The Lemon Fool

Bereaved families locked out of NS&I savings

Telegraph Sat 5 June 2021
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/savings/bereaved-families-locked-nsi-savings/
(Sorry, paywalled, and even Google can't help on this one!)

More customer service woes after state-backed bank closes Indian support office. Families including the recently bereaved have been unable to access cash tied up with National Savings & Investments, as the state-backed bank struggles with a fresh raft of customer service failures.

A spokesman said "We have moved our processes to our UK sites following the announcement of a lock-down in Chennai, India, as part of our contingency planning to minimise disruption of our customers"

yorkshirelad1 wrote:Telegraph Sat 5 June 2021
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/savings/bereaved-families-locked-nsi-savings/
(Sorry, paywalled, and even Google can't help on this one!)

Simply stop the page loading pretty quickly after it starts (with Chrome or Waterfox either hit the X button next to the url or press Esc), and if you get the timing right you'll stop it after it's loaded the page but before it pops up the "To continue reading" paywall box.

yorkshirelad1 wrote:Bereaved families locked out of NS&I savings

Telegraph Sat 5 June 2021
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/savings/bereaved-families-locked-nsi-savings/
(Sorry, paywalled, and even Google can't help on this one!)

Ahem! But the ESCAPE key might. Or so I've heard...

yorkshirelad1 wrote:Bereaved families locked out of NS&I savings

More customer service woes after state-backed bank closes Indian support office. Families including the recently bereaved have been unable to access cash tied up with National Savings & Investments, as the state-backed bank struggles with a fresh raft of customer service failures.

A spokesman said "We have moved our processes to our UK sites following the announcement of a lock-down in Chennai, India, as part of our contingency planning to minimise disruption of our customers"

I had an NS&I bond that matured on 12 Feb 21.
The maturity amount was sent to the source bank Cahoot
That Cahoot account was taken over/moved to Santander.
Cahoot refused the payment.
I enquired from NS&I and was told a cheque would be issued to the account holder (me)
As of today I have received nothing.
This raises the query of to whom should I complain
Cahoot for not forwarding to my Santander acc or to NS&I for not sending to the right place/for not sending me a cheque.
For clarity; at the maturity date I held two accs. One being by way of inheritance from my late wife died on 17 Jun 2017 . That acc had been reinvested after that date if I remember correctly. Both accs were similar in value and dates. The inherited acc was paid correctly to my Santander acc.
I can see that there would have been an opportunity for me to have discovered that the destination could have been altered by me had I been better educated to that possibility but I missed that.

FAO gnawsome

''The maturity amount was sent to the source bank Cahoot
That Cahoot account was taken over/moved to Santander.''

surely NS & I would only have sent funds to Cahoot if you had so instructed
if the Cahoot account was later changed to Santander it wojuld be for you to change the NS & I instruction

right or wrong the NS & I system is a computer controlled and will only do what it is programmed to do
an instruction of nominated bank account would stand until changed


or have I misunderstood your post?

I still have one of those old Cahoot/Santander accounts (which I've not used for a very long time). IIRC both the sort code and the account number remained unchanged. Consequently I would have assumed (obviously wrongly) that the instruction with NS&I remained valid as there was nothing to change.

mutantpoodle wrote:FAO gnawsome

''The maturity amount was sent to the source bank Cahoot
That Cahoot account was taken over/moved to Santander.''

surely NS & I would only have sent funds to Cahoot if you had so instructed
if the Cahoot account was later changed to Santander it wojuld be for you to change the NS & I instruction

right or wrong the NS & I system is a computer controlled and will only do what it is programmed to do
an instruction of nominated bank account would stand until changed


or have I misunderstood your post?

No, I don't think you have misunderstood at all. I ought to have reviewed the destination acc.
The overall acc held my bond originally and my wife's bond was added later using Santander as the linked acc. I did not recognise that there were two destination accounts - my bad.
However NS&I told me that due to the payment being refused by Cahoot, NS&I would post a warrant to me to settle the account.
That was ? weeks since and still no warrant received. Is that a normal period of delay?
I also updated the destination acc to Santander as soon as I was aware, so that is presently available as an avenue NS&I could use.

Stompa wrote:I still have one of those old Cahoot/Santander accounts (which I've not used for a very long time). IIRC both the sort code and the account number remained unchanged. Consequently I would have assumed (obviously wrongly) that the instruction with NS&I remained valid as there was nothing to change.

Some 4 yrs have passed and I don't have a clear recall of events except that my wife's account was transferred to my name and it was displayed as a second account within my NS&I account with Santander as the destination acc.
That was what I saw when I completed the withdrawal instruction.
I did not notice any reference to a Cahoot acc.
The last time I looked the NS&I site showed that I had no accounts and thus could not login so I can't now back check.

NS&I paying compensation for poor service:

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/index.html

GeoffF100 wrote:NS&I paying compensation for poor service:

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/index.html

NS&I forced to pay out almost £1m in compensation as result of customer service meltdown
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-9704323/Service-meltdown-NS-costs-1m-compensation.html