PO Bank / Bank Of Ireland ISAs: money gone missing

norfolk_wb

Dear all,
Got a bit of a problem.

• About 3 weeks ago, I opened a PO/Bank Of Ireland Cash ISA with £1000 on a debit card. 
• Did the forms, handed them over in branch, got the receipts.
• In normal circumstances, you're supposed to get confirmation back inside a week that all is good with your shiny new ISA.
• These are not normal circumstances, so I waited a couple of weeks longer.
• When it still hadn't turned up, I phoned Bank Of Ireland's helpline to enquire.
• Bank Of Ireland have no record of my account existing.
• PO staff remember my forms going off in an orange envelope, because they don't do them very often at that rural branch. So it's gone correctly as far as they know.
• Apparently, incoming BOI setup forms are now being posted out from their central office to employees working remotely. So they may have gone missing at that point.
• BOI say they are currently trying to trace if my money made it correctly into their systems so it can be allocated.
• The only hard evidence I have of this ever happening is the PO transaction receipts, one of which clearly states an ISA application has been made.

Question: in the event that BOI cannot find the transaction, what should I do - talk to PO and my bank to try to get the £1,000 payment reversed? Or do I need to go to an Ombudsman?
NWB

Thrugelmir

Postal service is somewhat ad-hoc at the moment. We are only getting deliveries every other day at the most. Newer mail is arriving before older mail too. Far from being normal times. 

colsten

This is one of the more serious PO Bank issues I have read about. Hopefully they will trace your money and your account before long - - hang on to that receipt! 

You need to log a formal complaint with the Post Office, and give them up to 8 weeks to give you a final response, before you can escalate the matter to the FOS.

It's said to see that it's still not common knowledge that dealing with PO Money is invariably a nightmare. Worse still that some people on MSE still recommend them without any mention of the abysmal systems, processes and CS, which have been known about long before anyone had ever heard of Covid-19. 

Stubod

...yet another PO savings account problem thread...saving with the PO should come with it's own health warning..AVOID..

norfolk_wb

Assuming I get my cash back, I *will* still be supporting my local PO branch... by putting it into an NS&I Premium Bond. Which works just fine.
There does seem to be a *very weird* disconnect - a yawning gulf of one - between PO and BOI. Not to mention the known horrific issues with the Horizon terminal system, which should have been dragged out the back screaming and scrapped with extreme prejudice by now. 
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/post-office-high-court-case-it-horizon-postmaster-prison-latest-a9249431.html

eskbanker

norfolk_wb said:

Assuming I get my cash back, I *will* still be supporting my local PO branch... by putting it into an NS&I Premium Bond. Which works just fine.
There does seem to be a *very weird* disconnect - a yawning gulf of one - between PO and BOI.

But there's no correlation between NS&I and your local post office, and likewise the use of the PO name to brand a financial offering from BOI is essentially a flag of convenience, so the disconnect isn't really 'very weird' and it's best not to assume that using these products is actually supporting your local PO in any way!

norfolk_wb said:

Not to mention the known horrific issues with the Horizon terminal system

Well, quite, why mention that, as it also has no bearing on the opening or operation of a Post Office Money account?

[Deleted User]

Hi,

as you paid by debit card then your money is in the system somewhere, is it showing as a debit on your bank account?

norfolk_wb

Well, quite, why mention that, as it also has no bearing on the opening or operation of a Post Office Money account?

Unfortunately it does. The money gets taken in as a payment through the Horizon system, for which you then get a receipt.
Horizon however has notorious communication issues, especially if network access is ever less than perfect - which it is going to be in a rural PO. It seems that Horizon and BOI's particular Worldpay instance - in the words of the BOI rep - "don't always play nice", and transactions can be lost or delayed despite being acknowledged in Horizon.

norfolk_wb

[Deleted User] said:

Hi,

as you paid by debit card then your money is in the system somewhere, is it showing as a debit on your bank account?

Yes, it is. It's showing as a debit to Post Office Counters.
The question is where it's gone after *that*. If there's been a TX failure in Horizon (going to BOI's Worldpay) it might still be with the PO, and they can recover it. If it's hit the BOI, then they need to trace it and assign it to my account. Finding out which of these two cases it is is the first priority.

glider3560

You have to go through the provider's complaints process before the Financial Ombudsman will look at your case.  It sounds like you haven't actually made a complaint yet, rather just made some enquiries.  I'd suggest making a complaint asap, to get the 8 week time limit started.

It's probably a case of the form sitting somewhere, and it just hasn't been processed yet.

eskbanker

norfolk_wb said:

Well, quite, why mention that, as it also has no bearing on the opening or operation of a Post Office Money account?

Unfortunately it does. The money gets taken in as a payment through the Horizon system, for which you then get a receipt.
Horizon however has notorious communication issues, especially if network access is ever less than perfect - which it is going to be in a rural PO. It seems that Horizon and BOI's particular Worldpay instance - in the words of the BOI rep - "don't always play nice", and transactions can be lost or delayed despite being acknowledged in Horizon.

Sure, I'm not saying that Horizon doesn't have its well-publicised flaws, but just making the point that transactions to BOI are no more or no less likely to be impacted as those to other banks, or utility company bills, or TV licences, or whatever, i.e. PO Money is no more connected to PO Counters than any other payment recipient is.