Premium Bonds Article Discussion Area

Paul_Herring

North_Sea_Bubble wrote: »

I think Premium Bonds should only be considered by debt-free 40% tax payers who have maxed-out their cash ISA allowance and other tax-free cash investments. I have had the full £30K allocation for 5 years winning £5500.

I'd add that anyone who doesn't fit that profile, but who does want to 'participate' should buy just the £100 minimum possible.

I fit the profile, just. My holding? £100.

hum_lovely

Does anyone have any advice ont he best way to purchase premium bonds ie does anyone offer cashback, notice WH SMith sell them and wondered if anyone else does that would take credit cards where you could get some cash back etc. I am looking at 'investing' a few thousand and wanted to try to get something back in case they don't return anything at all in the way of prizes!

Aegis

hum_lovely wrote: »

Does anyone have any advice ont he best way to purchase premium bonds ie does anyone offer cashback, notice WH SMith sell them and wondered if anyone else does that would take credit cards where you could get some cash back etc. I am looking at 'investing' a few thousand and wanted to try to get something back in case they don't return anything at all in the way of prizes!

I think if you bought them using a credit card it might actually count as a cash advance, costing you a lot of money. I've certainly never seen anywhere you can get cashback for Premium Bonds, and even if I had I don't think I would buy them without a damn good cashback deal.

Jonbvn

North_Sea_Bubble wrote: »

Yes. I have 15 years of investing in most issues of 2,3, & 5 year NS&I Index-Linked Tax Free Certs and letting the matured certs 'roll on'. Also depending on my earnings (hence tax position) in individual past years (it varies a lot) I have also invested in some NS&I Fixed Rate Tax Free certs. Together these certs make-up 40% of my savings.

Clearly, as a high rate tax payer, saving certs really are a no-brainer.

Didn't know they did 2 year certs. I know they don't any more.

hector127

I rang National Savings and Investments twice Today to ask when , The Have I Won website would be updated , twice i got told the draw for premium bonds only took place today , i said thats funny , the big premium bond winners have been on the premium bond web page since 1st November.
They didn't believe me , i 'm putting in a big complaint as i think there a con if this is the case , do the big draws. Then a draw on perhaps postcodes, not fair at all. Plus they didn't know the current rate % that premium bonds were paying

Poor_Sport

Paulisverytall wrote: »

I still think that there is something fishy about the bonds and winning. I know its all down to luck but I have had £30k for 2 years now, and my wife £27k for a year and we havent won a penny. Of course its all down to luck but I feel you should change the calculator as "vertual Certain win" isnt the case!

This seems like impossibly bad luck. I have had just £3,500 for a year and a half and won nothing and I am beginning to think my numbers aren't registered.

I thought it unlikely I'd get a big prize but it seemed to me that losing the difference between the nominal interest rate on PBs and a commercial rate still amounted to less than I used to spend on the lottery. It seems to me the problem arises with the concept of "average luck" that NS&I employ. I don't think anyone has this average luck. It seems, anecdotally at least, some people are getting way more than I would reasonably expect and some people way less, or in my case nothing at all. Combining us all will give the results that a premium bond checker shows but some people will never win.

Of course, not having a PhD in mathematics and being unable to grasp this my paranoid mind has reached an alternative explanation. I don't think my numbers are registered. I worry about NS&I's method where they say ERNIE’s sole function is to generate numbers randomly. These are then matched against the existing eligible Bond numbers. This does seem an area where an error could creep in. They also say PB numbers are not programmed into or stored in ERNIE. I'd be more assured if they were. I believe the independent audit is only to ensure the randomness of the draw not that numbers fall off the system somewhere along the line. Indeed it has all gone wrong before: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/your_money/432748.stm I think I'd like to see a monthly list of numbers that haven't won and see if that combined with the list of numbers that had won added up to the total holding.

So I think you should look into this further. Me, I'm putting the money in an ISA and going back to doing the lottery.

realraw

people living in the republic of ireland can now purchase premium bonds, the irish govt changed the law after a lady took a case against them to the european court. i think there will be a lot of people from ireland investing in them. if we do not win on the prizes then we should do well considering the exchange rate at the moment.

BeeUK

hector127 wrote: »

I rang National Savings and Investments twice Today to ask when , The Have I Won website would be updated , twice i got told the draw for premium bonds only took place today , i said thats funny , the big premium bond winners have been on the premium bond web page since 1st November.
They didn't believe me , i 'm putting in a big complaint as i think there a con if this is the case , do the big draws. Then a draw on perhaps postcodes, not fair at all. Plus they didn't know the current rate % that premium bonds were paying

Hector,

You were misinformed (sort of), AFAIK the draw "technically" takes place a couple of days before the end of the month, so December's draw will take place on or around Thursday 27th November.

However, the bond numbers that are generated then have to matched to eligible bond holders.

The big prizes are done first as it's a fairly quick job to take the first few bond numbers generated and match them up to eligible bond holders, this is then checked and the big wins are pblished at the very beginning of the month.

After the big wins have been matched up they continue to match the rest of the generated numbers to eligible holdings. As there is loads of them this takes a while, but in general is done by the 3rd or fourth working day. It must be a bit of a mammoth task to match and then cross check each of the generated numbers to see if they belong to an eligible bond holding!

The way the bond numbers are generated are completely independent of the holding data, so ERNIE doesn't know whether a certain bond is linked to a postcode or any other details for that matter.

hector127

Premium bond rates are being cut to 1.8%
Thus ; Prizes reduced dramatically ,
£100,000 1 Prize was 5 last month
£50,000 1 Prize was 10 last month
£25,000 3 Prizes was 19 last month
£10,000 5 Prizes was 49 last month
£5,000 11 Prize was 97 last month
£1,000 208 Prizes was 1,781 last month
£500 624 Prizes was 5,343 last month

Odds of winning are reduced to 36,000 to 1

miaxmia

hector127 wrote: »

Premium bond rates are being cut to 1.8%
Thus ; Prizes reduced dramatically ,
£100,000 1 Prize was 5 last month
£50,000 1 Prize was 10 last month
£25,000 3 Prizes was 19 last month
£10,000 5 Prizes was 49 last month
£5,000 11 Prize was 97 last month
£1,000 208 Prizes was 1,781 last month
£500 624 Prizes was 5,343 last month

Odds of winning are reduced to 36,000 to 1

Yes, wondering if they are still worthing having money in as the prizes have been cut to extremes - I guess so that they can still keep the 2 "million" prizes going - personally I would prefer to see that split up and stand a chance of winning something worth having.