Homeserve. Poor practice.

Flish1949

I was looking for advice about HomeServe and their business practices and found this thread. My mother is a few days short of also being 93 and she also has just come out of hospital after having a fall. When we arrived at home I picked up the mail, passed her the Get Well cards and checked the junk mail. In amongst it there was a letter from HomeServe saying they had not displayed the comparative figures correctly in the two last renewals and asking people to phone a 0330 number if they had a problem with this. I asked her about it and she had no idea why she should have received it. After looking after her for a few days I brought the letter home so I could get access to the internet, even trying to create an on-line account for her but failed because they asked for information  about payments that only my mother could know but didn't. I then went into their phone system which pushed you to one location - the one for querying the letter about the renewals ("anything else push 2" followed by "That number is not available"). After two attempts I just sat there and waited and ultimately got though but was told I couldn't deal with it and was transferred to another "we are very busy, please hold" line. In the end it was answered but was not allowed to do anything without my mothers permission. The nearest relative had to go round, sit on the phone for another extended time until she could authorise me to deal with it. Whilst mother has no idea why or when she signed up for it she actually has been paying for 11 years for a service she doesn't need and wouldn't have needed (her policy covers "Plumbing, Electricity and Pest", her son-in-law is a plumber, I have worked in pest control and her nephew runs a local building firm). The last payment was for nearly £500 for a person living off her state pension and more than her house insurance and she must have paid well over £2,500 over the 11 years for nothing. With the authority I had been given I managed to cancel the policy and will follow up for the last two years where in the latest letter they have given a window of opportunity to do so. However, I am wondering if there is any advice on how I could go further. She was clearly mis-sold, they have been taking her money without her understanding why and there must be others in very similar positions. In fact I was so well dealt with when I did get through to cancel the policy that I felt this was not a unique call and that the answers were well practised.