Post Office /Bank of Ireland

ANGLICANPAT

Quote
[The risks are very low (especially for Post Office accounts) - do you think HMG could stand by while investments with the Post Office failed?]

Er--yes actually. The Govt has done nothing BUT trample all over the PO for the last couple of years, rendering the system less and less viable. Post offices have had one job after another taken off them to reduce their earning capacity .

gozomark

ANGLICANPAT wrote: »

Quote
[The risks are very low (especially for Post Office accounts) - do you think HMG could stand by while investments with the Post Office failed?]

Er--yes actually. The Govt has done nothing BUT trample all over the PO for the last couple of years, rendering the system less and less viable. Post offices have had one job after another taken off them to reduce their earning capacity .

no - this is nothing to do with the PO, but about mainaining confidence in the financial system

PostmanPrat

If you’re one of the tens of thousands who invested in the Post Office 7% 12-month Growth Bond last summer you should check on the opening date of your investment in case you lose interest on the period until your account was set up. Post Office says it will pay interest from the date an investment was cleared, but can we trust them? I think not because they may have no idea of this date. Their admin is a shambles and I dread to think what’s going to happen when all these accounts mature this summer.
I lodged a cheque for £44,000 on August 06 2008 and was given a till receipt which resembles a bus ticket. Three weeks later I telephoned Post Office and was told that there was no record of my application or of my funds and that (quote) “your cheque has probably been bounced”.
I spent a sleepless night until a supervisor called next morning to say that Post Office “has an internal communications problem” and that my cheque had been received but my application had been caught up in a 10-15 day backlog. She would call later in the week with an account number etc etc. She didn’t. More calls and letters followed.
By November the Post Office delays were attracting widespread Press coverage. My concern was not diminished by a call on November 6 from someone in a call centre asking if I had received my documentation as many applications had not been processed. She was not aware of my complaint.
Five months and many phone calls and letters later, I have a letter stating that Post Office will pay interest from the date my cheque was cleared on August 4, and formal documentation stating the opening date of the account as September 2. But the interest rate and the period of investment is not stated. Fortunately for me I had photocopied the cheque, I have copies of every letter and every phone call has been logged.
Within a day or two I received another letter saying that my funds have been transferred to a foreign country as Post Office is fronting the Bank of Ireland ....
I have a number of bank and building society accounts in order to remain below FSCS limits, but never have I encountered such chaotic administration. My recent transactions with other banks, including the much maligned Kaupthing Edge, were concluded in two days.