Bereaved relatives’ grief compounded by unsympathetic firms

theguardian.com:

When Linda Bullamore’s husband, Steve, passed away, she was left struggling to change many of the bills in his name. “It was a real inconvenience at that time in particular,” she recalls. “With me needing to make lots of calls and lots of people trying to contact me.”

She is just one of many bereaved relatives across the UK who have found the trauma of losing a loved one compounded by difficulties communicating with phone, TV, broadband and utility firms, facing difficulties closing accounts, unsympathetic staff and unexpected and unfair bills.

Guardian writer George Monbiot’s column last month about the problems he had dealing with Vodafone following the death of his mother prompted a wave of responses on Twitter from others who had similarly poor experiences with the telecoms company.

However, charities that support grieving relatives say such stories are common across the banking, utilities and tech sectors, with new research from the bereavement admin service Settld naming BT, TV Licensing and NS&I (National Savings and Investments) among the worst.

BT was one of the firms that Bullamore struggled with after losing her husband in 2020. She wanted to cancel a BT Sport package he had renewed shortly before his death, but was told she had to continue paying for a further 18 months.

After pursuing a complaint, she was eventually allowed to exit the contract early, and the extra charges were cancelled. “It was very unpleasant,” the 62-year-old from Buckinghamshire recalls. “They weren’t particularly helpful or sympathetic, or even particularly listening to what I was saying.”

Bullamore also struggled to change their family contract with Tesco Mobile to her name, and was temporarily left with a different phone number. “They