Premium Bonds: two holders numbers

Shankers

I opened an NS&I account last year and then sold my income bonds to take out some Premium Bonds.

My mother then reminded me that I had Premium Bonds from when I was a child and a young adult. 

Turns out that the holders number for the ones from when I was a child/young adult is different to the ones I purchased last year and manage online.

I have called NS&I about this twice and have been given different advice. The first representative told me I should both write a letter and fill out a change of details form; the second representative said I simply need to write a letter. The change of details form does not seem to account for my eventuality as there is no area on the form to designate that I have two holders numbers. 

Has anyone been in this situation and what is the best course of action to consolidate all my Premium Bonds under the more recent holder's number?

Alexland

I would just write a letter explaining what has happened and include the change of details form correcting any outdated details on the old account incase it is required before they are able to consolidate the accounts.

Shankers

Alexland said:

I would just write a letter explaining what has happened and include the change of details form correcting any outdated details on the old account incase it is required before they are able to consolidate the accounts.

Thanks. Instinctively, in an age of form-filling, your suggestion seems to make good sense. I'll do just that.

Costabit

I had similar issue
Created an online account and bought some PBS as well as having some random ones from 1959.
It took a few calls and emails to NS&I before settling on the method to get the old ones registered to the online account.
The best way was , as Alexland suggests, to do it all by letter.
I photo copied all the various original PBS and sent it off with a letter requesting that they be amalgamated with my new online profile and a couple of weeks later all was done, pretty easy really, once the letter went in.

Snapdragon

Definitely write to them, giving as much info as possible.

I had bought myself premium bonds up to the max limit, and when I mentioned this to my parents they informed me they had a £1 bond registered to my maiden name at their address which my grandmother bought when I was born!

I was concerned that obviously took me over the max allowed so I wrote to NS&I giving my bond holder numbers, my current name and address and also the details of the original bond with my maiden name and the address the original bond was registered at. Once they'd checked it had never one in 50+ years, they cancelled the old bond and returned the £1 to the bank account registered against my more recent account holder number. When I sign on it shows me I have two bond holder numbers, but obviously only one has any bonds registered against it now.

Shankers

An update: They lost my letter, meaning nothing has been done. I sent it late June and there's no trace of it in their system. This means they'll need to send me a change of details form again, I will need to print my letter and get it signed again by a third party, another stamp, more delay. Absolutely hopeless. Has anyone else had experience of this regarding account mergers?

TheDefender

@Shankers How did the saga end?

I've got two holder numbers too.  One from 60 years ago under which I have £4,000 worth of bonds in paper form and one recent online holder number under which, after a £5000 win this month, I have £47,000 and so I'm over the overall limit of £50k.

NS&I haven't contacted me to tell me I'm over the limit.  I imagine they never will.  I don't think they have connected the accounts.  I'd be happy to amalgamate my accounts or simply cash in the excess but I want to do that from my paper bonds.  There doesn't seem an easy way of doing either...