been closed since November 2011. I am now being told that I owe about £51 on my closed account in fines and fees on the unpaid Irish Government tax.

“I have also been told that my credit rating in the UK has been affected and that, due to a backlog at the collections care teams office, my case will not be investigated for at least a month and I will continue to receive letters from Mint telling me to pay the fines and fees on my closed account.

“I have been given a PO box to send a letter of complaint to. Mint will not give an email or a name to write to.

“I have received six letters since the end of February reminding me of my debt on my closed account, and one letter from the credit-card operations team stating that if they haven’t solved the problem by April 16th, they “will be in touch to let me know what is happening”.

“How can I owe money on an account that has been closed for over five months, and how can a closed account accrue an Irish Government tax charge three months after it was closed?

“This is not an overseas account, it is a domestic sterling account. Meanwhile, the fees and fine increase on my closed account and my good credit standing is being affected.”

As a resident of the Republic of Ireland, Janet is liable for stamp duty on the card despite the fact that it was issued in another country. Given that it took a number of years for her to cancel the card, it is likely she is being hit with stamp duty for 2010 and 2009 but not the duty owed last year. The tax is collected on April 1st in arrears unless the account is closed during the year.

Paying a hefty price for car insurance for over-70s

RICHARD HOLTKOTT contacted us with a “grievance about motor insurance for the 70+ age group” that seems entirely valid to us.

“Having passed that mark already three years ago,” he writes, “I found out this year that only a 20 per cent increase in the premium would cover me now despite having had no claims for 30 years, no penalty points, doing less than 10,000km per year and my spouse [dedicated driver] having the same positive record.

“If that is not unwarranted age discrimination, I don’t know what is. Why it suddenly got so much more expensive I cannot explain – perhaps they don’t want older drivers at all?

“To my knowledge the young drivers are much more prone to accidents so why the extra high premium for the ‘oldies’? It is getting unaffordable.”

Holtkott says he has heard that Aviva, the company he is with, is the only company insuring older people (at a steep price). It would mean only use public transport could be used in the future

“What about areas in which public transport does not exist? The over-70 brigade has to get a medical cert to make sure they are not a danger to the public when driving, however the insurance company does not take any notice.

“It looks very much like a monopoly to me and might be a case for the involvement of the Consumer Protection Agency.”

Bouquet let-down by Interflora

A READER CALLED Gordon got in touch because he wanted to share his experience with Interflora with readers. He says he had “a very frustrating and disappointing experience with the company and their customer service team” on the weekend of Mother’s Day.

“Late Saturday morning, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my mother for Mother’s Day online with Interflora,” Gordon writes. “I’ve used their service a couple of times before and found it pretty good, so decided to use this company again. I completed the order online and instructed that the delivery happen March 18th, the following day.”

His order was accepted and confirmed and saying he wanted delivery on the 18th saw him having to pay a €14 supplementary delivery charge to ensure the flowers arrived on this day.

“Early Sunday Afternoon, I called home to see if the flowers had arrived only to be told that they had not. Before calling Interflora, I checked my emails and found that an email had been sent to me quite early on Sunday morning informing me that my order could not be fulfilled,” he says.

“I just want to point out how unacceptable this is on what is, most likely, the companies busiest day of the year. If they do not have the delivery people available to fulfill the orders, then surely they have an obligation not to confirm the order in the first place and certainly not to charge €14 to ‘ensure’ delivery on that day. Additionally, given that I only submitted my order the day before the delivery was due, surely the company knew at this point that they had taken too many orders for the day in question,” he says.

More infants getting in on the tap-to-sign-up craze

STILL MORE on premium rate telephone services. Nessa Walsh read a piece we had last week about the ease with which a child could inadvertently sign up for such a “service” and realised she had received an identical text last week.

“I remembered I hadn’t done anything about it . . . I have just followed instructions and unsubscribed to ‘Shock TV (over 18s only)’ whatever that is. I too have a horrible feeling it was my three-year-old who must have ‘agreed’ to a contract while tapping/playing a shape-moving game I had downloaded.”