Buying Premium Bonds - but how ?

cornerstone13

I've recently come into some money and decided to use it, amongst other things, to get the maximum amount of £30,000 in Premium Bonds.

The cash is sitting in my cahoot account which doesn't have a cheque book.

I applied for the Bonds online and put in my debit card details as requested; the next day I had a transaction failure email from NS&I. I tried again and the same thing happened.

I called NS&I to find out the problem and they said cahoot weren't releasing the funds. I called cahoot to find out why; they said NS&I were trying to process the transaction as if it were from an ATM, for which the daily limit is £300, so obviously a £30,000 tranaction would be declined (imagine being able to take that out from an ATM!!). I called NS&I back to tell them this, they said there was nothing they could do and to go to the local post office and try from there with my debit card. Which I did. And it still didn't work.

NS&I tell me I can't arrange a transfer from cahoot to them; I don't have a cheque book so can't pay them that way.

Has anyone come across this problem before and if so, what was the solution ?

BruceyBonus

Set up a standing order for £30,000 then cancel it once the first payment has gone?
Here are the details: http://www.nsandi.com/products/pb/savingregularly.jsp

You need a holder's number to do this, so you'd need to buy £100 worth of bonds online first.

posted_2

You'd probably win more putting it in a savings account, and spending the extra interest on lottery tickets, the odds of winning the jackpot with bonds are astronomical.

rb10

Bit of a waste of £30k really, there are some good savings accounts around at the moment. If you've got all this money, you might as well put it to some good use, and earn you a bit, rather than just let it sit there in Premium Bonds.

cornerstone13

I have my reasons for wanting to put the money in Premium Bonds - but NS&I are certainly not making it easy for me, never mind whether it's the best place to put money at the mo.

So, back to my original question - has anyone come across a similar situation and if so, what was the solution.

Paul_Herring

what was the solution.

Change/open and account with another bank? (It's usually a good idea to have more than one current account anyway.)

Reaper

My wife has a Cahoot account. When she wants to write a cheque she transfers the money to me or to our joint account, both of which have cheque books.

barak

cornerstone13 wrote: »

I have my reasons for wanting to put the money in Premium Bonds - but NS&I are certainly not making it easy for me, never mind whether it's the best place to put money at the mo.

So, back to my original question - has anyone come across a similar situation and if so, what was the solution.

There is a daily limit for online cahoot transfers. I suggest you try 15k one day and 15k the next day, which should work.

Jake'sGran

cornerstone13 wrote: »

I have my reasons for wanting to put the money in Premium Bonds - but NS&I are certainly not making it easy for me, never mind whether it's the best place to put money at the mo.

So, back to my original question - has anyone come across a similar situation and if so, what was the solution.

When my brother left me £10k in about 1990 I put it in Prem.Bonds as I had a lot of other types of accounts. I had a win nearly every month in 2008 but always fors £50 and there was one £100. The total is now £14000 plus. I always reinvest any winnings as this means they go into the next draw. I was a bit miffed when my daughter who likes to copy some of my financial ways, bought PBs but just a small amount and then won £500 in one prize in the first year. With ING aren't you supposed to transfer it to your linked account?
My link is Smile but they also have a limit on withdrawals of £10k. I did £30k once and just did three transfers on the same day and time.

Mikeyorks

In the fairly recent past, I've made 2 x £30k and a further £20k transactions with NS&I via Debit Card .... and had no problems. Sounds more like Cahoot processing, as I'm pretty certain NS&I go via a standard merchant acquirer.

However ... it's not working. So ... do Cahoot provide a Bankers Draft on request (their website's a bit reluctant to disclose basic detail)? If not you're going to have to enlist the help of a very trustworthy friend ... with a cheque book. Or get one yourself ..... for a number of term deposits (for example) it's the only way to open one. And that has to be a personal cheque drawn, normally, on the linked account ... so the friend's no good there.

charlieboycat

Mikeyorks wrote: »

In the fairly recent past, I've made 2 x £30k and a further £20k transactions with NS&I via Debit Card .... and had no problems.

Interesting. Were you undertaking these transactions by phone, or on the internet? I ask because NatWest apply a £1k per day limit for internet debit card tranactions where the cardholder isn't present (eg. online payments to Egg savings). In the same circumstances I seem to recall that Intelligent Finance imposed a £5k daily limit. May I ask:

- which bank(s) allow £30k transactions?

- do they distinguish between phone-based transactions and automated internet transactions such as Egg savings?

- do you have to phone the bank(s) in advance to put them on notice to approve the transaction?

Thanks.