I may be the Daily Mail’s consumer advocate and spend my days helping readers who have been mistreated by companies and organisations, but I’m also a consumer and I’ve learned some tough financial lessons last year.
I want to share them with you in case it helps you avoid falling into the same traps. I am more than happy to say goodbye to 2024, the year that was marked by two great personal financial calamities.
It all started with a flood in our home that caused disruption for almost nine months, including a four-month period in rented accommodation and a six-figure repair bill. It ended up with a scammer spending £4,000 on my credit card.
But I look forward to 2025 with optimism, as it could have been much worse. Although both incidents were stressful and took up much of my free time to resolve, I am happy that I did not have to pay a penny out of pocket, apart from a £500 policy excess payable on the claim and a premium of I’m sure it doubled at the time of renovation.
Our home insurer, Zurich, fully honored our water damage claim and Amex reversed the fraudulent expense charged to my credit card. Companies weren’t told what I do for a job, so I give them a pat on the back for providing the best customer service.
But I learned important lessons that I hope readers will also benefit from.
I learned some difficult financial lessons last year, writes consumer advocate Sally Hamilton
Four Lessons About Pipe Leaks
1. Locate your shut-off valve
To avoid a serious problem after the holidays, I urge homeowners to tell anyone who cares for their home how to turn off the water. We were on a trip to Australia when a pipe burst in the first-floor bathroom, cascading water into the kitchen, hallway, living room, and basement for four days.
The flood only ended when my son-in-law came to spend the night. Had to wake us up in the middle of the night for instructions on how to turn off the water.
2. Check policy exclusions
Most insurers put a limit on how long you can keep a house empty without voiding coverage. We didn’t think about this when we booked our 35-day trip, as our youngest daughter was still living with us.
He was there almost the entire time, except for one long weekend, which as luck would have it coincided with the pipe breaking. Our coverage says we can leave our home unoccupied for only 30 days, or a claim may be denied. Fortunately, our daughter was able to prove that she also lived there through online delivery receipts.
3. Claim water bills
We only know how long the water was leaking because we later checked our Thames Water account online. We have a smart water meter that measures how much we consume, and a graph on the bill showed a huge jump that started on a Thursday afternoon and dropped again the following Monday, around the time our son-in-law found the stopcock.
The total that drained was a surprising 90,000 liters. The text on our account suggested they thought we “might” have had a leak. Actually? A phone call or text alert would have been more helpful for both us and the environment.
I urge homeowners to tell anyone looking after their home how to turn off the water, writes Sally Hamilton.
I presented this to the company. A Thames Water spokesperson says: ‘Our smart meters play a vital role in locating customer-side leaks, which account for around a third of leaks on our network. Customers with smart meters can view their most recent water usage by logging into their customer account.
‘If water usage indicates a leak, we will share a warning message when you log in. However, we are always looking for ways to improve our communications and continue to look for new ways to better communicate suspected leaks to our customers. ‘
On the positive side, in cases like ours, Thames Water reimburses the cost of lost water, at least for the first time. Our claim saved us £250.
4. Keep calm and carry on
When flooding occurs, a home needs to be dried out before repairs can begin. But safety checks must be carried out first, including for damaged electrical systems and hazards such as asbestos. This takes time and can be stressful. When drying began, we had 11 heaters and dehumidifiers running constantly for three weeks. I had to learn that it takes as long as it takes.
Two lessons in fraud
1. You don’t have email
I learned that it’s worth being suspicious if your email remains silent for an extended period. When I stopped receiving personal emails one Saturday in November, I wasn’t alarmed at first. I just thought my provider’s server was down.
But a few hours later, when I still didn’t receive any emails, I got anxious. I usually receive at least 50 a day from friends, family, media and retailers (confirming orders and deliveries, as well as promotions, which were booming in the run-up to Christmas).
I tried to log in but my password was not recognized despite several attempts. I contacted customer service to see what was going on. After 45 minutes on hold, they didn’t explain why they had locked my account, they just advised me to change my password and try again. This seemed to work. But the next day the same thing happened and my emails stopped coming. The account had been blocked again.
I changed my password once again. When I was excluded for the third time, I became seriously worried.
I discovered that several contacts had been inserted into my address list, writes Sally Hamilton
Then a neighbor showed up who had sent an email to our group chat. He said he had received a strange reply message after sending me an email as part of a joint letter. The message said that a person named Eric Manny could not be located; His own Internet search suggested that the mysterious sender of the email shared a name with a famous Nigerian singer. I certainly don’t know anyone with that name.
This set off alarm bells. I realized that it wasn’t just a technical problem with my email, but that I had been hacked and somehow the scoundrel had prevented me from accessing my mailbox.
Instead of waiting on the help line again, I looked to the provider’s website for guidance. Signs of a hacked email include strange names appearing in a contact list and auto-forwarding settings to an unrecognized email. Sure enough, I discovered that several gibberish contacts had been inserted into my address list and that my emails were being forwarded to ‘Eric Manny’.
As instructed in the guidelines, I removed the fake names and changed my password once again. This finally seemed to work and my email was back to normal.
2. Rising credit card bills
The email hack hadn’t caused me any harm, other than my frazzled nerves. Or so it seemed. Then, about a week later, I was checking my credit card account for an early refund for a delayed train ride.
To my horror, I found three online transactions I didn’t recognize for John Lewis worth £4,000, all made with my Amex card from an Apple Pay account. I shop online at John Lewis, but I don’t use Apple Pay, a digital wallet that allows users to add their credit cards so they can shop with their smartphone.
When I reported the fraud, Amex was courteous and reassuring. The agent then asked me if I had given away any one-time access codes. These are the codes that Amex sends to verify that you are the genuine cardholder making an online purchase. Customers receive an OTP via text message and/or email.
Each four-digit code is valid for only ten minutes and must be entered into your device. If not used or entered incorrectly, the transaction will not continue. A customer may request another code if you misspell it or leave it too long to use.
I had only received one OTP in the previous weeks – for a genuine purchase of a John Lewis microwave. I now suspect that other submissions were intercepted by scammers through my hacked email. What I couldn’t understand was how my card details had fallen into their hands. Amex had no comment but canceled my card and said their fraud team would investigate.
A few days later I checked the account and saw that the fraudulent payments had been reversed. Amex simply described the purchases as “fraudulent transactions” and said nothing else.
Fortunately, Amex offers customers protection against these types of scams, guaranteeing the reversal of fraudulent transactions as long as customers notify them as soon as they detect them.
Readers, periodically check your bank and credit card accounts for suspicious payments. Plus, add two-factor authentication (2FA) so everything from email to banking is safer from hackers and scammers. 2FA could be a password or personal identification number (PIN) first, with a code sent to your phone or email as a second level of security. Additional measures may include facial or fingerprint recognition. And don’t use OTPs unless you are sure they are for a genuine transaction.
Periodically change your passwords in case your data has been the victim of a data breach.
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