ISA Transfer Debacle - Money gone missing

Baoser

Back in April, in this tax year, I applied for the Nationwide Members fixed rate ISA. I was going to transfer a 5 figure sum from Virgin Money. After a lot of tooing and froing the transfer went through on the 3rd attempt in June.

I made it clear when I spoke to Nationwide of the amount I was transferring. It wasn't the full amount as I wanted to leave a couple of hundred pounds in my Virgin ISA.

While I was waiting these 3 months for the transfer from Virgin to Nationwide, my Santander fixed ISA was maturing. Since Virgin's interest rate was higher than the Santander maturing rate, I decided to initiate a transfer from Santander to Virgin.

Now this is where the problem begins. I checked my balance in Virgin and they had closed my ISA. Instead of transferring the amount I requested, Virgin said that Nationwide requested the full balance. In doing so, Virgin then closed my ISA. I've asked Virgin why they closed my account when an ISA transfer (from Santander) was in progress. They won't re-open my account unless I ask Nationwide to reverse the transfer for the full amount. I'm still waiting to hear from Nationwide on why they've done this.

In the meantime, I got a letter from Santander today to say that the transfer was completed. I checked my Santander account and the ISA no longer shows. I checked my Virgin account and the money is not there either.

I'm really worried now as to where this money has gone. It was a 5 figure sum built up over many years.

Any advice please or should I take this to the ombudsman to sort out?

Thanks for any replies.

md258

You'll need to submit a complaint to Nationwide for not following your instructions and probably one to Virgin asking where your money has gone.

Once you've done this and the providers have given you a final response (or the time limit of - I think- 8 weeks has passed), then you can go to FOS.

Thrugelmir

The money will be bounced back to Santander. As your Virgin account is closed. There's nowhere for it to credited too. Be held in a suspense account until it gets processed. 

In large organisations simply not possible to tie different activity together. One department will have no idea what is sitting elsewhere to be processed in a work queue. 

Baoser

md258 said:

You'll need to submit a complaint to Nationwide for not following your instructions and probably one to Virgin asking where your money has gone.

Once you've done this and the providers have given you a final response (or the time limit of - I think- 8 weeks has passed), then you can go to FOS.

I've been with Nationwide since they were still Nationwide Anglia. Never had a problem with them before this. Virgin have been pretty good over the years and with a competitve rate too. However their customer service has shown how very inflexible they are.

Baoser

Thrugelmir said:

The money will be bounced back to Santander. As your Virgin account is closed. There's nowhere for it to credited too. Be held in a suspense account until it gets processed. 

In large organisations simply not possible to tie different activity together. One department will have no idea what is sitting elsewhere to be processed in a work queue. 

Thanks. You were right. Checked my Santander account today and the money is back. The reasoning from the transaction status was that it was rejected. Now I just need to find a new home for it.

jimjames

Baoser said:

Thrugelmir said:

The money will be bounced back to Santander. As your Virgin account is closed. There's nowhere for it to credited too. Be held in a suspense account until it gets processed. 

In large organisations simply not possible to tie different activity together. One department will have no idea what is sitting elsewhere to be processed in a work queue. 

Thanks. You were right. Checked my Santander account today and the money is back. The reasoning from the transaction status was that it was rejected. Now I just need to find a new home for it.

Don't just look at ISAs, you can probably get a better rate outside of them now

flossy_splodge

I found this an interesting post as I too tried to do a transfer to Nationwide, this time from Santander. I applied in March this year. I wont go into all the twists and turns but basically Nationwide claims that Santander rejected the transfer on the basis of insufficient funds.  I have a very long call with Santander who assure me they absolutely did NOT reject a transfer application, indeed only received one on my behalf last week!!

Having spoken at length to both organisations and with the evidence each were (or were not!) willing to provide I think Santander are giving me a factual answer and Nationwide are in error.

It is now resolved but it has taken many many calls from me to get to this stage and when I've spoken to Nationwide and read back to them the content and wording of a number of letters on the subject they appear unable or unwilling to acknowledge that their story keeps changing.

I would not use them again and although I have a number of accounts with them, will now need to see where else I can home my money.

I don't like being, at best, misled; and at worst being lied to even if it's due to the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. It's simply not good enough.

Santander have on the other hand been very straightforward to deal with.

Baoser

jimjames said:

Baoser said:

Thrugelmir said:

The money will be bounced back to Santander. As your Virgin account is closed. There's nowhere for it to credited too. Be held in a suspense account until it gets processed. 

In large organisations simply not possible to tie different activity together. One department will have no idea what is sitting elsewhere to be processed in a work queue. 

