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: Flori­da res­i­dent Franklyn Ram­lochan said: "I orig­i­nal­ly made a claim for NIB ben­e­fits in 2001 and was told that I did not have enough con­tri­bu­tions to qual­i­fy for a month­ly pen­sion."Mr Ram­lochan said he ac­cept­ed what he was told by the clerk at the NIB of­fice in Barataria, and in 2002 he was paid a lump sum.But, he said: "In 2008, I was made aware that maybe, like al­most every­one who con­tributed to the scheme, there were de­duc­tions miss­ing from my per­son­al state­ment."

Mr Ram­lochan said, "To my sur­prise an en­tire year was omit­ted...I asked my then em­ploy­er, PTSC, to fur­nish me with a copy of de­duc­tions for that pe­ri­od. I went back to the Barataria of­fice and was told with this new de­vel­op­ment I had to make an ap­peal to the NIB tri­bunal, which I did on May 13, 2013."Mr Ram­lochan said since get­ting a let­ter from the tri­bunal say­ing his claim was re­ceived, he has had lit­tle feed­back from NIB.

He said: "I was told that it was sent to the Ch­agua­nas op­er­a­tions of­fice. Since then I have called NIB many times, was trans­ferred but no one an­swered."

So­lu­tion: Mr Ram­lochan's re­tire­ment ap­peal is cur­rent­ly be­ing ad­dressed by NIB's in­sur­ance op­er­a­tions de­part­ment, as man­dat­ed by the tri­bunal.

Prob­lem: Aphzal Mo­hammed from Ch­agua­nas said he sub­mit­ted his sick­ness ben­e­fit claim to the NIB Ch­agua­nas ser­vice cen­tre in Feb­ru­ary 2012 and up to now he is still wait­ing for his com­pen­sa­tion.Mr Mo­hammed said he sent his first let­ter to NIB in June 2013 and re­ceived an ac­knowl­edg­ment let­ter dat­ed Au­gust 15. He al­so sent a sec­ond let­ter in Sep­tem­ber 2013.He said he com­plied with all the re­quests from NIB, in­clud­ing a vis­it to Dr Neil Per­sad, but to date his claims have not been paid.

Mr Mo­hammed said: "I have writ­ten to the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Ms Karen Gopaul, on three oc­ca­sions. I have writ­ten to the (NIB) chair­man, Mr Adri­an Bharath; Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai; the Om­buds­man and the Prime Min­is­ter, but to no avail."

So­lu­tion: Mr Mo­hammed's sick­ness ap­pli­ca­tion is un­der re­view by the NIB's med­ical ad­vis­er. It is cur­rent­ly pend­ing, await­ing ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion di­rect­ly from the doc­tor who at­tend­ed to Mr Mo­hammed.

Even as you're en­cour­aged to take the ap­pro­pri­ate routes for ad­dress­ing your com­plaints, the Guardian An­gel is here to as­sist you. You can send the Guardian An­gel an e-mail about your prob­lem and what steps you took to deal with the mat­ter.The Guardian An­gel looks for­ward to hear­ing from you and bring­ing some re­lief to your prob­lems.

E-mail her at an­gel@guardian.co.tt

Please in­clude your name, ad­dress and tele­phone num­ber as we'll need them to fol­low up with you.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, ow­ing to the vol­ume of e-mails and lim­it­ed space, it is im­pos­si­ble to ad­dress every com­plaint, no mat­ter how wor­thy, or ac­knowl­edge re­ceipt of every e-mail.