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

eskbanker

Bossworld said:

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.

FOS publishes their approach to compensation for non-financial losses at https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/expect/compensation-non-financial-loss in which they specifically clarify that they don't compensate according to amounts of time:

When we look at inconvenience and loss of your time, we may ask for evidence of how much time you’ve spent. We don’t make awards based on units of time, but instead we look at the overall impact the business’s mistake had on you.

Bossworld

eskbanker said:

Bossworld said:

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.

FOS publishes their approach to compensation for non-financial losses at https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/expect/compensation-non-financial-loss in which they specifically clarify that they don't compensate according to amounts of time:

When we look at inconvenience and loss of your time, we may ask for evidence of how much time you’ve spent. We don’t make awards based on units of time, but instead we look at the overall impact the business’s mistake had on you.

I don't want to lose the bigger picture to get caught up in semantics, sorry, I lost interest in arguing on forums years ago. Their point in your quote is they won't do a simple calculation of 'units of time'. If needs be, I'll go back and change the post to read 'time I've lost' to 'number of attempts to contact NS&I for resolution' and substitute 'time' for 'occasions' in the second occurence. For what it's worth, time wasn't the focus of the escalated complaint to FOS.

The point I'm trying to make is the sheer amount of effort spent chasing and acting as a go-between I've had to do between two large financial institutions, which it seems has happened to many others in the last 4/5 months.  My (hopefully) salient point being that if the accounts relate to children, based upon the investigator's explanation, NS&I seemingly have free-reign to drag things out beyond published timescales, with minimal financial risk of being punished by FOS.

FOS publishes their guidelines for 'awards for distress and inconvenience' here https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/businesses/resolving-complaint/understanding-compensation - which shows ranges and maximums.  Take the following example given in relation to the lowest point on the scale.

Examples of awards for distress and inconvenience

• Moderate (less than £500)

  A customer had to contact you repeatedly to get something quite basic sorted out. For example, their address wasn’t updated when it should have been, or paperwork containing their personal information was shared with a third party by mistake. This may have caused the customer frustration and inconvenience.

eskbanker

Bossworld said:
You're missing the bigger picture in order to focus on semantics. Their point in your quote is they won't do a simple calculation of 'units of time'. If it matters that much to you, change 'time I've lost' to 'number of attempts to contact NS&I for resolution' and substitute 'time' for 'occasions' in the second occurence.

Fair enough, perhaps I misunderstood and took your reference to 'time' too literally - I'd been replying to a post on another thread earlier where someone did have an expectation of charging for their time, but rereading what you posted I can see that this wasn't necessarily what you had in mind.

And I'm certainly not defending NS&I, whose performance in recent times has unquestionably been poor, and hence the interest from the Treasury committee, who were expecting a response to their concerns by yesterday, so presumably something will be published soon....

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/158/treasury-committee/news/138100/treasury-committee-seeks-answers-from-nsi-following-string-of-complaints/

Bossworld

eskbanker said:

Bossworld said:
You're missing the bigger picture in order to focus on semantics. Their point in your quote is they won't do a simple calculation of 'units of time'. If it matters that much to you, change 'time I've lost' to 'number of attempts to contact NS&I for resolution' and substitute 'time' for 'occasions' in the second occurence.

Fair enough, perhaps I misunderstood and took your reference to 'time' too literally - I'd been replying to a post on another thread earlier where someone did have an expectation of charging for their time, but rereading what you posted I can see that this wasn't necessarily what you had in mind.

And I'm certainly not defending NS&I, whose performance in recent times has unquestionably been poor, and hence the interest from the Treasury committee, who were expecting a response to their concerns by yesterday, so presumably something will be published soon....

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/158/treasury-committee/news/138100/treasury-committee-seeks-answers-from-nsi-following-string-of-complaints/

Thank you that's really useful to know, I'll have a proper read through later. Apologies, I've rephrased my reply as I didn't intend to come across quite so confontational.

I have asked the FOS Investigator to confirm their point (re: age of account holders) in writing, as while it's likely a lost cause, I would still like to write back to NS&I and ask for copies/proof of these alleged letters telling me to stop the standing orders. 

