'Icesave... angry, frustrated and upset...' blog discussion

dazmb

sandrapeace wrote: »

I don't expect anyone to have much sympathy for me but I (and my partner) have £750,000 invested in Icesave. We are not super wealthy, but as a result of lost confidence in conventional pension products over the years, decided to keep our savings 'liquid'. We now face the prospect of losing EVERYTHING. At best, we'll get £100,000 back -big deal!

Is there anyone out there is a similar position - I feel very alone at the moment!

Sandra, we all have sympathy for you if you stand to lose so much money. So best wishes go to you over the next few days/weeks. Good luck.

riskaverse_2

My first post on this site - prompted by Jon Snow's interview of Martin Lewis on C4 news which was, in my opinion, ludicrous. Icesave was recommended here, there and everywhere. How come one site came in for such flak? At least Martin did raise the issue of the £35,000 limit on security. I'm very sympathetic to people who may - and it is only may at the moment - be about to lose money but the shaky state of international finance has been headline news for maybe two years now. That being the case - why did people choose to invest large sums of money in one place? Were they not watching the news or reading the papers?

mjmoore0

MSE_Martin wrote: »

If this had beeen written about anyone else - i would delete it for liable. And I will not allowany more like this.

I am very happy to answer questions from worried savers, I even accept some people got products due to my top picks (as well as every newspapers, Which, and every other website) and are annoyed, but frankly I have better things to do with my time than answer such juvenile points as this and any other of this ilk will be deleted.

Martin,

I'm sure like most money savers who have been on here for a while I cannot remember you sending e-mails out demanding that I must invest my life savings in this bank or another. But I can remember the recommendations and the warnings that come with all the recommendations which allows me to make an informed decision.

I for one am grateful for all the advice that I have obtained from this website over the years and if there are those who are unhappy with that then I would say don't come back to the website if you're that unhappy.

Whilst I'm sure we're all disappointed that this has happened to Icesave and a little anxious to try and get our money back, the warnings that you gave and the implications of not heeding those warnings were quite clear and precise. I have just under £7000 in an ISA, which I obviously don't want to lose, but you won't find me coming on here saying that you gave duff advice or demanding explanations.

If people have invested more than £35,000 (let alone the £50,000 which it has only just gone up to) solely based on the information from this website then they have no-one to blame but themselves, but I hope for them that they do get most (if not all) of their money back.

All we can do is wait and see what happens, if the Icelandic government pay their bit, great. If not, we'll have to see how Gordon treats 300,000 of his electorate at a time when his poularity isn't fantastic.

One last thing Martin, I too, like most of us on here saw your interview on C4 News tonight and I could see how gutted you were for all the people who subscribe to the website and more than likely all investors affected by this.
I certainly don't hold any losses I incur against you and I hope that you continue to provide the excellent advice that we come to expect.
:T

dazmb

daveclark wrote: »

Whilst I don't want to anger the legions of M. Lewis fans more than is already the case - the point "PistolPete180" was making before it was hijacked seems to be a sound one. Namely, that there are/were plenty of organisations offering similar interest rates to those offered by Icesave so clearly it would've been a better policy to not recommend Icesave? OK, anyone who puts money into a bank should do their research but the fact is people look to sites such as this for advice/guidance and don't always do the correct research. If ML had a policy of only recommending "safe" savings accounts then this forum wouldn't exist - nobody would be worried about losing up to £16k.

One last thing - I hope this doesn't qualify as "liable" (libel??) :-)

It was perfectly ok for Martin (like so many others) to recommend Icesave. Nobody could have predicted not simply a single bank collapse, but in fact the collapse of almost the ENTIRE Icelandic financial system. This is an extraordinary event.

The guarantees Icesave offered were reasonable in a normal scenario. But that's exactly what this isn't. It's like all those people putting their savings in Ireland now they have guaranteed 100% security. But, the thing is Ireland CAN'T guarantee 100% security if like in Iceland they too were to suffer a complete financial system collapse. If the nation were to become effectively bankrupt (like Iceland was/is close to) where would Ireland find the money to repay deposits? Their guarantee is just words like Icesave's were. And in such extraordinary times those words are meaningless when a financial system suffers a huge meltdown like Iceland's has.

cornubian

When I opened my account in September 2007, this message was on the ICESAVE site:

Deposits made with Icesave are protected under the Icelandic Deposit Guarantees and Investor-Compensation Scheme (details of this scheme may be obtained from https://www.landsbanki.com/legislation). Payments under this scheme are limited to the first €20,887 (or the sterling equivalent) of your total deposits held with us.

