R C writes: I handed over a cheque for £3,600 at my local Barclays branch for its Tax Haven Isa on April 8; I have just received advice that the “opening date” for the account is May 7. This has had the effect of reducing my rate for the year from the advertised 6.5% to below 6%. I hope you will take up the cudgels on my behalf.

This letter must stand as proxy for all the complaints I have received over the past few months about the administration of Barclays’ cash Isas. The column could have been filled many times over with tales of similar problems and the resolutions I have obtained.

In theory, Barclays has undertaken to pay everyone extra interest where the account opening was delayed by more than 14 days, backdating it to that 14-day point. Its rationale is that it believes 14 days to be a “reasonable” period in which to complete the work involved in opening such an account (others may, of course, disagree, but it seems there is no authority that can tell Barclays different).

In many of the cases I have dealt with, however, as in RC’s case, interest has been backdated to the day the cheque was handed over. Whether this is preferential treatment thanks to Question of Money’s involvement or a reflection of extra hassle that the particular individual has endured, I don’t know.

Other cases involved people missing out on their 2007-8 Isa entitlement due to Barclays’ delays in opening the account. In some cases the bank has been able to back-track and open the account retrospectively; in other cases, this has proved impossible. It seems to have depended on precisely when in Barclays’ admin process the delay occurred. Where the entitlement has been lost, the bank’s response has been to pay customers a lump sum of £220. This is fair recompense for basic-rate taxpayers who have lost out on the 2007-8 cash Isa entitlement, but not for those who are liable to higher-rate tax (for whom the tax shelter of the cash Isa is worth correspondingly more).

J L and V E were among those who wrote to me on this point, and Barclays has now credited them with an additional £220. I suggest any other higher-rate taxpayer who has received a similar offer of £220 from Barclays contact the bank to request the same additional amount; they should be prepared to provide proof of their tax-paying status if need be.

Charging through the pensions maze

Y B writes: I have taken out various pension plans with Lloyds TSB. Every three to four years the bank contacts me about increasing my pension premiums to take account of inflation. Every time I raise my contributions it issues a new plan. I think that is wrong and suspect that I am paying too high charges because of this. Can you investigate?

You have a total of six separate pension plans, and in their own way they tell the story of the highly complicated, and in places murky, history of private pensions in the past decade, with successive government interventions all carried out in the name of simplification.

In a nutshell, I think you are basically okay. Lloyds has given me details of the differing charging structures of each of these plans. The first two relate to compensation you were given for having been persuaded to move out of a company pension scheme, split into a “protected rights” and “non-protected rights” pension. This compensation either had to be used to buy people back into their former scheme or, where this was refused, put them into a personal plan. In effect, there are no charges on these plans, as the compensation was grossed up to cover all future charges.

The next was a section 226 plan — a retirement-annuity contract, the only type of plan available at the time — which did have high initial charges but low ongoing charges.

The one after that, a personal pension, had a similar charging structure but, again, low ongoing charges. As long as you are continuing to save money in these, they are now quite good value.

The last two are stakeholder pensions, the first of which imposes only a flat monthly policy charge, which also covers the second plan.

If you wanted to increase premiums in future, you would have to take out a further plan, which has no upfront or monthly policy fee, but instead an annual charge of 1% of the funds invested.

Widow’s grief over delay in bond cash

J N writes: I enclose a copy of my letter to the chief executive of Scottish Widows on behalf of my recently widowed 84-year- old mother. I am concerned that these funds are allowed to operate as highway robbers, retaining money when it is requested and apparently not reviewing cases on an individual basis.

Your very angry letter berates the company because it has imposed a 180-day delay in withdrawing money from the investment bond your mother held, jointly, with your late father. You felt, given her recent bereavement, she should have been treated as a special case. In fact, this problem is now just about resolved as, from tomorrow, Scottish Widows is lifting this moratorium. The investment was in a Scottish Widows commercial-property fund.

All such funds, without exception as far as I am aware, have the ability to delay payments for up to six months to avoid forced sales of property (at possibly disadvantageous prices) to meet a surge of redemption requests.

The delay means a fund can take its time to raise cash and therefore hopefully obtain better prices.

You could argue that a fund should manage its affairs better so the need for this is avoided — but the only way to do so would be to keep an unacceptably high level of cash within the fund, in which case investors would not be getting the full investment in property they had wanted.

In Scottish Widows’ case, only a few circumstances, such as claims on the death of the (sole) policyholder or under a critical-illness policy, entitle policyholders or their heirs to receive their cash without waiting.

To me, this seems fair, as the reason for the delay is ultimately to protect all investors in the fund; singling out a few hard cases at the expense of others is not.

Meanwhile, anyone else investing in a commercial- property fund, or thinking of doing so, should take note.

Tales of woe over Isa transfer delays

A C writes: I am trapped between Alliance & Leicester and Nationwide. I have been trying to transfer my £15,662 cash Isa from A&L to Nationwide for more than three months. As I live on a pension this is a large amount of my savings.

The first cheque A&L sent to Nationwide had your first initial as S not A, so it had to be sent back with a request for re-issue. Eventually, Nationwide received a cheque in the correct name, and the society will backdate interest to the date of the cheque.

Your problem is therefore solved but, as with so many other people this year, you have had months of worrying where your money was, of telephoning and visiting branches in an attempt to get it sorted. This cannot be allowed to continue; banks and building societies must come up with a better way of transferring Isa monies.

Meanwhile, the case of S S, whose attempt to transfer funds from Kent Reliance building society to Nationwide also hit the buffers, has now, after some months, also been resolved. His case was noteworthy for the first-class personal service he received from the chief executive of Kent Reliance. Granted, no boss of a large institution could match that, but few smaller organisations could or would, either.