Tesco Bank said my car had hit a taxi and doubled my premium… despite it being safely parked at the airport: SALLY RECORDS IT

Tesco Bank have more than doubled my car insurance renewal premium because there is a claim outstanding on the policy which has damaged my no claims bonus. However I have not made a claim. Many months ago Tesco Bank emailed me to say that my car had damaged another vehicle on 1st November 2023. I replied that it could not have been me as I was on holiday and my car was in a secure airport car park. I thought this had been resolved but clearly it had not. My premium has gone up from £315 to £734.

General Practitioner, West Dereham, Norfolk

Sally Hamilton responds: Tesco Bank originally agreed that you had been the victim of mistaken identity and told you not to worry. I asked Tesco Bank to investigate and a few days later they confirmed that, contrary to your understanding, the claim against you was still outstanding. This had the knock-on effect of causing your renewal quote to increase dramatically.

You were rightly outraged, as you were the innocent party, relaxing on holiday in Morocco, with your car parked at Luton Airport, when the incident occurred at Paddington train station in central London.

According to Tesco, the damaged car was a taxi, which was hit when the driver of the mystery car opened the door.

Tesco told me that they had tried to speak to the insurer of the damaged taxi to explain the situation, but had not been able to get a response.

At first I wondered if you had been a victim of license plate cloning. This is when a fraudster copies another car’s license plate and attaches it to a vehicle, which he then drives around as recklessly as he pleases, avoiding traffic fines and insurance claims.

But Tesco thinks otherwise. The company believes the claimant wrote down an incorrect registration number after the incident — perhaps just a single letter or number — an error Tesco says is common.

I have tried to contact the company that is managing the claim on behalf of the third party – credit hire organisation Drive Car Hire of Ilford Essex. However I have not received a response.

Tesco says it has also been met with stony silence. However, it has changed its mind about your case and offered you a reduced renewal premium of £463, which you have accepted. It has also reinstated your no-claims bonus. A spokesperson says: ‘Although the correct process was followed, we feel we could have done more to explain this to GP. We have offered £40 compensation for the inconvenience.’

My accountant has filed my self-assessment tax return for the 2022-2023 tax year, including £157.50 in Class 2 Voluntary National Insurance Contributions, which I was required to pay in order to receive the maximum State Pension. I sent a cheque for the full amount requested and also enclosed the payment slip provided by HMRC. The cheque was cashed and the money debited from my bank account on 4th January. I had started receiving my State Pension in November last year and was expecting a retrospective increase once the NI payment had been received. Instead, to my horror, I received a letter dated 6th February accusing me of not paying my income tax and telling me that it is now too late to top up my State Pension by making Class 2 NI contributions. I have tried to clear up the mess but to no avail. Please help.

BK, Surrey

Sally answers: You told me that upon receipt of this disturbing letter from HMRC your accountant took up the cudgels for you. His enquiries revealed that your payment had been allocated to a general Revenue account, even though your payment had been sent with the relevant payment form.

The HMRC employee he spoke to on the phone assured him that everything would be sorted and that your retrospective pension increase would be applied by 11th March.

Nothing happened. Your accountant went back to work and discovered that the entire amount – both your income tax bill and the £157.50 NI contribution – had been credited to your income tax account. As a result, your NI contribution had not been applied to your NI account.

You contacted HMRC yourself and after two hours of listening to hold music and being transferred from one department to another, you finally got through to a manager. He apologised and explained that the misdirected part of your payment could only be transferred manually from your tax account to your NI account and that he would personally initiate this at the end of the call. You were dismayed to be told that this could take several weeks to process but decided to leave it alone.

But then things went wrong when you received a letter from HMRC, dated 11th June, demanding £61 for late payment of income tax. After frantic phone calls it transpired that your entire income tax payment had been wrongly transferred to your NI account. This had resulted in an unpaid income tax penalty. Good heavens.

Frustration had already set in, but when you were told that it could take until August before the problem was resolved, it was the end of the exercise and you came to me.

I asked the Inland Revenue to speed up the resolution of this second payment confusion, so that you and your accountant can spend less time on the phone trying to sort it out — and more time enjoying your retirement with the right level of state pension. I’m pleased to say that within two weeks your nightmare was finally over. As an apology for their blunders, HMRC paid you £200.

A spokesman for HMRC said: ‘We are very sorry for the difficulties BK has faced. We have written to him to apologise, confirm that his details are now correct and that all penalties and interest have been cancelled.’

Your problem arose simply because you wanted to catch up on some missing NI contributions. People do this every year to increase their State Pension entitlement. To receive the full amount (currently £221.20 a week), you must have contributed for at least 35 years. Details can be found at gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record. Gaps can occur, for example if you have lived abroad, have a very low income, are self-employed and make little profit, or are unemployed and not claiming benefits. People on benefits can usually earn contribution credits even if they are not working.

Class 2 contributions are a fixed amount paid by the self-employed, while Class 3 is designed to plug gaps. Both can be paid voluntarily up to six tax years after the gap has occurred.

Before you decide to plug the gaps, it’s best to request a State Pension forecast at gov.uk/check-state-pension or fill in a BR19 application form. Normally, people can only go back six years. But with the switch from the old State Pension to the current flat-rate scheme, anyone with a shortfall between 2006 and 2016 has until 5 April 2025 to consider whether they want to pay for the missing years.

• Write to Sally Hamilton at Sally Sorts It, Money Mail, 9 Derry Street, London, W8 5HY or email sally@dailymail.co.uk — include your telephone number, address and a note addressed to the offending organisation giving permission to speak to Sally Hamilton. Please do not send original documents as we cannot accept responsibility for them. The Ny Breaking cannot accept legal responsibility for the answers given.

Straight to the point

Microsoft have been taking small amounts like £6.99 from my bank account for 18 months. I have asked NatWest to stop but since then another £6.99 has been taken. I have changed my debit card three times but it keeps happening.

YES, via email.

Sally answers: Microsoft has given you a refund and says you were charged for someone else’s account. That account has now been flagged as fraudulent. NatWest says it has raised the issue with Microsoft and has offered you a new card.

In April I was supposed to fly to Bali with Emirates for my stepdaughter’s wedding, but my flight was cancelled. My stepdaughter booked me on another flight that left a few days later. However, when I landed in Dubai for my layover, I was told that my connecting flight to Bali had already left and that I would have to fly the next day. I missed the wedding and have not received any compensation.

YOU, via email.

Emirates has offered you £520 in compensation, which you intend to use for a well-earned holiday.

I took out a loan to buy my car and pay monthly, but last week bailiffs tried to seize the car. The lender says I missed two payments, but my online banking shows I paid them. The company has now terminated my lease.

Cb, Cambridgeshire.

The company apologizes and has reactivated the contract and your account. Payments have also been resumed.

In June my boyfriend and I were delayed for 11 hours on a Ryanair flight. We spent £40 each on food and drink at the airport but didn’t keep the receipts. I sent Ryanair screenshots of the transactions via my banking app but I haven’t gotten any money back.

PA, London.

Unfortunately, Ryanair is not budging, saying that banking apps are not official receipts, which it needs to pay out. However, it says that affected passengers were given refreshment vouchers while they waited.

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