ISA Transfers not as easy as they should be ...

nlamont

In response to Martin's highlight in September I tried to transfer the sum in a Safeway ISA (run by Abbey) to First Direct. I sent the forms in September but didn't hear anything until November when FD called to say they couldn't do anything because I had to give Abbey confirmation that I wanted the transfer to go ahead. I called Abbey who told me I couldn't confirm over the phone, it had to be in writing.
At that point I thought it was a waste of time I'd only have two months of the high interest period left by the time letters had passed from me to Abbey and Abbey to FD, so I emailed FD that I wanted to cancel the transfer. They confirmed that would be done.
Unfortunately they didn't tell Abbey. In December I got a letter from them with a receipt for the amount in the account confirming it had been closed and transferred to FD. On calling FD they had no record of it, and said they wouldn't get any notification because there wasn't an account to put it into. They told me to get Abbey to 'stop the cheque'. Two hours of transferred calls and listening to crap music later both sides say they can't do anything about it - Abbey have said twice they'll get a manager to look into it, without any collective memory of having promised the same before; FD say it's Abbey's problem. So I've lost six grand somewhere between the two of them!

The morale is - don't expect a transfer to be quick but if it's not quick enough DON'T cancel it!

Paul_Herring

nlamont wrote:

[...]so I emailed FD that I wanted to cancel the transfer. They confirmed that would be done.
Unfortunately they didn't tell Abbey. [...]
The morale is - don't expect a transfer to be quick but if it's not quick enough DON'T cancel it!

Or cancel it both ends yourself, instead of assuming the destination will tell the source.

nlamont

This morning I had a letter from FD, posted on Monday, apologising for not notifying Abbey of the cancellation and enclosing a cheque for £20 in lieu of interest and inconvenience. It didn't say what had happened or would happen to my money. I emailed them and quickly received a call from one of their customer relations people who said she'd been onto Abbey, who wouldn't accept her word that the money had never been received, she would have to put it in writing before they would investigate it. She had done so. Abbey had told me they couldn't 'stop the cheque' as there was no actual cheque, just an electronic transfer. They told her, however, it was a cheque and FD must have it somewhere.

I was pleased that the two banks were now speaking to each other as Abbey had said on no account could they speak to FD directly. The FD woman did say that , given Christmas holidays etc, I might not hear anything from Abbey for a couple of weeks.

So at least FD were doing something. Watch this space.

Milarky

Generally speaking in a situation like this it helps to give one party [in this case, FD] a 'letter of authority' - something which the other party [in this case, Abbey] must them accept and discuss with the first party whatever the authority covers [so it's a good idea to word it precisely like: "I hereby authorise First direct to act on my behalf in discussing the requested transfer of my ISA from Abbey plc".