Children savings no return

Mr_Warren_2

Hi all. 10 years ago whislt visiting a farmer's show in North Yorkshire, we were approached by a salesman from "Shepherds friendly" a friendly building society who convinced us to invest in a 10 year plan for our two daughters. I remember the look on his face when we signed on for £10 x 2 / month when he thought we were going to invest more.....anyway, the 10 years are up now and daughters aged 19 and 21 know nothing of the money. The investment is due to mature in April and i have just found out that the pot is actually now worth £1200 which is the exact amount we put in this investment for the past 10 years. There is however a bonus to be added on completion (in April). What do you make of this, do i have the right to complain or should i just put this down to (bad) experience?

Lorian

Maybe all the returns are in the bonus? Was it an insurance policy? What were the T&C's you signed up to?

baby_boomer

Friendly societies tend to have high charges and low returns. They should be avoided as the "tax free" aspect comes nowhere near to making up for this.

In the current climate there will be ten year endowment policies with major companies which give back less.

Over ten years the FTSE100 has lost over 1/3 of its value. So these sort of returns are not unexceptional.