TONY HETHERINGTON: We were taken for a ride by Vueling
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.
Ms L.C. writes: Our Vueling flight from Manchester to Barcelona was delayed and then cancelled. There was no support or information for over three hours, and Vueling did not answer phone calls. Then it shipped us by coach from Manchester to Gatwick.
We arrived after midnight, and with the replacement flight leaving early next morning, we were sleep deprived. The long delays meant every passenger should have received compensation and food vouchers, but we received neither.
We lost a day of our holiday, including the hotel we had paid for, but Vueling just refuses to acknowledge my claim.
Tony Hetherington replies: Your original flight from Manchester should have left at 2pm and you should have been in your hotel in Spain in good time for early evening drinks. Instead, you and your boyfriend were on a bus heading down the M6 and the M1 on the 225-mile journey to Gatwick.
Flight of fancy: Vueling is owned by the Spanish company IAG, which also owns British Airways
Vueling is owned by the Spanish company IAG, which also owns British Airways. It is the biggest user of Barcelona airport and may well be the largest airline in Spain even though it is less than 20 years old. It is quite openly a budget airline, but this should not mean that it turns its back on passengers when things go wrong.
I contacted Vueling headquarters in Barcelona and asked it to take a look at your claim. Staff there told me they would 'review this case'. Days later, they sent you an email with a link to a compensation claim form which they could, of course, have sent as soon as your flight was cancelled. And soon after you returned the claim form, £219 landed in your bank account from Vueling, with no explanation to show how this had been calculated.
I reminded Vueling that I had invited it to comment on your bad experience, but all I got back was a statement saying: 'The customer service team confirms that the compensation has already been paid to Ms C.' I could almost see the dismissive shrug of the shoulders in Barcelona, as if to wonder why I was bothering Vueling now that it had finally paid up.
So, I made clear that we were going to publish your letter, and this is the statement that Vueling then gave me: 'Due to operational reasons, the flight was cancelled and the passengers were offered hotel accommodation and food vouchers, along with a relocation for the flight from London Gatwick. Transport from Manchester Airport to London Gatwick was also arranged. Vueling has already paid the applicable compensation to the customer and regrets any inconvenience.' It comes close to making it seem that you should be grateful for a lovely trip down the motorway, whether or not you really were offered food vouchers.
Tellingly, Vueling did not even bother to deny that it had ignored all your attempts to make a claim after it failed to provide a flight and instead took you for a ride.
Losing my keys ended in £155 fine
J.T. writes: My wife and I went shopping at Borehamwood Shopping Centre in Hertfordshire. When we returned to our van, we found my keys had been lost or stolen from my pocket.
The centre's security office logged this and said the van could stay until midnight without any problem.
I called out a locksmith to open the van, just in case my keys were inside, but they were not there. Then I got the bus ten miles home, got my spare keys, and removed the van well before midnight.
However, I received a letter from solicitors acting for Highview Parking Limited, demanding £155.
Tony Hetherington replies: Staff at the shopping centre did their best to help you. The security officer logged that your keys were lost so your van could not move, and when you received the demand from the car park company's solicitors, the manager of the shopping centre asked for it to be cancelled but he got nowhere.
By the time I intervened, the original penalty demand had risen from £60 to £155, and you had paid it rather than risk further costs.
Highview Parking is part of a larger business called Group Nexus. I contacted it and was told a penalty notice had been correctly issued before Highview was aware of the circumstances.
It added: 'Unfortunately, there was a delay in the correspondence being dealt with – and in the meantime the collection agent had accepted a settlement from the motorist.'
By the time you read this, your payment will have been refunded.
It is good to see a car park firm showing flexibility and common sense for once.
Mix-up over British Gas meter
J.O. writes: I changed utility supplier, switching to British Gas, but it told me my existing smart meter was not compatible with its system.
It asked me for monthly readings, but the meter is in a box below ground, with the digital panel on the side.
Reading the meter involved lying flat on the ground, rather difficult at age 82.
Tony Hetherington replies: You told me that British Gas did send an engineer who installed a new meter which at least had the reading panel on top.
Unfortunately, British Gas did not seem to know its own engineer had done this, so it rejected all your meter readings and based bills on its own estimates. It even tried to increase your monthly payments from £102 to £199, saying it had no idea how much gas you were really using. You complained, but were simply told to contact the Ombudsman. I asked staff at British Gas to look into this. Within five days, it had updated its records to accept readings from your new meter. Your direct debits have been confirmed at £102 a month, not £199. Your account has been corrected to show the right gas consumption. And British Gas agreed a £100 payment to you by way of saying sorry.
WE'RE WATCHING YOU
Scam: One of the art works marketed by S&P
More than 60 investors who between them poured millions of pounds into scam art investment company Smith & Partner Limited have now filed reports to Action Fraud, calling for the police to launch an investigation.
The company used 'Wolf Of Wall Street' telephone sales teams to market prints at hugely inflated prices with false claims about the profits to be made.
An estimated 2,000 investors believed their money was safe because Smith & Partner claimed to belong to the respected Fine Art Trade Guild while in fact it had been expelled for unethical conduct.
I reported last month that Smith & Partner's owner Michael Conway had decided to put the company into liquidation. However, it still appears to be trading, operating a follow-up 'recovery room' swindle in which existing victims have been rung up and told a buyer has been found for all their prints, on condition the victim first purchases even more prints for up to £50,000.
But one big investor smelled a rat. He refused to give his credit card details and said he would only pay by bank transfer, to be certain who received his money. The Smith & Partner caller turned nasty, telling the investor: 'Go f*** yourself. Good luck getting your hundred grand back, mate.'
Liquidators Carter Clark were alerted to this as they have already warned the London-based art company against running up fresh liabilities, but they failed to comment. The Insolvency Service – which I revealed two weeks ago has been looking into Smith & Partner – also failed to comment, as did the company's boss Michael Conway.
If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email [email protected]. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.