SALLY SORTS IT: I feel my late spouse has received £7,000 prize

Dear Sally

My wife used to buy clothing from the mail order retailer Afibel. She died in April last year, but sales brochures and letters continued to arrive for her by post. I returned them all, marking them ‘customer deceased’, but they didn’t stop.

In the November brochure there was an announcement that Afibel was still seeking the winner of a £7,000 cash prize. At this I point I wrote a further letter informing them of my wife’s death and asked them to stop sending sales literature and to cross her name out of their mailing list.

The mailings continued and this month included a reminder to my wife that she was still in line to win the prize.

B.P., Torquay, Devon

Sally Hamilton replies: You were naturally upset that you were still receiving mailings for your late wife even though you were sure you’d cancelled them. Your distress was heightened when you believed she had been selected as the winner of the company’s £7,000 prize draw.

Your reading of one mailshot suggested the prize could potentially be secured by ordering more goods. Most of the products sold by Afibel are women’s clothing, but you scoured the pages and found everyday items such as black bin bags and kitchen equipment you could make use of. You placed an order.

You received the goods, but no other comment from Afibel. And still the monthly mailings came for your wife, including reminders she was eligible to win.

You asked me to step in to help put an end to your misery and clear up the matter of the £7,000 prize. You are 90 years old and can do without the hassle.

Contacting Afibel, a French firm with operations in the UK, wasn’t straightforward. I eventually found out another French company, Damart (which once owned Afibel but no longer) runs its customer operations, though the two teams work independently.

On investigation, customer service found your wife’s Afibel account had not been flagged as ‘opted out’ to receive further correspondence, but they remedied this soon after I made contact.

At the same time, it emerged that your wife also had an account with Damart, to which you had also returned mailings. This account had been successfully marked as ‘opted out’.

It may be the case that your returned brochures and letters regarding Afibel may have also gone to Damart in error, and these were not passed on.

As for the elusive £7,000 prize, I’m afraid this is just a marketing ruse and your wife was not the winner. The eye-catching sum was the top prize in one of the company’s regular draws. Such draws are designed to encourage customers to make purchases as only those who do so are in with a chance of winning. According to the Gambling Commission, it is perfectly legal for companies to run draws like this, so long as prices on items for sale are not increased before, during or after the promotion, or inferior products offered during the period.

Anyone who makes an order with Afibel is entered into a draw if there is one on offer – and your bin bag purchase made you eligible for the ‘grand prize draw’ with a top prize of £7,000, drawn at the end of May.

Unfortunately, your name was not drawn, Afibel confirmed.

Afibel apologised for the upset caused by the mailshots and sent you £50 as a goodwill gesture.

As for the prize draw confusion, I can understand your frustration. You thought your late wife’s name had been drawn and you needed to purchase something to claim the prize. But the mailing – which I’ve seen – simply said ‘the search is on for the first prize winner of £7,000’, with further instructions on how to take part in the draw.

I would urge anyone tempted to enter a draw like this not to be dazzled into buying items just in the hope of being a winner of the headline prize. Only make a purchase if you would do so were there no prize draw – then there is nothing lost if you don’t win.

I am having problems purchasing an annuity from Legal & General (L&G).

I received a quote from L&G via my financial adviser in February. My completed application forms were sent to L&G later that month. I was told it takes five to 10 days to process the application, and the annuity would go live six to eight weeks later.

More than 14 weeks have passed, and I still have not had a final agreement. Please can you help.

E.O., Southampton

Sally Hamilton replies: It should normally take about a month to organise an annuity, but something has obviously gone wrong somewhere with your application.

You wanted to move funds from two small Scottish Widows pensions and a much larger Aegon pension plan to L&G in order to purchase an annuity with the combined funds. L&G was offering you an annuity rate of more than 8.5pc.

Admittedly, applications are more complex when there is more than one pension pot to be combined, but it still shouldn’t take as long as it did.

Insurers put an expiry date on quotes, which is 45 days for L&G but can be shorter with other providers. You were naturally worried that you might miss out on this attractive deal. Indeed, by May the rate fell to below 8.5pc.

The funds from your Scottish Widows plans sailed through the process and landed safely in the middle of March, but the Aegon money appeared stuck.

After waiting many more weeks, you chased things up and found out the Aegon funds had arrived with L&G in mid-April, but nothing had been done with them.

Another hiccup came when the quote on what percentage you might get from your annuity failed to include one of your Scottish Widows plans.

You began to worry as annuity rates were starting to fall further. However, while all this was going on you were diagnosed with high blood pressure and high cholesterol. These conditions can be taken into consideration by annuity providers to offer an enhanced rate. You asked for your conditions to be considered.

In June when you chased again you found your request had not yet been taken into account and your annuity rate had still not been established.

I contacted L&G to ask it to pull its finger out and get your annuity in place so you could get on with your retirement plans.

I am pleased to report that a few days later the job was finally done. L&G blamed the delays on ‘technical issues’ on its side and some back and forth with your adviser.

But it came up trumps in the end with a final rate of 8.62pc, which took into account your recently diagnosed medical issues. The enhancement means £112 a month extra pension for you and payment has been backdated to April.

A Legal & General spokesman says: ‘We are sorry for the delay in setting up E.O.’s. annuity. We appreciate this caused additional stress and have paid £750 to apologise for this. Her annuity is now up and running and we have covered the £1,371.24 in missed income plus 8pc interest.’