Refund by cheque

I don't get it. Most companies in the UK are globally aware, and when I contacted them to say I was closing my account and leaving the country, not one of them had a problem changing my address to a non-UK one.

Most companies did a refund of any credit owing to me by refunding directly to my bank account. This is what I expect - I pay via a bank transfer or direct debit; I expect a refund the same way.

But Merton Council, and BT, just have to be difficult. They won't refund directly. Merton wanted to send a refund cheque, to my OLD address, within 28 DAYS after I left! How does that make sense?! BT, at least, are posting the cheque to my new SA address; but that doesn't help. To deposit a foreign cheque here will cost me more than the cheque is worth!

I've arranged with a friend that he'll accept and deposit the Merton cheque for me; I guess if I can stop BT from sending the cheque here in time, and I can get them to send it to him instead, he can deposit that one for me too. But if I can't stop them, they'll have wasted postage sending it here, and I'll then have to post it back there to him. What a monumental waste of time.

Really, get with the 21st century. If I pay by cheque, refund by cheque. But if I pay electronically, refund electronically - especially if I'm in a different country, for pete's sake!

Update: So I thought it was easy to cancel all my UK accounts when I left, but it turns out I was mistaken. Apart from the issues above, British Gas thinks my electricity account is still active, and is still taking payments from my bank account (even though it was cancelled in the same call as my gas account, and that was cancelled) - they now want me to phone them to cancel my account, which I refuse to do since it will cost an absolute fortune from here in SA. They have a facility to cancel your account online, but firstly they want 3 years worth of UK addresses (why!? and I only have one year's worth), and secondly they won't accept non-UK addresses as the new address. So I can't use it.

Tiscali is still taking money from my bank account, even though my account has been cancelled - in fact, they sent me an email saying that I can view my final bill online, but then said that I can't login since my account's been cancelled.

British Gas has made a huge mistake with my gas bill, since their previous estimate of my usage was about 5 times higher than my normal (and actual) usage, and they then ignored my final reading and based my final bill on an (even higher) estimate! And they've ignored my last two emails asking them to look into it.

So it looks like the UK is just as screwed up as SA :(

Update: It's about a week since my last update, and I continue to be amazed by the sheer incompetence of British companies.

BT, after all that, sent the cheque to my SA address.

Tiscali still hasn't replied to me.

Merton Council tax department has emailed me to ask if I want the cheque sent to the address on the refund form, or my bank. This is over a month since I sent the form in, and I thought it had been processed and the cheque posted already!

British Gas is still ignoring my query about the incorrect charges on my gas bill.

British Gas is ignoring my email about cancelling my account. I tried to cancel online, but firstly, they want 3 years worth of valid UK addresses. If I fudge that, they want my new address to be a valid UK address. If I get around that, it doesn't accept my 12 digit account number - it wants a 10 digit number. If I arbitrarily leave out 2 numbers, it asks me to acknowledge that I'm applying for a new account (when what I'm trying to do is cancel an old account). Absolutlely pathetic, and as I say they're just ignoring me now via email.

This is what I find most frustrating with UK companies - if they think you're being too persistent, or too annoying, or too awkward, they just ignore you.

And it's so annoying because I tried so hard to do everything right. I knew it would be difficult to sort things out from SA, so I cancelled everything and sorted everything out before I left. You don't expect to have to cancel your electricity account, and then phone back to check that it was cancelled. You expect that when you cancel your telephone account, they'll tell you there and then if they can only process refunds by cheque. You don't expect to get home and then have endless hassles! The only company that I haven't had a problem with is TMobile (yet); and my tax refund came through fast and without a problem, which was amazing. But everything else just sucks!


Update: Hmm, looks like I haven't updated for a while. Pretty much everyone got sorted, except Tiscali and British Gas for gas.

After complaining to EnergyWatch, and only a couple of days short of the Energy Ombudsman deadline, British Gas deposited a refund into my account. No letter or email from them, just money in my account. But who cares, at least I got my money!

Now I'm fighting with Tiscali. Actually, I'm so angry with them I can't put it into words. Expect a post about it tomorrow or the next day - I'll link to it from here.