Paying the price for borrowing less

My elderly father repaid part of the capital on an HSBC personal loan. The bank told him there would be no charges or penalties but then terminated the original loan and transferred the balance to a new agreement at a higher APR. He doesn't want to fuss, but I think this is wrong.
PL
London

Your father understood that personal loans cannot be partly repaid but assumed setting up a new one was a technicality. However, there are always penalties for cancelling personal loans and, as he would be borrowing less, the interest rate was higher. HSBC says it explained and your father was happy about it.

It seems unlikely to me that he would agree to a more expensive deal when his intention was to save money. As a gesture of goodwill, HSBC will refund the cancellation penalty, cancel the second loan of £9,000 at 11.9 per cent and create a new one at the old rate of 8.9 per cent.

£3,000 charge for spent debt


In July last year, I was over my £500 credit limit on my Student Barclaycard. Mercers Debt Collection called and I paid the £523 balance. The following month, Mercers and Barclaycard demanded £523 again.

Mercers admitted the money had been credited to someone else's account in error. I kept phoning but now I owe £3,000 with a default notice on my credit record.
AR
Middlesbrough

Barclaycard traced your missing payment but made the wrong adjustment which increased the amount you owed instead of cancelling it. It cannot explain why it has taken 16 months to uncover this mistake but your account has at last been cleared, your credit reference agency file corrected and the bank is sending £150 to compensate for the hassle.

Online agency not the ticket


I bought return train tickets through QJump online ticketing agency from London to Edinburgh for £217. Three days before departure the tickets hadn't arrived and I was told to collect them at Kings Cross station before catching the train. There were no tickets waiting for me and, rather than miss the train, I bought replacements, losing the reserved seats. I claimed a refund in August and, despite 15 phone calls, have not been reimbursed.
SG
Hayes

QJump has now merged with TheTrainline which cannot discover why your tickets didn't arrive, nor why your refund failed to materialise. It assumes human error. At least your money has been refunded.

Spanish practices


I work for the Scottish Poetry Library and in July the European City Guide (ECG) sent us a form to update our details cost free, which we did.

In September, we received a proof advert, full of errors, with an invoice for €917. As a small charity we would never pay such a sum for this kind of advertising. I emailed ECG to explain the error and have been told that the order form constitutes a legally binding contract. Is there anything we can do?
JA
Edinburgh

Similar tactics led to Spanish-based European City Guide being fined £200,000 and closed down by the Catalan authorities for one year, until last September. It appears to have jumped the gun by contacting you in July.

The UK's Office of Fair Trading receives many complaints about ECG but cannot prosecute because it is based overseas. It suggests you send your paperwork to the Spanish addresses I have given you.

Earlier this year, I advised another reader who had been caught by ECG. He told the company in strong terms that he would not pay the bill and started to receive threats from its legal department, followed by a soft-touch letter asking him nicely to pay.

He didn't and has heard nothing more since.

Fly-by-night credit charge


A client booked me a British Airways flight to Chicago through its usual travel agency. At Heathrow, I upgraded to a business class seat and paid with my American Express card. This appeared on my September statement but in October a £116 payment to Alitalia appeared.

The same client had booked a flight to Italy for me. It refunded the £116 but I don't understand how the travel agent was able to charge it to my American Express card.
AH
Bures

BA took your Amex details at the airport and fed the information into the booking that appeared on screen. As the booking had been made through a travel agent, BA was in effect working on behalf of the travel agent and updating the agent's information. The next time the travel agent looked at your client's details, your Amex number appeared as part of that record. The travel agent should not have used your card without authority and has admitted this mistake.

· Email Margaret Dibben at money.writes@observer.co.uk or write to Margaret Dibben, The Observer, 3-7 Herbal Hill, London EC1R 5EJ and include a telephone number. Do not enclose SAEs or original documents. Letters are selected for publication and we cannot give personal replies. The newspaper accepts no legal responsibility for advice.