AN elderly couple have spoken of their devastation and anger after the firm they paid £9,000 to for their funeral plans went bust.

Molly and Tibor Sebo, both 80 and married for nearly 60 years, have been left “shattered” by the news of Safe Hands’ collapse and fear they will never see their hard-earned money again.

Like many others, the Riddlesden couple thought they were doing the right thing by putting preparations in place for the future.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus:

But they were left in a state of shock when a letter landed on their doormat breaking the news that the company was in administration.

Mrs Sebo said: “We thought it was a good thing to not have our family worry about our funeral, so we heard about this company and the rep came to see us.

“He told us about various funeral plans and we chose the one we thought was best for us, which is called a ‘Sapphire’ one.”

They paid more than £3,000 each for the funeral plan, but paid extra for a will and protection for the house if one of them died and the other had to go into a care home.

“Altogether, we gave the chap £9,000,” said Mrs Sebo.

She said they were “happy and content” with the plan and thought they had all bases covered - until the letter arrived on March 26.

“It’s six years since we took it out and we’ve been very happy, until this bombshell letter arrived.”

There was a phone number to ring and after waiting on hold for an hour, Mrs Sebo said she eventually managed to speak to someone, only to be told that a death within 14 days would still be covered.

Mrs Sebo said they had been left in “limbo” over the situation, while her husband said: “It’s very, very difficult, but what made it worse, that it was supposed to be a safe fund which was supposed to be safeguarded.

“I don’t know how the company really performed, that all of a sudden they’ve gone insolvent.”

Mrs Sebo said she asked the rep what would happen if the firm went into liquidation.

“He said ‘you’ve no problems, your money is in a safe fund’,” she told the Telegraph & Argus.

A note on the Safe Hands website explains it is in administration and paints a worrying picture for the tens of thousands of people with plans.

“Unfortunately at this time, the company does not have sufficient funds to enable refunds to be issued to all plan holders in full,” it says.

“Steps are being explored by the joint administrators to find a potential future solution to fulfil all plan holder funeral plans.”

It adds: “The administrators are unable to confirm any potential estimated return to plan holders at this time.

"The administrators estimate that the process of realising assets and issuing partial repayments to plan holders is a significant undertaking and would, therefore, take some time to complete. To confirm, it is understood that the company had approximately 46,000 plan holders at the point of entering administration.”

Regarding the trust the money was supposed to be safe in, it says: “Unfortunately, there is a shortfall between the level of plan holder investments and the forecast level of funeral plan costs to be paid. Essentially, the value of the investments is not enough to meet the funeral plan obligations of the company.

“The administrators will conduct a thorough investigation into the shortfall as part of their duties.”

And under a question headed ‘what has happened to my money?’ the notice says:

“Customer instalments appear to have been used by the company to acquire investments, subject to deductions for the costs of administering the funeral plans.”

Mrs Sebo said: “We are both devastated, we are absolutely shattered.

“I can’t believe it’s happening, £9,000 is an awful lot of money.”