Bossworld

Final point (I will be writing to NS&I with regards the letters that never arrived, but I don't expect to hear anything) - this was the verdict from FOS.  For reference, I cashed the cheque as I can't NS&I replying within 3 months, and I wasn't convinced it would be upheld.

I can confirm that the Alternative Dispute Resolution Rules we must follow as an Ombudsman Service say we should award any compensation for trouble and upset on the basis of the impact on the complainant in a case. This means that we can't award compensation on the basis of any trouble and upset suffered by a personal representative of the complainant - unless, in certain circumstances, the impact on the representative has also a significant effect on the complainant.

 

In your case, because your children are the account holders of the Junior ISAs, if I was to award compensation - not only for material losses but also for any trouble and upset suffered, I'd only be looking at how the issues affected the children, not you. Their age only comes into play as to whether we should ask for their consent for you to act, but since they're so young there wouldn't be any point in doing so.

 

In relation to point two, as explained in our call,  I can't confirm whether it's likely that the offer would be removed or reduced because I haven't looked yet into the merits of your case. I can only confirm that I'll apply the rule stated above to guide me as to what's fair and reasonable in this case. It's also a possibility that if I wasn't to uphold this complaint, I may leave the offer untouched. That said, I think you made a valid point yesterday that the offer may lapse by the time I receive all the evidence I need from NS&I, so that's definitely something you should factor in your decision. 

eskbanker

By the way, the NS&I response to the Treasury committee has been published today, at https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/4406/documents/44482/default/, offering apologies, explanations/excuses and promises of improvements - time will tell....

The committee chair's brief assessment of it is at https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/158/treasury-committee/news/138627/nsi-responds-to-treasury-committee/

cricidmuslibale

eskbanker said:

By the way, the NS&I response to the Treasury committee has been published today, at https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/4406/documents/44482/default/, offering apologies, explanations/excuses and promises of improvements - time will tell....

The committee chair's brief assessment of it is at https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/158/treasury-committee/news/138627/nsi-responds-to-treasury-committee/

I notice that at no point in the NS&I response to the Treasury committee is it acknowledged that the interest rate cuts across the board on 24th November 2020 were (aside from Premium Bonds) very large indeed relatively speaking and these cuts included reductions to as little as 0.01% in the case of Income Bonds and the Investment Account; this may well be one of the key reasons for why many current NS&I savers or indeed recent ex-NS&I savers are so dissatisfied with NS&I at present!

eskbanker

cricidmuslibale said:

eskbanker said:

By the way, the NS&I response to the Treasury committee has been published today, at https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/4406/documents/44482/default/, offering apologies, explanations/excuses and promises of improvements - time will tell....

The committee chair's brief assessment of it is at https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/158/treasury-committee/news/138627/nsi-responds-to-treasury-committee/

I notice that at no point in the NS&I response to the Treasury committee is it acknowledged that the interest rate cuts across the board on 24th November 2020 were (aside from Premium Bonds) very large indeed relatively speaking and these cuts included reductions to as little as 0.01% in the case of Income Bonds and the Investment Account; this may well be one of the key reasons for why many current NS&I savers or indeed recent ex-NS&I savers are so dissatisfied with NS&I at present!

It does specifically refer to the interest rate cuts being one of the causes of increased complaint volumes:

Customers were unhappy with the reduction in interest rates, and this, coupled with the longer call centre wait times, increased customer complaints further.

Bossworld

Final, final update. I wrote back on the 28th Jan, including every last piece of correspondence I'd had from them, and a rough timeline of every contact. I felt there was nothing to lose (I'd cashed the £75 as per my conversation with the Ombudsman).

I've received a letter today, they've advised that once letters are dispatched, they're at the mercy of the Royal Mail. Fair enough except: A) Every other letter from them arrived, For both to go missing is unlikely, C) laughably, today's reply says a copy is enclosed for my reference, and it isn't

- They have accepted the call centre staff had multiple opportunities to mention an issue with payments ahead of the transfers. 

- They have accepted they misinformed me on a previous call that they've listened back to.

- They've accepted they missed four opportunities to request the funds from the other bank.

They're sending another £75 as compensation.  I'll keep my Premium Bonds as there's nowhere else to put them, and I feel suitably recompensed for the problems they've caused.

Halifax are reducing their JISA interest rates down to 2% but I believe that's still higher than NS&I.