Really strange error & now mum owes thousands- help

[Helpmymum]

I'll try and keep this as simple as possible, I'm just seeing if anyone has any advice or insight into how this might play out before we start contacting people tomorrow.

My elderly, widowed & (totally alone for the past year 😪) mother got a letter late Friday afternoon which was spent special delivery from a pension company. In short, it said that she took a bond out 20 years ago which was cashed in 15 years ago and her account was closed, she was no longer a customer. They then said that they are really sorry but they have just discovered during an audit that they had mistakenly used her bank account details with another bond for another customer and she has been receiving a monthly payment for the last 20 years in error. This amounts to an awful lot of money, tens of thousands of pounds. And it needs to be repaid. We have checked and she has been receiving the payment in her account.

She was widowed a long time ago and when my father died, my sister and I where both toddlers and so she employed a financial advisor to deal with the finances, obviosuly to eliviate the stress. She is not wealthy by any means, she owns a modest house (which was paid for by my dad's life insurance policy), has a small amount of savings (which is with the financial advisor invested in whatever he thinks) and collects her pension.

I can understand why she wouldn't question this money going in as she just left everything to the financial advisor, he obviously opened the bond and cashed it out and payments of this nature were expected/ perfectly normal.

After receiving the letter, my sister immediately called the financial advisor who said he had never dealt with anything like this before and was working from home, he would need to go into the office on Monday morning to have a look at the records. My sister then called the company in question, it's a large, well known company so she didn't take the number from the letter just incase it was a scam and found the number from Google. She called and a person in the company could not find any record of this or the letter having been sent out, however she did say she wasn't part of the relevant department and the person who's signature was on the letter did infact work there. It was so late on Friday afternoon, there was no one there who could help or knew anymore.

My poor mum has been in an absolute state all weekend, she's thinking she is going to have to sell her house to pay this back. I think technically she does owe the money as we can see she has recieved it. Does anyone have any idea of what might happen?

First thing tomorrow is a call to citizens advice and legal advice, obviosuly talk to the financial advisor and the company in question too.

I think I'm just asking if anyone knows what we might be in for here?

Thanks

Post this on Martin Lewis's forum, they knew everything there!

I'd say that it was their mistake - it seems strange that they've only just noticed after 15 years.

Worth seeking legal advice just to be certain.

I had an incident a couple of years ago when I had POA for a relative. I wrote to every company they'd had any funds with and advised them of relatives' death. Insurance company decided 8 months later that they had overpaid relative and wanted their money back. I got back to them to tell them that I had informed them of relatives' death over 8 months ago, and that if they did want the money back then they'd have to accept a payment plan as the account (which had little in it) had been closed in the absence of any responses within 6 months of initial advice.
They responded again saying they wanted their money - but another 6 months later. I replied to say that as it had taken them a year I could pay them back in monthly instalments over a year. Haven't heard anything from them since.

FWIW, the company I was dealing with are a relatively large company and had in the past made a number of errors with payments. I'm sure my £100 would have made a massive difference to them!

@SoMuchBadInfo. Thanks for answering my question. This must be very stressful for the OP and her Mother, I hope they manage to sort it out sooner rather than later.
I hope that the company write the money off.

Imo write to them explaining this was their error, the money has been spent and your mother is not in a position to return it.

Someone asked earlier how the bank would have found out your mother’s bank details? It was more than likely an admin error. These things happen. Bonds are usually long term, therefore this coming to light after fifteen years is credible.

The bank will try their hardest to recover this money. They will send legal letters. You need to engage a solicitor. The best outcome, that your solicitor will fight for on your behalf, is that the funds paid into your mother’s account will be written off in full.

