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ITV Digital offers 38p refund
ITV Digital customers who lost money on pre-paid subscriptions when the pay-television firm went bust have been offered refunds of less than 50p - and told they might have to wait two years to be paid.
Liquidator Malcolm Shierson of Grant Thornton has written to former customers saying they will receive 2p for every £1 they are owed and advised them it might be simpler to pay the cash to charity.
One subscriber, who has been offered a 38p settlement to be credited direct to his bank account instead of the £19 he is owed, was told in a letter: "You should be aware that it may be a considerable period of time, potentially two years, before I will be able to pay a dividend.
"Most subscribers will only get a dividend of between 50p and £2. As it will cost more than this to pay the dividend and in view of the small amounts likely to be paid we are providing subscribers with the option to donate their dividend to charity, should they wish."
A pre-paid envelope, which with stamp is worth almost as much as the refund, was enclosed to allow the subscriber to indicate if he wished to donate his 38p to either Marie Curie Cancer Care, the NSPCC, Make a Wish or the Royal National Institute of the Blind.
"It's the final insult," said the subscriber, who did not wish to be named.
A spokesman for the liquidator said that he was obliged to offer subscribers their refunds, however small they might be.
ITV Digital stopped broadcasting on May 1 last year when investors Carlton and Granada pulled the plug on a venture which had lost their shareholders more than £1bn.