The Lemon Fool

yorkshirelad1 wrote:Given that there was a story back in November about NS&I reclaiming Premium Bond prizes when they uncovered an ancient premium bond holding that had been forgotten about (below*) and therefore exceeded the £50k limit, I suggest the above Sunday Times item needs a bit of clarification... i.e. NS&I will write to you about breaching the limit, but they might also write to you to reclaim any related prizes!

There's an update in today's (Sun 30 Jan 2022) Sun Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/look ... -5nz5pn5jn
(my Times online account doesn't seem to be showing the full article at the moment, but the update is in the print edition, and I'll re-check online tomorrow)

Feb 2022 premium bond draw:
https://nsandi-corporate.com/news-research/news/ernie-shares-love-february-two-new-premium-bonds-millionaires-leeds-and-essex
https://www.lovemoney.com/news/13635/premium-bonds-winners-have-i-won

The prize checker https://www.nsandi.com/prize-checker should get updated on 2 Feb.

meh. 1 x £25 between me and mrs didds 2 x max holdings this month.

I have been analysing my pattern of winnings for a while, and a very serious discrepancy is emerging.

I can prove beyond reasonable doubt that something is wrong.

I have a £20K BLOCK purchased in one go in August 1994. Basically, since the £20K limit was increased all these years ago, I have reinvested the winnings. As the percentage of these new bonds has increased as a proportion of my bonds, winnings from these new bonds have gradually increased, as expected. BUT from around December 2013, the percentage ceased to increase altogther. In fact since that date, only ONE of the many thousands of new bonds has won, which is beyond belief, considering that my broad overall pattern of winnings with the original £20k BLOCK is statistically OK.

On top of this, I added a good chunk in April 21, £12,350. The same month my wife added £10K. So far, my wife new bonds have won 6 times already, broadly as statistically expected, mine ZERO/ZILCH/NADA. This looks a little more than weird too, although it is early days on that bit.

My wife also has done WAY WAY better, consistently so, than me for decades despite the fact that for the majority of the time I held many thousands more bonds than her. No wonder if something is wrong.

If I assume that ERNIE is properly random ( this bit must after all be audited to death), my conclusion is that a whole lot of my bonds have never been entered in the draw through some admin glitch.

I am seriously considering presenting the whole data to NS&I, probably through a complaints procedure, but await a few comments first.

Plodder

PS I have advanced Maths and Stats knowledge (to Doctorate level and beyond).

I have (again) won £25 on a holding of £50k bought in one block many years ago; this is £25 more than I win in some months when I get rien, nada, niente, zilch etc. etc. C'est la vie!

Bouleversee wrote::lol:

I have (again) won £25 on a holding of £50k bought in one block many years ago; this is £25 more than I win in some months when I get rien, nada, niente, zilch etc. etc. C'est la vie!

Bien sur, Lorna, c'est la vie. £25 pour moi aussi en Février. Mais ce que je présente dans mon 'post' est complètement un autre genre de problème.

Regards,

Plodder

@OldPlodder

This happens, my FIL told me that he had some bonds from the start ( 1956?) and never had a prize from those but did from similar value bonds purchased later. After inquiring with NS&I he tells me they 'coughed' that the non-winning bonds had never been in the draw and he received a compensatory cheque - and new bond numbers. YMMV.

Amazing. How on earth could they quantify the compo amout?

I don't believe they'd ever admit bonds weren't in the draw. And I'd actually tend to believe them.

Scott.

Bouleversee wrote:Amazing. How on earth could they quantify the compo amout?

Statistically/by modelling, it would be relatively easy to compute a sensible estimate of the historical shortfall.

Plodder

PS I have just shown the evidence supporting my particular concern to one of our sons, who works in finance, and he thinks my data/evidence is absolutely compelling. It leaves me two choices: Go through complaints(probably win that in the end, but I hate complaints procedures anyway), or simply ask them to sell the lot, add the very little bit of dosh required to make it the full £50k, and ask them to invest it in one new block.

Bonne chance!

Well, I've won £25 this month, which, after last year where my winnings were only about 0.5%, is hopefully a sign of a better start to the year…

But, of course, the real question is: with now two rises in the BoE base rate, when will the Premium Bonds prize fund interest rate be increasing?

I've gone from winning virtually nothing in the months after purchase to winning every month for the past 6 months. The best month ever for me winning £575.

March 2022 results available at : https://www.nsandi.com/prize-checker
NS&I: https://nsandi-corporate.com/news-research/news/ernie-springs-march-two-new-premium-bonds-millionaires-devon-and-cheshire
lovemoney: https://www.lovemoney.com/news/13635/premium-bonds-winners-have-i-won

2 x £25. Not much compensation for large losses in Polymetal etc.

Just had our 'new' holding back to full for 12 draws, as we cashed them in for a house move when the sale of the old one was delayed.

I got £100 (4 wins of £25) this month, bringing my 12 month total on £50k to £475, almost 1%

MrsF Managed 14 wins, so a more pedestrian £350, or 0.7% However MrsF's wins go to charity, so they get Gift Aid and she gets higher rate tax relief on them, so really she won, erm, about £90 more than that

Paul

3 x £25 for me on 50K
Nothing for mrs didds on 50K
£25 for mini Didds on 5K

chuffed for daughter

April 2022 High Value Winners list -

Web link - https://www.nsandi.com/prize-checker/winners

XLSX file link - https://www.nsandi.com/files/asset/xlsx ... -2022.xlsx

I prefer to have a quick look using the XLSX link, because I can then filter on my area without having to look through the whole web-based list, which can be a bit trickier.

Lower value winners can find out tomorrow (Saturday 2nd April) using this link - https://www.nsandi.com/prize-checker

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Itsallaguess wrote:I prefer to have a quick look using the XLSX link, because I can then filter on my area without having to look through the whole web-based list

One thing that's bugged me for a while is that I can't find a way of answering the question "What area am I in?"

You'd think it would be straightforward, but the rules on what your area is called is quite complicated, for privacy reasons so that winners can't be identified in any way.

"Each customer is assigned to a town, local authority, county or Government Standard Region and country. When a winner is assigned to a town with less than 100,000 holders assigned to it, then we use the following hierarchy until we find a level where that area has at least 100,000 Premium Bonds holders:

Level 1 Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF) Town (like Blackpool)
Level 2 County or Local Authority (like Lancashire)
Level 3 Government Standard Region (like North West)
Level 4 Country (like England)

For large towns and cities that are divided into local authorities or boroughs, we quote the area with the fewest customers over the 100,000 reporting limit. This may mean the list quotes a local authority area or borough instead of the town or city."

So I could make a guess as to which area I would be listed in, but I'm not sure, and it makes scanning the list of winners a bit annoying.

It would be trivial for them, and no breach of privacy, to tell you in your account what your listed location would be.

(And yes I'm aware it could change over time as bond distribution changes, but it's still trivial.)

Scott.

Areas are a joke these days
I am in postcode London (NW7)
Electricity wise I am in the Eastern region... go figure