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: Pe­tit Val­ley res­i­dent Christo­pher Robert­son said he be­gan the ap­pli­ca­tion process for his ben­e­fit claim in the be­gin­ning of 2013 and got a let­ter from NIB in June ac­knowl­edg­ing re­ceipt of his ap­pli­ca­tion.But Mr Robert­son said: "Pri­or to sub­mit­ting my ap­pli­ca­tion, I was giv­en by NIB a com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed print­out of all con­tri­bu­tions at­trib­uted to my ac­count. Hav­ing found for the most part all in or­der...I sub­mit­ted my ap­pli­ca­tion. I was told it would take six months to process.

"I checked them (NIB) on Oc­to­ber 25, 2013, to in­quire about the sta­tus of my ap­pli­ca­tion."He was told it was still be­ing processed, which was the same re­sponse when he in­quired in No­vem­ber. He said: "I again checked on De­cem­ber 7, 2013 and was told that my ap­pli­ca­tion was sent to an­oth­er de­part­ment for fur­ther check­ing, which I queried, since my ap­pli­ca­tion was based on in­fo that they them­selves had gen­er­at­ed. And why so long be­fore notic­ing these fur­ther checks were nec­es­sary?"

When he checked again on De­cem­ber 20, he was told: "It must have gone for au­tho­ri­sa­tion since it was a large amount." When Mr Robert­son asked when he should re­turn, he was told to check back some time in the new year.Since then, Mr Robert­son said he has e-mailed and vis­it­ed the of­fice at Luis Street, Wood­brook, but the re­sponse has still been the same.

So­lu­tion: Af­ter the Guardian An­gel in­ter­vened on his be­half, Mr Robert­son's ap­pli­ca­tion was ex­pe­dit­ed by NIB and his pay­ment was dis­patched to his bank.