Avoid NS&I at the minute (in my opinion) due to customer service issues.

Bossworld

I'll try to keep this brief and factual.
- NS&I's customer service is effectively non-existent at the moment - with reference to article https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-8826131/NS-boss-really-really-sorry-meltdown.html
- Their current service level agreement (SLA) on complaints is just over 2 months.
- You are looking at 40+ minute waits to get through on the phone
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Background for my thread is that in late July I started what appeared to be a straight forward process to move my kids' Junior ISAs from Halifax to NS&I, as Halifax had communicated a looming rate decrease, and I'd found it frustrating having to manage the account in-branch.

Near the beginning of August, after initiating the transfer and entering all the details of the existing accounts online, I was sent paper forms to return to NS&I with details of the children's savings.  Strange seeing as they'd asked for those details online, and proof of identity when opening, but did it anyway.

In late August, NS&I wrote to say they'd get the funds from Halifax, which could take 15 working days.

Early September, Halifax wrote to me advising they needed me to go in branch to verify details, which I did the next working day.  
A week or so after in early September, I got a closing statement from Halifax for one of my children's ISAs.  No further comms from NS&I.
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Current state of play:
My son's ISA still isn't showing the balance online, two months on.
Today I've received a November letter from NS&I, stating they're abandoning opening my daughter's account, along with a photocopy of a Halifax September letter, advising that they need more information.  I sorted that back in September.  Halifax had told NS&I they needed to re-request the funds, which I've relayed via the phone twice.

--
tl;dr - I'm not hopeful of hearing any resolution to the complaint any time soon.  Hopefully my daughter's account has just stayed with Halifax and once my son's finally clears, I'll get the money back out of NS&I and transfer elsewhere.  Appreciate things are more difficult at the minute but many other businesses have had to adapt to different ways of working, it's no longer good enough as a blanket excuse.

eskbanker

Further exclusive revelations to follow, including the arboreal defecatory habits of ursine mammals, and the religious persuasion of some guy in Rome with funny hats....

Sorry, forgive the sledgehammer sarcasm, but the number of recent threads about poor NS&I service make this very old news!

Bossworld

eskbanker said:

Further exclusive revelations to follow, including the arboreal defecatory habits of ursine mammals, and the religious persuasion of some guy in Rome with funny hats....

Sorry, forgive the sledgehammer sarcasm, but the number of recent threads about poor NS&I service make this very old news!

Ha no problem, I just wish I could click my heels three times and be returned to Kansas.  Hopefully with my daughter's account that's what'll happen.

eskbanker

Not sure that it would be particularly desirable to be transported to the US Midwest right now, unless you've had early access to a vaccine!

Bossworld

Just had an email half an hour ago confirming my son’s account is finally open. Have opened a Halifax JISA and will go into branch tomorrow to try and get the transfer back from NS&I to Halifax. Have one slight concern in that the MSE site (though seemingly no others) states you can only open one JISA per year.

Daughter’s account is still visible on NS and I website despite the transfer being abandoned by them.

Thrugelmir

Many things in the post Covid are going badly, Gets forgotton that many staff are still working from home. Slick processess are now in tatters. Extremely labour intensive and fractured. 

refluxer

Bossworld said:

Just had an email half an hour ago confirming my son’s account is finally open. Have opened a Halifax JISA and will go into branch tomorrow to try and get the transfer back from NS&I to Halifax. Have one slight concern in that the MSE site (though seemingly no others) states you can only open one JISA per year.

Daughter’s account is still visible on NS and I website despite the transfer being abandoned by them.

The MSE Junior ISA guide states that "you can only open one junior cash ISA and one junior shares ISA per tax year" and "you can transfer providers as much as you like, but can only hold one of each type at any one time."

So it states that you can transfer as many times as you like, but you have to open one in order to transfer in from another which would go against the first statement about only being able to open one per tax year. Confusing !

Does it maybe mean 'open' as in open one with 'new money' (ie. not a transfer) ?

Alexland

Yes they should say each child can only receive contributions of new money into one JISA of each type such that the total contributions across the 2 types of accounts doesn't exceed their annual allowance. Of course the parent is allowed to open further accounts in order to facilitate transfers and people can continue to contribute the remaining allowance with the new provider.