You have further protection from the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme (https://www.fscs.org.uk). Payments under this scheme are limited to 100% of the first £2000 of all your deposits with us, plus 90% of the next £33,000 of your total deposits with us, less any payments made under the Icelandic scheme. This means that the maximum claim amount as at June 2006 is £31,700.
http://www.icesave.co.uk/financial-protection.html

In July 2008, ICESAVE posted this notice on its site:

"Peace of mind with Icesave:
Part of international banking group, Landsbanki
Regulated by the FSA
Subscribers to the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme
Subscribers to the Banking Code"
http://www.icesave.co.uk/easy-access-isa.html


Quite clearly, the message is that my money has a double guarantee of safety. Now we are hearing that the FSCS only compensates for sums lost between €20,887 and £50,000. The questions is, why did the UK FSA and FSCS allow ICESAVE to operate in the UK on the strength of misleading guarantee information?

£uckless

dazmb wrote: »

Sandra, we all have sympathy for you if you stand to lose so much money. So best wishes go to you over the next few days/weeks. Good luck.

I have £100,000 in Icebank and having retired this was invested as my income in retirement, now it would seem, mainly lost. From the latest news it seems that only £50,000 will be covered. I also have money in Kaupthing and don't know whether this will count as another £50K covered or not.
I think all of us in this position should make an effort to stick together both for news and support - because we are going to need it, I think.
Nothing is clear about whether the bank has actually gone down, but I think we may be falling off a cliff with crys of it may not be too hard at the bottom! I heard CNN Euro news just now say "fortunately only about 5% of Icesave UK savers have over £35000 in the bank"! That made me angry - like we were nothing to worry about.Can we try to get a group together as we are currently fragmented. Any ideas? £uckless

daveclark_2

dazmb wrote: »

It was perfectly ok for Martin (like so many others) to recommend Icesave. Nobody could have predicted not simply a single bank collapse, but in fact the collapse of almost the ENTIRE Icelandic financial system. This is an extraordinary event.

The guarantees Icesave offered were reasonable in a normal scenario. But that's exactly what this isn't. It's like all those people putting their savings in Ireland now they have guaranteed 100% security. But, the thing is Ireland CAN'T guarantee 100% security if like in Iceland they too were to suffer a complete financial system collapse. If the nation were to become effectively bankrupt (like Iceland was/is close to) where would Ireland find the money to repay deposits? Their guarantee is just words like Icesave's were. And in such extraordinary times those words are meaningless when a financial system suffers total collapse.

Fair point but we're not talking about Ireland - the discussion is about savings that are covered by the UK regulatory system. The fact remains that ML could've simply kept his list of recommendations to those organisations covered 100% by the FSA (up to the maximum limit of course) - lets face it there are more than enough of them. If that had been his policy he would not be getting the attention he is now and savers who took his advice without doing the sensible thing and researching further would not be in the position they find themselves. It's all very well people saying what a legend he is and how he's not to blame but that's ignoring the fact that a simple policy decision to remove any risk in his recommendations would have avoided this situation. Pretty clear when you think about it.

cituk2001

Can you believe it - I opened my Cash ISA with ICESAVE last week - depositing £3600 - yes I made the decision based on reading this site, indeed I wouldn't have even known who ICESAVE was if it wasn't for Martin's site. Do I blame him? Not really - my decision but then I am not the expert and consider him to be so.

All I can say is that I hope (like others) that Martin will guide us carefully and accurately how to claim our money back.

Reading the replies on here, I am thankful I have not all my life savings here!

£uckless

Yes I was cross with Jon Snow as I'm a pensioner and it doesn't seem that we are considered, or that is, we have saved all our lives for a pension - it seems all they think is that we are greedy get rich quick kids. I'll loose £100K in Icesave and pssibly Kaupthing too, my pension gone and years of toil wasted to provide for myself. My money didn't come easy. Got to keep our chins up. I keep saying people are starving in the 3rd world, so we could be wose off.It's the only way I can think.

Former_MSE_Forum_Manager

daveclark wrote: »

One last thing - I hope this doesn't qualify as "liable" (libel??) :-)

Thanks daveclark

I've amended the post to avoid confusion