Thanks. You were right. Checked my Santander account today and the money is back. The reasoning from the transaction status was that it was rejected. Now I just need to find a new home for it.

Don't just look at ISAs, you can probably get a better rate outside of them now

I have a Vanguard ISA also. The thought is to have an easy access ISA that I can trickle money from, into my Vanguard. If I transfer it all into Vanguard, I'd only end up paying the platform fee of 0.15% whilst it sits there waiting to be dollar (pound) cost averaged into my funds.

Currently my Santander ISA is paying only 0.01%. With the amount in there, I'm losing a couple of hundred pounds at least.

Baoser

flossy_splodge said:

I found this an interesting post as I too tried to do a transfer to Nationwide, this time from Santander. I applied in March this year. I wont go into all the twists and turns but basically Nationwide claims that Santander rejected the transfer on the basis of insufficient funds.  I have a very long call with Santander who assure me they absolutely did NOT reject a transfer application, indeed only received one on my behalf last week!!

This was my issue also. Nationwide claimed Virgin rejected it because of insufficient funds even though I was sitting looking at the balance as I spoke to representatives from both companies. I think Nationwide were probably at fault as they were putting the request through wrongly. So in the end they just requested the full balance.

I have to say, Virgin are quick to respond to their emails, but they come across as everything is 'not their fault' and to blame somebody else. They still haven't explained why the account was closed if a transfer in was in progress. In another thread I'm sure somebody said an account wouldn't be closed. I've already told them I had a transfer in from Santander in progress. They still wouldn't re-instate my account and allow the transfer to complete. I've been with them for many years and this just comes across as being very inflexible. With their interest rates continuing to drop, I'm seriously considering reducing my other savings pot with them (not that they'll care).

For Nationwide, with the lady I spoke to, I had her repeat my instructions. They say their calls are recorded so if I wanted to complain I'm sure I would have the proof. I've emailed them about why they've done this but their response time is dreadful. Nearly 1.5 weeks and still no reply yet.

sairy.gamp

flossy_splodge said:

I found this an interesting post as I too tried to do a transfer to Nationwide, this time from Santander. I applied in March this year. I wont go into all the twists and turns but basically Nationwide claims that Santander rejected the transfer on the basis of insufficient funds.  I have a very long call with Santander who assure me they absolutely did NOT reject a transfer application, indeed only received one on my behalf last week!!

Having spoken at length to both organisations and with the evidence each were (or were not!) willing to provide I think Santander are giving me a factual answer and Nationwide are in error.

It is now resolved but it has taken many many calls from me to get to this stage and when I've spoken to Nationwide and read back to them the content and wording of a number of letters on the subject they appear unable or unwilling to acknowledge that their story keeps changing.

I would not use them again and although I have a number of accounts with them, will now need to see where else I can home my money.

I don't like being, at best, misled; and at worst being lied to even if it's due to the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. It's simply not good enough.

Santander have on the other hand been very straightforward to deal with.

If you dont like being lied to (as I dont) whatever you do dont try to transfer a cash isa to an Iweb S&S ISA. If you use their 'Livechat' to check your progress you will be conversing with Pinocchio himself!

IanManc

sairy.gamp said:

flossy_splodge said:

I found this an interesting post as I too tried to do a transfer to Nationwide, this time from Santander. I applied in March this year. I wont go into all the twists and turns but basically Nationwide claims that Santander rejected the transfer on the basis of insufficient funds.  I have a very long call with Santander who assure me they absolutely did NOT reject a transfer application, indeed only received one on my behalf last week!!

Having spoken at length to both organisations and with the evidence each were (or were not!) willing to provide I think Santander are giving me a factual answer and Nationwide are in error.

It is now resolved but it has taken many many calls from me to get to this stage and when I've spoken to Nationwide and read back to them the content and wording of a number of letters on the subject they appear unable or unwilling to acknowledge that their story keeps changing.

I would not use them again and although I have a number of accounts with them, will now need to see where else I can home my money.

I don't like being, at best, misled; and at worst being lied to even if it's due to the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. It's simply not good enough.

Santander have on the other hand been very straightforward to deal with.

If you dont like being lied to (as I dont) whatever you do dont try to transfer a cash isa to an Iweb S&S ISA. If you use their 'Livechat' to check your progress you will be conversing with Pinocchio himself!

I transferred a cash ISA from a building society to an Iweb S&S ISA. It all went through smoothly in a couple of weeks, and both sides kept me informed along the way. I was impressed with Iweb then, and have been since.