My car was hit while parked at work on February 24 by a driver who did not stop or leave details. Luckily, there is clear CCTV footage showing the incident.

At first my insurance company, Esure, was quick to respond but I am now four months on, my car is not fixed and it feels as if Esure has lost interest and is waiting for me to give up and drop the claim.

I filed a claim and Esure deemed the car to be repairable. The worst damage was to the rear bumper, broken rear light cluster and fog light. However, there was also cosmetic damage of scratches down to the metal on the rear panel and a deep scratch to the alloy wheel. I decided to pay an extra £200 charge on top of the £250 excess to allow me to choose my own repairer.

Since then Esure has been dragging its feet. My chosen garage submitted a quote to Esure for the cost of repair work on April 12 and Esure told me its engineers would review it within five working days. I have heard nothing since. I have been chasing them every week, have submitted a formal complaint and am still nowhere nearer to getting it fixed. In addition, Esure received the CCTV footage on a USB stick via tracked delivery on April 18. To my knowledge it hasn’t even looked at the footage yet, let alone begun any investigation.

My car has failed its MoT due to the damage sustained in the incident. I am without a car, relying on the extra expense of public transport and completely at the whim of Esure.

Jill replies

I asked Esure why your claim had ground to a halt. This galvanised the insurer into action, and within three days the repairs to your car had been authorised, you had been offered £300 in compensation for the delay and you had been given a courtesy car.

It has also looked at the CCTV evidence. Last week Esure told me that although it couldn’t see the registration number of the vehicle that hit yours, it could clearly see that you were not at fault — and it will eventually be able to identify the at-fault vehicle and driver because the vehicle is clearly marked as belonging to the NHS.

Your car was initially mended enough to pass its MoT and the cosmetic repairs were completed last week. Your no-claims record, which was eight years, has been updated to nine years and Esure is refunding you £161 to make up for basing your renewal premium on the incorrect number of no-claims years.

Esure acknowledges that it should have been faster to act and apologises for the delay you have faced. This was partly caused by the difficulty of tracing the vehicle and liasing with the NHS without knowing which specific vehicle was involved in damaging your car.

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Currys showed no care after my husband died

My husband died suddenly and unexpectedly in June, and I had a monstrous list of tasks to go through alongside organising the funeral and all financial issues. Most companies were really kind and supportive during this time until I came across the appalling Currys.

All I wanted was to change our £7-a-month TV care and repair plan to my bank account because my husband’s account was closed. To do this I initially called and they told me to email with my request in writing, which I did.

I was eventually contacted and asked to send an original marriage certificate, my husband’s death certificate and a copy of our will. The marriage certificate costs £25 and the death certificate £12.50 per copy. I thought this excessive for a £7-a-month TV repair service and so called into the Currys shop where we took the plan out.

The assistant said he could not help directly with my request but would call the care and repair plan desks because he agreed that the demands did seem over the top. The customer care team said they needed a copy of my husband’s death certificate and they would then switch the plan over to me. I sent Currys the £12.50 death certificate as requested.

After several weeks I received an email from the Currys care team saying that they could not make the requested change until I re-sent the death certificate and the original receipt of the purchase of our TV even though they already had all our plan details to hand and the death certificate. I told them to just cancel the service plan because dealing with them was exhausting, petty and frustrating.

• Where has my £65,000 pension gone, L&G?

Jill replies

I asked Currys to reinstate your plan in your name, refund you for the cost of the certificates it had asked for and take a hard look at the demands it was making of bereaved customers. It seemed very heavy handed to ask for death and marriage certificates simply to switch payment details for a £7-a-month repair plan, and I could see absolutely no reason at all why it should need to see your husband’s will.

The next day you told me that Currys had called you early that morning with an apology and offer to pay £37.50 for the death certificate and marriage certificate you had obtained, plus a £50 gesture of goodwill. Currys has also put the plan into your name, with the monthly premium coming from your bank account.

Currys told me that it needs only copies of requested documentation and had stated in emails to you that you shouldn’t send in original documents. It requires a copy of the death certificate and one other form of evidence such as a copy of a power of attorney or marriage certificate to confirm that the person who has contacted it has the relevant permission to assume responsibility for the care and repair plan, but it does not know why your husband’s will was requested. It is still trying to find out why its staff member asked for that and says that it will re-educate teams if necessary within the business to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

“First and foremost, we’d like to sincerely apologise to Mrs H for the situation that has occurred regarding the care plan, especially during what must have been a really challenging time,” a spokesperson said. “It appears our colleague’s communications with Mrs H did not make the requirements clear, and created confusion as to which documents she was required to evidence. For this, we wholeheartedly apologise.”

Booking.com left me £350 out of pocket

I have a holiday let property in Belfast that I let out through Booking.com. It called me today, which I assumed was due to all the messages and emails I have sent about trying to get reimbursement for a last-minute cancellation it allowed for a guest.

Instead Booking.com said it was calling to help me to update the fine print because I didn’t state I would want to know who would be in my property.

The guest cancelled when I asked her who would be staying at the property, because the details on her booking did not match her subsequent messages. I have had approximately 500 stays in my property with a rating of 9.6/10 with Booking.com and 4.9/5 with Airbnb. I take it very seriously and cannot believe Booking.com would cancel a stay on a guest’s say-so simply because I asked them who would be staying at the property. I have asked other guests the same question on numerous occasions.

Booking.com cancelled this particular guest’s booking at 5pm on the day of check-in, found them another property and collected their commission while I was out of pocket by approximately £350, not to mention the hours I have spent chasing a refund. I know it isn’t a lot of money but it is the principle of the thing. I have a mortgage and with the cost of living crisis every penny counts.

Jill replies

The guest who cancelled had booked for four people, but told you there would be just two guests — herself and her partner. You said: “I was concerned as this didn’t match up with the four guests she booked for and there was a concert in Belfast called Belsonic and I feared there may be a party [in my property].”

This might sound an extreme reaction, but landlords and those who clean and prepare properties for them live in fear of stag, hen and concert parties who have been known to trash the places where they are staying. You live in the Netherlands, making it even more difficult to intervene if a guest becomes problematic.

You also said you need to know for insurance and safety purposes: “If there was ever a fire, a firefighter could lose their life searching for someone who wasn’t actually staying in the property. I know this is very unlikely but is an example of the importance of knowing.”

All good points so I asked Booking.com to refund you. It did.

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