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

DavidT67

NS&I weren't a slick operation before CV,  doing a bait and switch to attract billions of investment and then drop rates was a cynical decision. 

In the same boat, took over three months to have JISAs transferred in, just for them to announce slashing rates, now in the exit queue and will see how many months they take to complete a transfer out!

Also worth noting that their complaints service is nonexistent and they aren't regulated so an FOS complaint can just be ignored.

Bossworld

DavidT67 said:

NS&I weren't a slick operation before CV,  doing a bait and switch to attract billions of investment and then drop rates was a cynical decision. 

In the same boat, took over three months to have JISAs transferred in, just for them to announce slashing rates, now in the exit queue and will see how many months they take to complete a transfer out!

Also worth noting that their complaints service is nonexistent and they aren't regulated so an FOS complaint can just be ignored.

Went into Halifax last week to start the process to go back the other way.
Fortunately, due to NS&I's ineptitude, my daughter's one never completed the transfer and therefore they've closed the half-open one for her, leaving her Halifax account intact.

I did receive a cheque for about £2.50 yesterday as an apology/payment for the lost interest while this rumbled on.  I honestly think/hope the transfer back to Halifax will be complete before NS and I even look at my complaint.

Mr_K

Tbh I've never had any problems with NSI customer service. Always dealt with everything online , easy to do, and instant. 
Their latest interest rate cuts are daylight robbery ( a separate issue). But closing my Income Bond account and transferring to my bank was done in seconds.
Why people are messing about with phone calls, premium bond cheques and paper forms in this day and age is a mystery.  You're asking for trouble/delays/human /Royal mail error. I get that older folk might be used to doing things this way   but trust me its more complicated on paper than online. 

Alexland

Mr_K said:

Why people are messing about with phone calls, premium bond cheques and paper forms in this day and age is a mystery.  You're asking for trouble/delays/human /Royal mail error. I get that older folk might be used to doing things this way   but trust me its more complicated on paper than online. 

While it's good to know someone is having a good experience but that's fine until you hit a problem that cannot be resolved online and need to contact them for support. From the complaints we read about the problems with paper forms and cheques are happening because NS&I are choosing to use them in certain situations such as an ISA transfer.

RetSol

I try to remind myself to count to 100 now before embarking voluntarily on any process involving a financial institution.  ISA transfers are definitely a no-no for me now until next Spring.  It's too much hassle when things go awry at the moment.  Same goes for pretty much anything where there is a possibility that I might need to speak to customer services.  

Bossworld

Mr_K said:

Tbh I've never had any problems with NSI customer service. Always dealt with everything online , easy to do, and instant. 
Their latest interest rate cuts are daylight robbery ( a separate issue). But closing my Income Bond account and transferring to my bank was done in seconds.
Why people are messing about with phone calls, premium bond cheques and paper forms in this day and age is a mystery.  You're asking for trouble/delays/human /Royal mail error. I get that older folk might be used to doing things this way   but trust me its more complicated on paper than online. 

Not my choice bonny lad. I filled in all the details online when I originally applied for the transfer, including the Halifax account details.  Weeks later NS&I then sent out paper forms requesting the same details.  That's when the fun and games started with my daughter's account (transfer luckily never went through due to NS&I's ineptitude).  You can't contact NS&I online to get a response, so you're forced to telephone.

Still no response to my complaint (beyond the one saying they've got a backlog) and it seems they're now dragging their heels over transferring the money back to Halifax.

Bossworld

I don't want to get my hopes up but it looks like the one Junior ISA is no longer showing on my NS&I online account.  To me that would imply they've closed the account to send the money back over to Halifax.

Still no resolution on the complaint, they sent a letter on Friday advising they were now looking into it, and included a copy of the Ombudsman's leaflet given it had breached the deadlines.

Bossworld

Received email confirmation late last night, that the NS&I ISA was now closed.

Presumably just waiting on the Halifax account balance to be updated, then other than waiting for resolution of the complaint, this farce is finally over.

I never expected the complaints procedure to take so long, so I fear they’ll just close it off as I didn’t ask for compensation back in October.

Bossworld

Halifax balance was updated on the 9 December. Seems NS&I can move when they need to.  Now to await the result of the complaint.

Bossworld

A final update on this.
I received a letter from NS&I last week (3 months after raising the complaint) advising my complaint was partially upheld due to the transfer time and mistakes that they made in that process.

They claim to have sent a letter regarding each of the ISAs, advising that as per p5/6 of their PDF, you cannot make deposits into the account while a transfer is in progress.  This was never mentioned on the phone, even when I specifically called up to ask where the £20 a month was (as it wasn't visible).  Only on a much later phonecall, did someone advise that was one of the reasons for the delay.  None of the reps had mentioned these alleged letters either.  So, negative points to me, for missing one clause in a 19 page PDF, and negative points to three or four members of NS&I's trained CS team who didn't flag it as a problem either.  Strange how of all the letters sent, those are the only two that never got delivered to me?

They've offered £75 compensation.

About 2 days later, I received an update from my escalated complaint to the Ombudsman. I've just come off the phone to them, and the crux of it, is that because these are Child ISAs, I'm deemed a representative, so any compensation decision from the Ombudsman, would purely relate to any financial loss suffered by the kids.  My personal guess would be about £10 in interest, tops.
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tl;dr - NS&I have got off very lightly because these are child accounts.  I can either pursue the complaint with the Ombudsman, in which case, in all likelihood I'll lose the current £75 offer (which is also only valid for 3 months and NS&I's complaint handling is taking longer than that), or I can take the money but the Ombudsman will close the complaint.

I'm sure some will judge that I should feel grateful to receive £75 - I'm not sure that's a valid reflection of the time I've lost, the time I've unnecessarily had to go into banks during a pandemic, or that NS&I can operate such a poor level of customer service, effectively immune from censure from the Ombudsman due to the age of the account holders.