Lindsay Wright’s husband, Stuart, died suddenly at the beginning of the year, aged 46. Alongside the grief of losing her partner, and the father of their daughter Lily, 10, Wright had to deal with endless admin and a long list of companies, many of which she found unsympathetic.
She realised her Virgin Money credit card had been blocked when she tried to pay for some shopping. Her solicitor had informed the bank about her husband’s death but a miscommunication meant she was not told the account would be closed.
He was the main account holder, but Wright had her own card. The couple had been saving their Virgin Points to upgrade to first class flights and go on holiday for their 10th wedding anniversary in 2021.
“There was no communication, there was no email, no letter, to say ‘we are stopping your card’,” she recalls. “When I rang them they were unbelievably unsympathetic.”
Wright had similar difficulties with British Gas when she tried to get the account for their solar panels transferred to her name, to allow her to claim the money paid out as part of a feed-in tariff for generating energy.
The supplier had no problem changing the name on their dual fuel account, but the solar panels issue took seven months to fix, Wright says, and she has yet to receive the money.
“Different departments don’t speak to each other. You have to explain what’s happened to you again and again and again. It is emotional and painful, and horrible.”
She eventually had to send a death certificate, driving licence, passport, wedding certificate, the invoice for the solar panels, which had been bought eight years previously, and her husband’s will.
“I felt like a criminal – I felt like they were accusing me of trying to claim something that wasn’t rightfully mine.”
Meanwhile, BT are still sending emails for her to her late husband’s email address. “There are so few companies who can work through the process of, ‘let’s not email the dead guy’. They just can’t do it,” she says.
The conversations with various companies took an emotional toll, particularly when call handlers asked to speak with Mr Wright.
“You get to a stage where you say things like: ‘OK, shall we do a seance then, are you going to pay for me to go and see a medium, because that’s the only way you’re going to talk to him.’
“You have those really robust conversations and then you come off the phone and you’re in floods of tears for an hour, because it’s gut-wrenching.”
Virgin Money said legal requirements meant it had to freeze the account, as being an additional card holder is different to having a joint credit account.
“We are sorry to hear that Mrs Wright found us unsympathetic and unhelpful – that’s not the customer service we strive to deliver. We are constantly reviewing our processes and policies to make sure we treat bereaved customers with understanding and sympathy,” a spokesperson said.
A British Gas spokesperson said: “Unfortunately, we have to undertake different checks for transferring a regular energy account and a feed-in-tariff with solar panels.
“We understand this is a difficult time for the customer and will be making sure her first payment from her feed-in tariff goes through with no issues.”
BT has reviewed its bereavement processes over the last 18 months, creating a dedicated team, and says it now accepts notifications from friends as well as family members, resulting in a decline in the number of complaints.
