Check old Premium Bonds

captdry

Hi all not sure if this has come up before but recently I found some old Premium Bond slips my mother bought for me in 1984 when I was a child. She gave me the slips when I was 18 and told me I'd been included in the prize draw all these years but hadnt won anything. Given it was only £20 I didnt think much of it. I also had a £10 bond slip from my Grandmother. I recently invested a larger amount in Premium bonds and set up an online account with NS&I using the same Premium bond holder number on the old slips. When my account was activated the new investment was showing and also the £10 matching the bonds purchased by my grandmother but the £20 from my mother was missing.

I queried it with NS&I and they said it was common with older bonds that they were missed off and to send a letter with copies of the slips and it would be rectifed. I did this and then NS&I responded saying the bonds were not in my name and they couldnt confirm who's name they were in for Data Protection reasons.

To cut a long story short NS&I refuse to acknowledge these bonds are mine, even though the bond holder number on them matches mine. I've taken it to the ombudsman and they have said the bond holder number on the original application does not match the Premium Bonds slip and there is nothing more they can do.

Ok so its just £20 however I've been under the impression for the last 33 years that I've been entered into a prize draw each month with the chance of winning.

I wanted to see if anyone else has had this problem and also to encourage anyone who is keeping old Premium Bonds to contact NS&I and make sure they are actually on your live account. In my case £20 has been lost but it could easily have been a larger amount.

Malthusian

Surely the most likely scenario is that they're actually in your mother's name and she needs to contact NS&I to withdraw the money and give it to you.

If she is no longer with us you need to send them a copy of her death certificate.

ab56

When sorting through a deceased relative's papers we found a £10 premium bond purchased in the late 1950's. Without declaring this bond we wrote to N S & I asking if any bonds existed in the deceased name. They replied there were none! However, when we wrote back with copy of the bond they paid the £10 to the executors!

teddysmum

It's very unlikely that they have won anything as some people with £1000s invested don't win, though we have.

StokieBecks

There should have been a bit on the bonds that you had to sign to say you were now over 18 and your guardian had to sign to transfer them over to you. That's what I did with mine. It was easy.