Pensioner Bonds now on sale

Sledgehead

So to my own issues. The double-dip on my Mum's account has gone through, supposedly giving her £20,000 of 4% 3yr bonds. Add that to her one year issue and my Dad's 3&1yr issues, and their joint account has been hit for £50k. Not so cool as they'd only allowed for £40k of debits. Moreover, this was something a bod at NS&I said could not be done. Nice to see they understand their systems so well, and nice to see how little testing the platform had been subjected to.

I did manage to get through today on 0500 500 000, only to be told I'd have to be patient as "a lot of people" have been charged twice. The tel operative was "unable to put a time-frame" on a possible resolution of the issue, despite reporting that "a huge number" of customer service staff had been allocated to the task.

As Osborne says, "huge success".

Archi_Bald

Sledgehead wrote: »

As Osborne says, "huge success".

Everyone who doesn't agree should tweet him.
https://twitter.com/George_Osborne

Don't wait, do it now. Much more effective than venting here.

Rollinghome

Sledgehead wrote: »

You might ask yourself how they ever managed to sell off British Gas in 1986, given Berners Lee made his first test of WWW in late 1990.

No need to ask. As I recall, like most small investors, I sent off for an application form which I then signed and returned by snail-mail with my cheque. I popped into my bank to arrange for funds to be in my current account and the registrars in their own good time sent me a paper share certificate. We were more patient then. Is there some connection?

A more recent example was the Royal Mail sell-off when the servers of Hargreaves Lansdown, the biggest retail brokers, crashed as punters tried to trade. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/10373688/Hargreaves-Lansdown-Royal-Mail-systems-glitch-sparks-anger.html

Don't be too surprised, stuff happens and getting so worked up isn't good for your health.

Sledgehead

... and you honestly think tweeting pensioners will be numerous enough to cause trending?

Like most savers, pensioner or otherwise, my parents are intent on serving their revenge dish well chilled in the Spring. Fixing this issue would be too little too late, even if he was minded to do so. More likely a twitter storm would just result in more weasel words. Something along the lines of (from 2009):

Mr Osborne says: "Savers and pensioners are the forgotten victims of Labour's recession. Over the past year, someone with £10,000 of savings in an easy access high street account has seen their income halve from £50 a month to less than £25. "So having planned for their retirement and put money aside for a rainy day, savers and pensioners are seeing their living standards fall as Labour's recession hits home.
"They are innocent bystanders and it's simply not good enough for the Government to walk on by."...."While the Prime Minister may have forgotten about Britain's savers, the Conservatives have not," Mr Osborne said.

Then he pumped up asset prices with Help2Buy, belittling savers deposits, and crashed their savings rates with the FLS. You can keep twitter. The ballot box is where I and my parents will make their feelings clear. But thanks for the suggestion.

Archi_Bald

Sledgehead wrote: »

... and you honestly think tweeting pensioners will be numerous enough to cause trending?

What is it you want - I thought you'd like the problems with your bond applications sorted, but may be I misunderstand and you want headlines in the newspapers and stories trending on the web?

Rollinghome

Sledgehead wrote: »

Like most savers, pensioner or otherwise, my parents are intent on serving their revenge dish well chilled in the Spring. Fixing this issue would be too little too late, even if he was minded to do so. More likely a twitter storm would just result in more weasel words. Something along the lines of (from 2009):

Then he pumped up asset prices with Help2Buy, belittling savers deposits, and crashed their savings rates with the FLS. You can keep twitter. The ballot box is where I and my parents will make their feelings clear. But thanks for the suggestion.

You didn't mention that Cameron/Osborne also promised to end all income tax on savings interest for basic rate payers and to raise the tax allowance for pensioners by £2000.

"David Cameron took the side of savers hit by tumbling interest rates yesterday and promised to abolish tax on the savings income of all basic-rate taxpayers. He also promised to lift personal allowances for pensioners by £2,000 a year." http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/jan/06/david-cameron-conservatives-economic-policy

They didn't, and instead have abolished the age-allowance for pensioners so they will get only the standard allowance from April. Nor did he mention that he'd raise VAT to 20%.

That's what politicians of all colours tend to do unfortunately but hasn't much to do with the problems you've had.

This may all be new to you but it's common enough to see problems with popular offers when everyone swarms in at once. It's usually better to wait a bit.

The easiest course for you now is to wait a few days to see if it sorts itself out and if not to phone again or to write if necessary. If there is any consequential loss then claim for it.

The fact that others who joined the scramble on the first day have had similar problems should make it easier to get it resolved.

miller

Sledgehead wrote: »

I did manage to get through today on 0500 500 000, only to be told I'd have to be patient as "a lot of people" have been charged twice. The tel operative was "unable to put a time-frame" on a possible resolution of the issue, despite reporting that "a huge number" of customer service staff had been allocated to the task.

I'll give them a time frame. 8 weeks from when my patience runs out if nothing is sorted soon.

[Deleted User]

we both received the key features booklet today plus a simple form for our signatures, to be returned to Glasgow. Only when they have received the signatures will the bonds become ours. I assume this will be the case for everyone. We were pre-registered and did receive e mails with reference numbers. The cash left our accounts several days ago

mike88

If people have been charged twice then that means people could get into an overdraft situation with attendant bank charges. This is going to be a minefield for NS&I to unravel.

2010

kittie wrote: »

we both received the key features booklet today plus a simple form for our signatures, to be returned to Glasgow. Only when they have received the signatures will the bonds become ours. I assume this will be the case for everyone. We were pre-registered and did receive e mails with reference numbers. The cash left our accounts several days ago

Thanks Kittie, if you log in to your account can you see the bonds there yet?
Some people have been saying they could see them in their account not long after they bought despite not even receiving the form to sign.