Each week, the Guardian An­gel col­umn high­lights com­plaints sent in by you, the con­sumer, and pro­vides so­lu­tions or di­rects you to the ap­pro­pri­ate re­source.

Prob­lem: Kel­ly Richards-White­man e-mailed a com­plaint to the Guardian An­gel on be­half of her moth­er, Marce­line Richards of Fyz­abad.Ms Richards-White­man said, "Af­ter the death of my fa­ther on April 1, 2004, my moth­er ap­plied to re­ceive her sur­vivor's ben­e­fit, which was ap­proved. How­ev­er, the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board was send­ing the funds to a closed bank ac­count and the funds were con­tin­u­al­ly be­ing re­turned."

She said her moth­er didn't re­alise she was not re­ceiv­ing the mon­ey be­cause she was get­ting a pen­sion from Petrotrin, which was sent in two parts, so she thought one of those pay­ments was from NIB.In 2009, her moth­er ap­plied to get the dif­fer­ence and when she went to Petrotrin, she was told the funds she was re­ceiv­ing were from them on­ly.

Ms Richards-White­man said, "At that point, she vis­it­ed the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board and they ac­knowl­edged that the funds were be­ing re­turned. They promised that they will in­ves­ti­gate and they did send a pay­ment of $6,800."Need­less to say, this lump sum is nowhere close to what was owed for the num­ber of years that went un­paid."Ms Richards-White­man said she and her moth­er have gone to NIB sev­er­al times but the mat­ter is still un­re­solved.

So­lu­tion: NIB said its cheque cen­tre de­part­ment had reis­sued all out­stand­ing pay­ments to Ms Richards. If, how­ev­er, she be­lieves there are out­stand­ing pay­ments to be reis­sued, she may write to the man­ag­er of the ser­vice cen­tre ask­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter.

Prob­lem: Edric Jones, who cur­rent­ly lives in Cana­da, said, "Thank you for high­light­ing the de­lays in the pro­cess­ing of claims by the NIB. I sub­mit­ted my claim De­cem­ber 17, 2012, and to date I have not re­ceived an ac­knowl­edge­ment of re­ceipt by the NIB."

So­lu­tion: NIB does not have any ap­pli­ca­tion on file for Mr Jones. So un­for­tu­nate­ly, he will need to re­sub­mit all the nec­es­sary doc­u­ments and en­sure that he re­ceives an al­lowance no­tice as ev­i­dence of sub­mis­sion and ac­cep­tance by NIB.

Prob­lem: An­tho­ny Chow said when he ap­plied for his re­tire­ment ben­e­fits from NIB in 1999, he was told his pay­ments fell short of the 750 con­tri­bu­tions need­ed by four pay­ments.Mr Chow said he was giv­en three in­ter­im pay­ments, as he now qual­i­fied for NIB's re­tire­ment grant, but lat­er found out that his for­mer em­ploy­er, the High Com­mis­sion of Nige­ria, did not pay his con­tri­bu­tions dur­ing his three-month pro­ba­tion. But the com­mis­sion rec­ti­fied the mat­ter, pay­ing the miss­ing con­tri­bu­tions, along with the rel­e­vant penal­ties.

He said, "Three years lat­er, I'm wait­ing for my claim to be processed. I am at my wit's end, since I am de­pend­ing on that mon­ey to pay my bills."Mr Chow said he is con­stant­ly go­ing to NIB and re­peat­ed­ly be­ing told that his claim is be­ing processed.

So­lu­tion: Mr Chow's ap­pli­ca­tion is cur­rent­ly un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion at the Wood­brook Ser­vice Cen­tre for those con­tri­bu­tions that were void dur­ing his tenure with the Niger­ian Em­bassy.