The homewares website Wayfair emailed to inform me my account details, including my email address, had been changed.
I tried to check my account but my password had been changed so I was unable to do anything except see the new delivery address.
Five items had been purchased and my account showed £432.85 pending. I called my bank, NatWest, asking it not to pay this fraudulent transaction and was told to contact Wayfair to cancel it.
Passing the buck: Homewares website Wayfair claims it is Natwest’s responsibility to refund a fraud victim but the bank says Wayfair is responsible and must return the money
I cancelled the debit card so no further transactions could take place. Wayfair said it would cancel the items that had not yet been put out for dispatch, and that the other items would be dealt with later. It said I might have to ask my bank to recover the money. Two items were cancelled, and £245.98 was refunded.
I contacted Wayfair about the outstanding amount, but it said my bank must raise a dispute as it was card fraud so NatWest was responsible. The bank said it was Wayfair’s mistake and the firm must refund the money.
M. K., Barry, Vale of Glamorgan.
Do you click ‘Yes’ when a website offers to store your card details? I don’t. I’ve seen far too many instances of websites being hacked and card details compromised.
Your Wayfair account was hacked, and this is why NatWest told you to seek a refund there.
A NatWest spokesman says: ‘We are sorry to hear that Mr K has been the victim of fraud.
‘As it was his account with Wayfair that was compromised and not his NatWest card, we were unable to refund his loss. But we have supported him in resolving his claim with the retailer.’
Even after my intervention, Wayfair’s customer advocacy team told you they still felt the best course of action was for your bank to initiate a chargeback on your card. However, they agreed to refund the outstanding £186.87.
Your Wayfair account has been locked for security, so you will have to set up a new one if you still wish to use the retailer.
Its statement reveals that, even now, it still doesn’t accept responsibility. A spokesman says: ‘We were able to refund the items that had not yet shipped, and while the bank is responsible for the remaining amount, the incident has now been resolved amicably.’
I am 90 and have a terminal illness. My husband has dementia and is very sick. I would like to pay off my son’s £30,000 mortgage.
We are worried that if we did this, then went into care, my son would have to give the money back, and could lose his home.
He is not able to work due to coronavirus, and it would make me so happy if I could do this for him, but I do not want to cause him trouble in the future.
E. W., by email.
I took your question to Age UK. Its answer is based on the Care Act 2014.
However, the caveat is that this Act was amended by emergency legislation on March 31. Age UK says it is not yet possible to advise on how this may affect a person’s entitlement to social care support.
When looking at eligibility to financial help with care costs, a local authority can consider whether assets, such as savings, were deliberately disposed of to reduce what the person has to pay towards the cost of their care.
This is called ‘deliberate deprivation of assets’. A local authority must be able to show that the person acted with the intention of reducing their care costs. It must consider whether the person had valid reasons for giving assets away, based on their particular situation.
The person must also be given the opportunity to explain why assets were given away.
Age UK says that in your situation, were you to give £30,000 to your son so that he could pay off his mortgage, the local authority should not apply the deliberate deprivation of assets rules, unless there is evidence this is being done to avoid care costs.
It looks as if you want to give your son financial help while he is out of work, and the local authority must take this into account.
Those with assets over £23,250 are expected to meet the full cost of their care until their value falls to that level. Deliberate deprivation of assets is less likely to be an immediate issue for people with assets substantially over this limit.
How the local authority treats the family home during its calculations will depend on who else is living there.
A local authority can be approached for information about how the complex rules for financial help with care costs work in practice. The authority has a duty to provide this under the Care Act 2014, according to Age UK.
The charity has published factsheets on paying for social care, including Factsheet 40: Deprivation of Assets in Social Care; Factsheet 10: Paying for Permanent Residential Care; and Factsheet 46: Paying for Care and Support at Home. You can visit ageuk.org.uk for more information.
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Booking.com offered me £60 cashback, but I am receiving emails stating it cannot pay this as my credit card details are out of date, which is not the case.
Any question I ask on its help centre web page is answered by: ‘Call our helpline’. But to do so, I need a booking code and PIN, which I have not got.
B. V., Colchester, Essex.
Booking.com has now paid your cashback reward. A spokesman says: ‘Having been made aware that automated payment did not process successfully in this case, we have now reprocessed the full payment, and apologised for the delay.’
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