Anyone received a CHAPS from Icesave today?

DocProc

At 12:30 lunchtime yesterday, Monday, my wife and I did three CHAPS transfers out of Icesave, paying the £30 for each transaction. Obviously, this was after the 11am deadline and so we expected the transactions to complete today, Tuesday.

I actually messed the first one up, since I forgot to allow for the £30 and the amount I was transferring wouldn't therefore have had £30 to fund the transfer as there wasn't enough left in the account. Doh!

I'd ticked the box and hit 'Confirm' and I just couldn't find anywhere to edit the transaction down by £30, which I could have done had it been possible, as it wasn't going to take place until Tuesday.

I duly transferred this £30 out of the second account into the first account. I hoped that might fix things. On the first account now, the total debits had enough credits with a few £s to spare to be left in the account. (I always think this allows you access later, should you ever want to go back and check on anything. If you empty the account totally, then you are closing it. Thus it is going to become non-existent and you cannot ever go back into it).

Anyhow, we did the second transfer, nearly emptying the second account, allowed the £30 for the CHAPS, ticked the box, and then also similarly for the third account.

We left our individual ISAs alone, believing that they might well be claimable from the FSCS or the Icelandic compensation scheme and hopefully, would retain their ISA status for transfer to the UK in the future.

At about 5am or so, I couldn't sleep, so I came down, did a bit of surfing and looked at the Icesave accounts.

Great! The £30 had already actually transferred across from the second account to fund the CHAPS transfer on the first account.

However, at 5am none of the CHAPS transfers had yet actioned. The money was still there in all three accounts.

At about 8:30am this morning, I was pleased to see the CHAPS transfers all seemed to have actioned. The money had left all three accounts.

As I type, at 18:47pm, Tuesday, not one of the three transactions has arrived in the linked current account.

IT_nerd

matty2767 wrote: »

i didnt close it but if i did it was because i need my money. waiting x months for a claim to go through (if successful) is no good to me.

Nooo, I mean why did you actually close your account. Couldn't you have just made the balance zero but kept it open for a bit.

Realy

IT_nerd wrote: »

Nooo, I mean why did you actually close your account. Couldn't you have just made the balance zero but kept it open for a bit.

No if you withdrew the money you have to close the account.

angiek

Early yesterday after reading as much as I could about the Icelandic banks troubles I made an informed decision and decided not to panic, but to leave my money in Icesave.
I went to bed and couldn't sleep- this is ALL my money, (though well under the £35,000) no partner, no pension etc. etc. so got up again and did a CHAPS transfer. Checking tonight, like many others, the money has gone from Icesave but not appeared in the linked account.
Disappeared into the ether.....trying hard not to worry...am sure it will be okay in the end..BUT...
So if anyone has any idea what I need to do now- would they please let me know - assuming just have to wait and see but is there any action I should take?
Many thanks
Angiek

Nomad25

Looks to me like Icesave staff have been told it's perfectly fine to lie to UK customers.

Yes it would appear so. B**stards.

steve_hill

Hi angiek,

In the same boat. Missed getting the money out by a whisker by the sounds of it. Now we just have to wait and see what happens. It seems likely, according to the FSA, that Icesave/Landsbanki will go insolvent, triggering the relevant compensation schemes.

First port of call will be the Icelandic government for the first £16,300 of any money you have in there. After that it falls onto the British FSCS system. If Iceland goes bankrupt (the Iceland PM was on TV tonight saying that he didn't think there would be any problems with the Icelandic part of the compensation system...but he would say that to avoid utter catastrophe for their economy) then the three Scandinavian countries apparently have an agreement with Iceland to step in to help. If that falls through, then we have to pray that the British FSCS system will change tack and cover the first £16,3000 too.

It is hard to imagine that the British government will allow 300,000 British Icesave savers to lose so much money, but things are moving very quickly on the global scale. If things get much worse then all bets might be off as to who will cover what. On the other hand, if things settle down a bit, it might just be a matter of filling in some forms and waiting patiently to get your money back. One of the big papers today was reporting that the FSA was in negotiations to see if they can repay people's money within a week or so...seems a bit on the hopeful side to me.