“In short, it said that she took a bond out 20 years ago which was cashed in 15 years ago and her account was closed, she was no longer a customer. They then said that they are really sorry but they have just discovered during an audit that they had mistakenly used her bank account details with another bond for another customer and she has been receiving a monthly payment for the last 20 years in error. “

It does sound like a scam, if she closed it 5 years ago, and had been receiving money incorrectly for 20 years. Surely that would have shown up when it was sold.
Companies have to do audits every year, so how come it wasn’t found before? It’s very plausible, but I would be very suspicious of it as there’s too many things that would have been found out earlier, and follow some of the earlier advice about who to got to for advice.
An earlier poster is right, scammers are very good at getting the right logos, phone numbers and names and making it look right to frighten people into paying money without further investigation. I’m sorry for your mother, I hope she’s not too frightened by it.
Good luck.

This kind of error is very common in banking. People who think audits pick all this stuff up are dreaming. An audit checks a tiny % of items. Banks have targets to reduce errors like this - none of them have targets to eliminate them. Things gets better with digital improvements but will not be perfect whenever there is a point of manual intervention (eg when someone typed into a system).

Just thought I would update incase anyone has invested. We recieved an email from the lady who was mentioned on the first letter asking questions about mums opinion on what had happened. It mentioned that they were sorry for the upset caused and they would like to discuss what is an affordable repayment. The email wasn't written very well, I expect it was done in haste without much care. We have replied with what the solicitor friend suggested and ignored all her questions. So far, no reply. When we get one and if it seems serious, I'll look to instruct a commercial litigation lawyer. Thanks again for all opinions and advice.

Also thanks to the people who have asked after my mum. She is still frightend to death, not eating or sleeping properly so this part is actually more worrying than the problem itself 😭

Your poor Mum.

Maybe you should name this careless company?

Omg! If this is legitimate - and I would need cast iron confirmation and evidence of that - surely this large institution can either look to their insurance or write it off. It is not a big amount to them, and they should not be pursuing a vulnerable older person. It's their error, after all

Good luck to your mum. Hope it gets sorted and she's ok.

We recieved an email from the lady who was mentioned on the first letter asking questions about mums opinion on what had happened. It mentioned that they were sorry for the upset caused and they would like to discuss what is an affordable repayment. The email wasn't written very well, I expect it was done in haste without much care.

Through this thread I’ve been in two minds as to whether this is genuine. It could well be genuine, such things certainly happen; but equally a reasonable scammer could find details such as names, addresses and a convincing logo.

The fact you said the letter is poorly written does raise question marks over authenticity as does the fact that they’re asking questions of her opinion of what happened.

The first thing is to establish whether the letter is genuine. That can be achieved by sending a copy to the pension company head of customer services and asking them to authenticate it.

The fact you said the letter is poorly written does raise question marks over authenticity as does the fact that they’re asking questions of her opinion of what happened.

It was also a once off letter written by an office worker. It’s easier to write more professional letters when it’s copy and paste and the same general queries.

Asking your mother’s opinion as to what happened is strange and they are possibly trying to get something in writing that suggests your mother was complicit in fraud. That suggests to me they are grasping at straws.

Keep corresponding via your solicitor.
Hope your mother is ok.

Customer service workers in standard pension companies can generally write reasonable letters on their own, it’s part of the job.

@TatianaBis

We recieved an email from the lady who was mentioned on the first letter asking questions about mums opinion on what had happened. It mentioned that they were sorry for the upset caused and they would like to discuss what is an affordable repayment. The email wasn't written very well, I expect it was done in haste without much care.

Through this thread I’ve been in two minds as to whether this is genuine. It could well be genuine, such things certainly happen; but equally a reasonable scammer could find details such as names, addresses and a convincing logo.

The fact you said the letter is poorly written does raise question marks over authenticity as does the fact that they’re asking questions of her opinion of what happened.

The first thing is to establish whether the letter is genuine. That can be achieved by sending a copy to the pension company head of customer services and asking them to authenticate it.

