The Lemon Fool

My Mum had a funeral plan for approximately £4K. She died in December 2021.

The plan was with a respected national company (company A) who paid the fund to a large national funeral company (company B).

Long story - short version. I tackled company B about a refund. I was eventually refunded £2K.

This post isn't about me though.

I have spoken to the CEO at company A and raised my concerns about company B. Company A's terms and conditions allow the deceased's executors to ask for a full refund of the monies. Company B do not mention this at all when speaking with their customers. During Covid company B have not been able to deliver services in accordance with the "funeral plan". They have not issued partial refunds for the services they have not provided.

Company A's CEO has met with Company B. Going forward changes are being implemented. Top most of which is that all customers will now be informed of their option for a full refund.

I am pleased with myself after that result.

However, Company A & B are not willing to go back over the last two years of Covid and contact those people who should have been given "partial refunds" for services not rendered. My lower estimates are that approximately £15 million has not been returned to customers for services not rendered due to Covid. The upper estimate is substantially more.

Company B have remained silent regarding this issue. I would like company B to be challenged in this regard.

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to move this forward please?

I can't get hold of trading standards - they can only be contacted by Citizens Advice

AiY(D)

Certainly start with Social Media posts and a "please share/retweet" request in them, and include where possible the handles of the companies involved

( I appreciate this isn't a legal based suggestion of course!)

Social media is good (and bad) at doing this sort of thing but you have to name names and be prepared to support your claim.

BBC Money Box would be good exposure. Also the finance editors of all the major newspapers.

Gerry557 wrote:Social media is good (and bad) at doing this sort of thing but you have to name names and be prepared to support your claim.

I have irrefutable proof in writing of the "oversight" in several documents. I look after construction company contracts so have some transferable skills into the consumer market. However, I'm not so stupid as to believe I am excellent in this area. I have also reviewed various acts of parliament and feel I have found some [possibly vague - I don't know] areas where company B have denied consumers their statutory rights. However, that they are now moving forward with substantial changes does add some weight to my convictions.

These are two large national companies. The CEO of company A informed me that, given the size of their business and the numbers involved there were only two companies they could really deal with. Is that enough for me to talk to the Competition & Markets Authority? I have no proof either way but company A may feel it is too close to company B to be able to leverage it to review it's trading during Covid. Company A really only have two companies available to them that can handle the volume of their business.

I've also thought about the ombudsman but really don't know if this body could challenge company B to go over it's last two years business during Covid?

AiY(D)

This sounds right up the street of the morning BBC consumer program 'Rip Off Britain'.

You can contact them at https://www.bbc.co.uk/send/u19921092?pt ... s/b00wck32

Paul