Golfer25

It appears it doesn't matter what method you use to transfer the money. This morning I transferred my money out and got all the correct information that said it was to be done and the account was showing zero. This was by the "slower" method. The time was 9:00am. Later on I went on to the site and found they had reversed the decision. They are obviously lying in their back teeth. I made the changes before it was stated on their site that they were blocking transfers. In my eyes, that means I should still have my money en route to another bank account.

When I eventually spoke to Icesave, their comment was "Sorry but it has been stopped. It cannot now be changed. But you will not lose any money because of the two stage compensation method that is employed.

I have now written to them and enclosed a copy of the statement that said the transfer had taken place. I feel that everyone who has a similar confirmation does exactly the same thing.

Golfer25

I've just tried to log in to Icesave, but am being denied. I wonder if this is because I effectively drew all the money out this morning? May be they have acted upon the transaction. I live in hope.

br1anstorm

Like many others on this thread, I sent a 'transfer-by-CHAPS' instruction around 11pm last night to shift £45k out from my Easy Access account (leaving it open with a small remaining balance). I also have £50k in a fixed term account - which I hoped the compensation scheme would cover if the worst happened.

I thought it had gone through. The website statement this morning showed the transfer had been processed. But you guessed, the money hasn't arrived in my UK account.

A trawl through this and other threads reveals a range of info and comments, many quoting Icesave staff - about what has happened, or will happen in these particular circumstances. It seems impossible to post multiquotes, so to summarise some key examples:

• realy - "if a CHAPS is processed, it can't be stopped". But then in a later post "no transfers yesterday or today", and then, Icesave saying that transfers "would go through";
• topher - quoting Icesave "transfers won't go through"... and later "they will bounce back".
• Similar report from steve hill;
• lady golfer - transfers "were blocked at 9am today"
• Nicholbb - (who like me has reviewed the threads) - "none [of the transfers perhaps since Sunday] has been actioned".

This still rather confused picture prompts a couple of key factual/procedural observations and questions, which are critical for those who sought to act shortly before the guillotine fell:

1. To state the obvious, once the announcement of "no more transactions" is made (and the website locked) then that is clearly when the shutters came down. But formally and legally, when precisely did this happen?

2. Can Icesave (or any bank) refuse to implement an instruction given validly and accepted before the announcement of a 'freeze'? In other words, can they refuse to process (ie bounce back) transfers that have already been set in hand and recorded as having been processed?

3. Where transactions are shown as having been processed, the money has presumably left individual accounts and gone into a clearing account? If a freeze is essentially a suspension rather than a cancellation of activity, then if or when Icesave resumes any banking activity (under whoever's ownership or control) should they (or could they) not complete pending/frozen transactions rather than unilaterally and retroactively "reversing" them and putting the money back into the accounts from which the money came?

My own hope is obviously that existing valid transfers initiated before the freeze will be implemented, even if there's a delay. That would be the honourable and honest step. But of course my fear is that I'm facing the possible loss of £50k.

Irrespective of my personal predicament (and we would all do well to keep emotions out of this forum if we can), it seems to me that it will be important to have clarity on these points among many others. Reliable guidance would be equally helpful whatever happens. If Icesave actually fails such details will be relevant for compensation claims. If it resumes activity in some shape or form in the future, savers might want to press for 'pending' or outstanding transactions which preceded the freeze to be completed).

MarketRisk

i also did a chaps transfer, over the phone, because unable to login yesterday at 3:10pm. closed account. account closed, but no sign of the money in designated bank account.

if account closed prior to freeze then shouldn't that be legally binding?

also, is it legal to have one rule for icelandic depositors and another for foreign depositors?

we really need some legal advice.

perhaps we can set up two groups:
1. for those that completed transactions prior to freeze

2. for those that are from holland and britain and think it is illegal for differentiation between depositors depending on country of origin.

anyone know of any lawyers with expertise in this area?

i call it theft.