Bossworld

Thrugelmir said:

Many things in the post Covid are going badly, Gets forgotton that many staff are still working from home. Slick processess are now in tatters. Extremely labour intensive and fractured. 

The issue is, they're not the only ones working in these new conditions, and they've had 8 months to figure out changes to processes.

Can't comment on the HMT targets driving increased demand (mentioned in the linked article) for a number of reasons, but are you honestly telling me in four months, they couldn't have used their inbuilt secure messaging, email, telephone call or even a letter to proactively tell me why the transfer has taken so long?

On the one hand - I've not been overly concerned as the ISAs have to run until each child is 18 and the interest was always going to be backdated, but on the other hand, it's been a shambolic CS experience.  I have had to call and chase more times than I care to remember, 40+ minute waits each time, and stupidly when I originally logged a complaint I said I wasn't after compensation, just the issues getting resolved.  If they ever get back to me will be changing my approach there.

Thanks to all for trying to clarify this one per year thing!  Called Halifax to avoid being turned back at the branch so just waiting on them to get back to me to try and get the ball rolling on the transfer back.

Speculator

Bossworld said:

Thrugelmir said:

Many things in the post Covid are going badly, Gets forgotton that many staff are still working from home. Slick processess are now in tatters. Extremely labour intensive and fractured. 

The issue is, they're not the only ones working in these new conditions, and they've had 8 months to figure out changes to processes.

Can't comment on the HMT targets driving increased demand (mentioned in the linked article) for a number of reasons, but are you honestly telling me in four months, they couldn't have used their inbuilt secure messaging, email, telephone call or even a letter to proactively tell me why the transfer has taken so long?

On the one hand - I've not been overly concerned as the ISAs have to run until each child is 18 and the interest was always going to be backdated, but on the other hand, it's been a shambolic CS experience.  I have had to call and chase more times than I care to remember, 40+ minute waits each time, and stupidly when I originally logged a complaint I said I wasn't after compensation, just the issues getting resolved.  If they ever get back to me will be changing my approach there.

Thanks to all for trying to clarify this one per year thing!  Called Halifax to avoid being turned back at the branch so just waiting on them to get back to me to try and get the ball rolling on the transfer back.

Just transferred daughters Chorley CTF to Coventry JISA.
Forms completed and posted to Coventry on Friday 23rd October. JISA opened on Monday 26th and transfer from Chorley to Coventry completed on 29th October! A total of 7 days from start to finish.
 
My other daughters CTF transfer from Skipton to NSI took a total of 75 days.

Bossworld

Speculator said:

Bossworld said:

Thrugelmir said:

Many things in the post Covid are going badly, Gets forgotton that many staff are still working from home. Slick processess are now in tatters. Extremely labour intensive and fractured. 

The issue is, they're not the only ones working in these new conditions, and they've had 8 months to figure out changes to processes.

Can't comment on the HMT targets driving increased demand (mentioned in the linked article) for a number of reasons, but are you honestly telling me in four months, they couldn't have used their inbuilt secure messaging, email, telephone call or even a letter to proactively tell me why the transfer has taken so long?

On the one hand - I've not been overly concerned as the ISAs have to run until each child is 18 and the interest was always going to be backdated, but on the other hand, it's been a shambolic CS experience.  I have had to call and chase more times than I care to remember, 40+ minute waits each time, and stupidly when I originally logged a complaint I said I wasn't after compensation, just the issues getting resolved.  If they ever get back to me will be changing my approach there.

Thanks to all for trying to clarify this one per year thing!  Called Halifax to avoid being turned back at the branch so just waiting on them to get back to me to try and get the ball rolling on the transfer back.

Just transferred daughters Chorley CTF to Coventry JISA.
Forms completed and posted to Coventry on Friday 23rd October. JISA opened on Monday 26th and transfer from Chorley to Coventry completed on 29th October! A total of 7 days from start to finish.
 
My other daughters CTF transfer from Skipton to NSI took a total of 75 days.

Which just goes to show that it can be done but it seems NS&I have given themselves too much to do.

Going to Halifax later to try and set the ball rolling for the reversal from NS&I for my son's account.