Maybe you don't see a lot of "official" type letters. They are often poorly written due to the general lowering of literacy standards across the board and in this case there being no template for an unusual situation. If you read the OP's posts it's quite clear that this is a genuine issue.

Of course they will ask the mum what she thinks happened, they need all the info they can as it happened so many years ago.

Mistakes happen all the time, I once received a speeding ticket for an offence in a place I'd never been to and it turned out that someone somewhere along the line had mixed up two records. You wouldn't think it would happen but it does.

Maybe you don't see a lot of "official" type letters.

?? I’m 50 years old how would I have avoided a lifetime of them?

I don’t disagree about general standards of literacy, but I have PoA for one parent and deal with all his financial affairs including all his pensions, investments etc so I’m familiar the style.

I have read OP’s posts, and at this point it is still unclear if this issue is genuine.

Customer service workers in standard pension companies can generally write reasonable letters on their own, it’s part of the job

You’d be surprised. I’ve quite a bit of experience in this area. Ive seen many ex colleague’s letters that should never have been issued.

I doubt this is a scam, they know too much but I suspect this is their fault and that they would struggle to get this back by legal means so they are trying their luck, would absolutely not budge. If you can get a legal opinion that you don't need to pay I'd share that with them, or allude to it. If they realise it's going to be a lot of hard work and they aren't going to intimidate you, and you know your rights, they may just decide it's not worth the bother.

An email on a matter like this would have to be quite carefully worded due to the legal implications. I’d be surprised if customer service agents are just whacking out emails directly to the mother without a paper trail asking her to incriminate herself. If this gets referred to the FOS in the first instance, let alone goes to law, all the correspondence will be gathered and will reflect on the company as well as the case.

Now it may be that my own pensions, DH’s and my father’s are with more reputable companies. Perhaps this company is just really shit. But there are enough question marks here to direct me first to establish authenticity.

@TatianaBis

Maybe you don't see a lot of "official" type letters.

?? I’m 50 years old how would I have avoided a lifetime of them?

I don’t disagree about general standards of literacy, but I have PoA for one parent and deal with all his financial affairs including all his pensions, investments etc so I’m familiar the style.

I have read OP’s posts, and at this point it is still unclear if this issue is genuine.

Clearly my magic powers are failing

How on earth does anyone know how old you are

It's clearly not a scam unless it involves a scammer somehow stealing all the information from the bond company and then also managing to divert the telephone number that the OP got from google to themselves or hacking the website of the bond company and changing the phone number to their fake one.

The phone number on the letter was the same number the sister got from google - so easily available. The customer service agent the sister spoke to said there was no record of the letter on the system. She merely confirmed that a woman of that name worked there. The OP rightly questions why, when the overpayments stopped 6 months ago, it has taken so long to contact her mother.

It sort of might add up but doesn’t 100% which is why I suggested getting official written confirmation from the company.

@TatianaBis

The phone number on the letter was the same number the sister got from google - so easily available. The customer service agent the sister spoke to said there was no record of the letter on the system. She merely confirmed that a woman of that name worked there. The OP rightly questions why, when the overpayments stopped 6 months ago, it has taken so long to contact her mother.

It sort of might add up but doesn’t 100% which is why I suggested getting official written confirmation from the company.

But they rang the number that appears on google and on the company's website, how would that number have been intercepted by the scammers to continue the scam?

Tatiana that’s what happened when the OP first rang the company but OP later confirmed she had rung back and spoken to the person who wrote the letter.

Regarding it being a scam or not, I'm almost 100% convinced it isn't. Like a few people have pointed out, we contacted the company from the official telephone number on their website and left a message, this message was then directly replied to via email from the person mentioned on the letter (who weve established does work there) and the email came from an official email address of the company. I have also spoken with the FCA who regulate the company and confirmed the number was genuine. Mum has also recieved the payments, with the reference on her statements being that company. So although I would usually be skeptical about such an unusual situation I just can't fathom how it could be a scam 🤷‍♀️.