I asked a mail order company to stop sending letters to my late wife. I now believe she won a £7000 prize from them. SALLY FIXES IT

Dear Sally

My wife used to buy clothes from the Afibel mail order store. She died in April last year, but the sales brochures and letters kept coming in the mail. I sent them all back, marking them as “deceased customer,” but they kept coming.

In the November leaflet it was announced that Afibel was still looking for the winner of a £7,000 cash prize. At this point I wrote another letter to inform them of my wife’s death and asked them to stop sending me sales material and to remove her name from the mailing list.

The mailings continued and this month included a reminder to my wife that I was still in contention to win the prize.

BP, Torquay, Devon

Sally Hamilton responds: Naturally, he was upset that he was still receiving mail for his late wife, even though he was sure he had cancelled it. His distress increased when he believed she had been selected as the winner of the company’s £7,000 prize draw.

As you read an email, it occurred to you that you could win the prize if you ordered more products. Most of the products Afibel sells are women’s clothing, but you browsed the pages and found everyday items like black trash bags and kitchen utensils that you could use. You placed an order.

He received the products, but received no further feedback from Afibel. And yet, his wife received the monthly emails, including reminders that she could enter the drawing.

You asked me to intervene to help you end your suffering and to clear up the matter of the £7,000 prize. You are 90 years old and can do without the inconvenience.

It wasn’t easy to get in touch with Afibel, a French company with operations in the UK. I eventually discovered that another French company, Damart (which once owned Afibel but no longer does) manages customer operations, although the two teams work independently.

Upon investigation, customer service discovered that his wife’s Afibel account had not been marked as “excluded” from receiving further correspondence, but they fixed this issue shortly after I contacted her.

At the same time, it became known that your wife also had an account on Damart, to which you had also sent emails. This account had been correctly marked as “deactivated”.

It is possible that your returned pamphlets and letters about Afibel also arrived in Damart by mistake and were not delivered.

As for the elusive £7,000 prize, I fear this is a marketing ploy and that his wife was not the winner. The eye-catching sum was the jackpot from one of the company’s regular raffles. These raffles are designed to encourage customers to make purchases, as only those who do so have a chance of winning. According to the Gambling Commission, it is perfectly legal for companies to run raffles like this, as long as the prices of the items on sale are not increased before, during or after the promotion, or inferior products are offered during the period.

Anyone who places an order with Afibel is entered into a prize draw if one is on offer, and his bin bag purchase made him eligible for the ‘grand prize draw’ with a top prize of £7,000, drawn at the end of May.

Unfortunately, his name was not selected, Afibel confirmed.

Afibel apologised for the upset caused by the emails and sent her £50 as a gesture of goodwill.

As for the confusion about the draw, I can understand your frustration. You thought your late wife’s name had been drawn and you needed to buy something to claim the prize. But the email, which I have seen, simply said “wanted for £7,000 first prize winner” with further instructions on how to enter the draw.

I urge anyone who is tempted to enter a prize draw like this not to be fooled into buying items in the sole hope of winning the grand prize. Only make a purchase if you would do so if there was no prize draw, otherwise you will lose nothing if you do not win.

I am having trouble purchasing a Legal & General (L&G) annuity.

I received a quote from L&G through my financial adviser in February. My completed application forms were sent to L&G later that month. I was told that it takes between five and ten days to process the application and that the annuity would take effect between six and eight weeks later.

It’s been over 14 weeks and I still haven’t reached a final agreement. Can you please help me?

EO, Southampton

Sally Hamilton responds: Normally it should take about a month to arrange an annuity, but obviously something went wrong somewhere with your application.

He wanted to transfer funds from two small Scottish Widows pensions and a much larger Aegon pension scheme to L&G to buy an annuity with the combined funds. L&G offered him an annuity rate of over 8.5%.

It is true that applications are more complex when more than one pension fund has to be combined, but they should still not take that long.

Insurers set a deadline for quotes, which is 45 days for L&G, but can be shorter with other providers. Naturally, I was afraid of missing out on this attractive offer. In fact, in May the rate fell below 8.5%.

Funds from its Scottish Widows schemes sailed through the process and landed safely in mid-March, but Aegon’s money appeared to be stuck.

After waiting many more weeks, you investigated the matters and discovered that Aegon’s funds had arrived at L&G in mid-April, but nothing had been done with them.

Another setback came when the quote on the percentage he could get back on his annuity did not include one of his Scottish Widows plans.

You began to worry as annuity rates began to fall even further. However, while all this was going on, you were diagnosed with high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Annuity providers can take these conditions into account to offer you an improved rate. You requested that your conditions be taken into account.

In June, when she reapplied, she discovered that her application had not yet been considered and her annuity rate had not yet been set.

I have contacted L&G to ask them to get their act together and get your annuity in order so that you can move forward with your retirement plans.

I am pleased to report that a few days later the work was finally completed. L&G attributed the delays to “technical issues” on their part and some back and forth with their consultant.

But in the end it was a success: the final rate was 8.62%, which took into account the medical problems you had recently been diagnosed with. The improvement means an additional pension of £112 a month for you and the payment has been backdated to April.

A spokesperson for Legal & General said: “We regret the delay in setting up EO’s annuity. We realise this has caused additional stress and have paid £750 to apologise for this. Her annuity is now up and running and we have covered the £1,371.24 lost income plus 8% interest.”