Dot ComUnity Credit Union - ISA

whw

Just got off the phone to First Direct and they at least have some procedure in place. They say Head of HMRC states £5 is not protected and therefore not permitted in an ISA, but all banking institutions should accept the cheque regardless.

They say to cash in the cheque to my normal FD account via HSBC, have them take copies of everything, open an FD ISA online, and FD will transfer the protected funds into the ISA.

Now that's what I expected every bank to do. Why aren't they?

Edit: I did a follow-up call regarding back-dating the interest. Initially their notes say they will not backdate and it should be a blanket rule for all FSCS cheques. So I quoted tk200's (#1232) experience and after a wait and some consulting with their Tax Realted Services Dept (who have been in contact with the HMRC), they say that the HMRC guidelines state they are under no obligation to backdate interest. Well, that's disappointing.

bsms1147

I gave up and have deposited it in a current account.

codetown

I have a good relationship with Coventry BS as well.

The problem is: unless you have an old and active ISA account, there is no way to deposit your previous years money in as they currently do not offer *any* Cash ISA account allowing old money transfers....

thenudeone wrote: »

I had an existing ISA with Coventry BS, so last week I sent off the FSCS cheque plus copies of the closing EBCU statements together with an application form for a new non-ISA account to credit the extra £5 into, and an authority to bank the cheque into the new account first then do a transfer to the ISA, if it wasn't possible to split a cheque deposit between two accounts.

According to the balances reported by telephone banking last night, my existing ISA has been credited with the ex-EBCU ISA balance correctly.

The cheque was over the annual ISA limit so they have definitely not treated it as a current year subscription.

Full marks to Coventry Building Society.

MARTYM8`

Bhamstudent wrote: »

whw - I popped back into my branch in London today to see how things were getting on. Whilst the account has not yet been opened, they called through to the Central ISA team who had received all the paperwork and told the branch employee that it would all be credited tomorrow (apparently!).

This did take two phonecalls (largely because of the branch employee not quite understanding what I was asking), but the first call did reveal that they are anticipating these "transfers" to take longer than the advised 7-10 days. Whilst it did take two calls - the branch knew exactly who to call and they seemed well informed - there is a named contact within the ISA team who is dealing with this apparently. I think his name is Simon - however, if you ask your branch to speak to mine (the same one I PM'd you about and ask to speak to Jade - she has his details). HTH!

Still no update from me on NW either – unfortunately when they copied the paperwork and I completed the ISA transfer form at the branch for forwarding on to HQ the head office team were very clear that the cheque should not be included pending them working out their processes. So they have the paperwork – but no cheque to pay in to my ISA account which is already set up (so it should be a simple process). Haven’t followed up with the branch yet as I have been busy – and spent ages trying to get through to the NW ISA team on the Freephone number last night and gave up.

So very frustrating – but I am confident it will be sorted in the end.

Bhamstudent

A quick further NW update from me - their central ISA team called me this morning to ask where I wanted the £5 deposited as it was not part of my ISA. Once I'd confirmed this they informed me that the paperwork would be sorted today and the cheque paid in tomorrow. So it looks like the end is in sight!

whw

Bhamstudent - I've just spoken to Jade and she confirms the cheques are being accepted and it's a matter of filling out an External Transfer In form and taking everything in-branch. So she at least appears to know what's happening. It's frustrating then that my local branch hasn't a clue!

Edit: FINALLY! My local branch manager has called, stated there is a process in place. I'm to bring my documents in, the completed External Transfer In form and my interest will be back-dated to when I first went in-branch. Talk about the government making it hard work for savers!

pafpcg

An update on my ultimately successful attempt (see post 1029) to transfer-in to Nationwide Flexclusive ISA accounts my own and my partner's FSCS cheques: it's taken longer than some others have found, but following a call from the Nationwide ISA Transfer-in team on Monday to say she was processing our accounts, the balances on our existing Flexclusive accounts were updated overnight with the full amount of the FSCS cheques and had been credited back to the date of our original visit to the branch (19th May) so the long wait has cost no more than frayed nerves. The team member told me that Nationwide had contacted HMRC and had been told to deduct £5 (from the DotCom Basic Share Account) from the ISA funds and we agreed that this should be transferred into our Flexaccount; this was done on Tuesday and we had our Flexclusive passbooks updated in the local branch today. I assume that this concludes our financial dealings with DotCom/EBCU.

However, there are some issues:

1. Clearly, the £5 deduction from the FSCS cheque is a generic policy - no-one in either HMRC or Nationwide spotted that the statements for our DotCom accounts showed that our Basic Share Accounts contributed slightly more than £5 to the FSCS cheque - we had both boosted our non-ISA accounts in March. That extra funding to the Basic Share Accounts is now in our Nationwide ISA accounts - I didn't want to raise this with the Nationwide for fear that this might cause further delay in an already difficult process.

2. It appears that the DotCom Basic Share Accounts *must* have been covered by the FSCS guarantee. If they were not covered and had, in fact, been part of the financial reserves of DotCom/EBCU and so at risk in the event of insolvency, then the Administrators (Cork Gulley) should not have given holders of Basic Share Accounts preferential treatment by refunding immediately all the account balances. If I were a creditor of DotCom/EBCU or a holder of one of the DotCom bonds and facing a substantial loss, I'd not be at all happy....

MARTYM8`

whw wrote: »

Bhamstudent - I've just spoken to Jade and she confirms the cheques are being accepted and it's a matter of filling out an External Transfer In form and taking everything in-branch. So she at least appears to know what's happening. It's frustrating then that my local branch hasn't a clue!

Edit: FINALLY! My local branch manager has called, stated there is a process in place. I'm to bring my documents in, the completed External Transfer In form and my interest will be back-dated to when I first went in-branch. Talk about the government making it hard work for savers!

An update on my situation.

I have been advised (after 30 minutes on the phone to HQ - involving the staff member contacting my branch and the ISA team in multiple discussions) that my NW branch should have taken my actual cheque (not a photocopy) along with my ISA transfer form/statement copies/FSCS covering letter when I went in. ISA HQ seem to be trying to blame the branch as they weren’t following the instructions sent out in the email which was issued before the bank holiday weekend – but I was party to the phone conversation the branch staff member had with the ISA HQ team. We both thought it odd at the time but that is what they told the branch staff member to do pending NW sorting out their processes for dealing with EBCU cases.

Why of course anyone assumed you could pay a photocopy of a cheque into an account – rather than the actual cheque is of course a moot point – but this has just delayed resolving all this?

So I have to go into the branch again – and go through the process all over again (new ISA transfer form, fresh photocopies of my statement/letter and the actual cheque!) even though HQ already have these (albeit a cheque photocopy). And that is after explaining to the branch staff again what this is all about.

Farcical isn’t the word for it.

PS The guy on the phone was very helpful and patient – but I was not happy!

whw

Just to add to the sillyness of it all, my Nationwide branch manager said I had to deduct £5 from the balance on the External Trasnfer In form. It seems odd I need to do this as the statements will show what is ISA-protected and what is not.

MARTYM8`

whw wrote: »

Just to add to the sillyness of it all, my Nationwide branch manager said I had to deduct £5 from the balance on the External Trasnfer In form. It seems odd I need to do this as the statements will show what is ISA-protected and what is not.

They could of course simply follow the instructions provided by the FSCS in the letter.

You pay the entire cheque into your NW current account – and then they transfer the funds (less the £5) into your ISA.

Maybe that would be too much like commonsense!