Nationwide Help/Save to Buy ISA SCANDAL

Kkeating

If anyone else has a help to buy ISA with Nationwide (or think they do with a save to buy ISA) please this week GET IT IN WRITING that it is a Government HTB ISA with the top up. We have had our ISA for 5 years. After 1 year when new HTB ISAs came out we specifically asked to move to Government HTB ISA at a face to face meeting at Nationwide to get the top up and were told we didn't need to, as got same with this ISA (Save to buy). The guy actually said 'theres no point as you get Government top up with this ISA PLUS preferential rate for our mortgages so better staying". Turns out they lied! We are now thousands of £££ short of money which we are entitled to (Around £2500). We have been mis sold the ISA and to make matters worse not a single of the 5 or 6 staff that my husband dealt with face to face over the last 2 months realised until we had closed said ISA (as told to by them- we now know they could have worked a few tricks to move it into HTB!!). We were misadvised countless times!! This ISA had no benefits at all. .no preferred mortgage rate or cashbacks or top up as promised. May as well as had it in a normal account!! We will be referring this to financial ombudsman if we don't get our money back in next 56 days. We have been completely duped and ripped off and are fuming! To make matters worse we had this conversation with Nationwide the day after my daughter's funeral (she was stillborn). It's a time we remember very well and decided to get our affairs in order as life is so short. They have offered us a measley £100 which we have of course refused. Luckily we didnt need that extra money to buy our house but did borrow it from family with promise to pay back as soon as we got Government top up-now leaving an OAP waiting for their money! My husband works in finance and is very well versed on the process so we are now waiting for a letter within 28 days and then if not resolved in 56 days will be going to Financial Ombudsman for full refund of what we are owed. I guess Im posting to see if this has happened to anyone else, and to warn people! I am so so so so angry that we were duped into thinking it was a HTB ISA. We never received any paperwork wise :mad:as promised and just got on with our lives thinking it was all being taken care of!

wjr4

Surely you should have checked the terms and conditions of the account yourself? It really isn't difficult to see that the Save to Buy account is not a Help to Buy account. Sorry for your loss.

eskbanker

Kkeating wrote: »

we specifically asked to move to Government HTB ISA at a face to face meeting at Nationwide to get the top up and were told we didn't need to, as got same with this ISA (Save to buy).

[...]

I am so so so so angry that we were duped into thinking it was a HTB ISA.

These sound contradictory to me but clearly Nationwide haven't covered themselves in glory here - at least it sounds like they've accepted responsibility and it should now just be a case of negotiating settlement, with FOS as a point of escalation if necessary.

Kkeating wrote: »

This ISA had no benefits at all. .no preferred mortgage rate or cashbacks or top up as promised

I've seen reference on here to their Save To Buy product being withdrawn next year but was under the impression that it was still valid, with its various preferential benefits (not any government bonus though), up to April 2020, so that sounds like an additional separate complaint if they didn't even deliver what they should have done with that product....

Rich2808

I think the Nationwide save to buy isa has caused some confusion - with the general help to buy isa. As their website makes clear you could have held both and paid into both as they are a split isa provider

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/support/support-articles/faqs/save-to-buy-isa-manage-your-account-faqs#xtab:twistyitem5-can-i-hold-a-save-to-buy-isa-and-help-to-buy

Seems you were missold or misinformed as you could only ever get a maximum of a £500 or £1k bonus on their save to buy isa - and only if you took out one of their save to buy isa mortgages - compared to up to £3k each for the help to buy isa which would be available with any mortgage with any mortgage provider..

Nationwide do offer a £500 incentive to first time buyers on top - which would close some of the gap. But I can see why you might have been put off taking out a mortgage with them.

Problem is as it was face to face in a branch its your word vs theirs. You could try going to the media I suppose but its going to be hard to prove.

The lesson being get a second opinion - as many branch staff often haven't got a clue what they are talking about!

PS sorry for your family loss.