Premium Bond syndicate problems

dailukjai

Hello, back in 2009 myself and two colleagues used to buy weekly lottery tickets, fed up at never winning we decided to buy monthly premium bonds at £20 each in one of the colleagues' names. We only had a verbal agreement as we knew each other for years and the trust was there. One of the colleagues withdrew after a couple of years and to make matters easy I bought him out and we continued with me paying £40 per month. In August 2019 we stopped as the business was sold and we were no longer colleagues, in December 2019 I asked for my share and to date have been consistently 'stonewalled'. Messages are not answered and the one occasion we met (in July 2021) I was assured that she was gathering all the relevant bonds before selling them and that this was time consuming!
My question is can I take this issue to small claims as clearly, after nearly two years, my colleague is at best reluctant to pay me?

[Deleted User]

Yes, if you want. But gather all your evidence together first and see what how persuasive it looks.

lozzy1965

Hmmm, not sure why it would be time consuming?  There were 3 of you?  You bought out one member and continued paying their share, therefore you get 2/3rds of the money, the person whose name they are in gets 1/3rd?  You don't need the precise premium bond numbers, it's all on line?
As to 'evidence':  Have you got records of the payments going to this person?  Do you know how much you are owed?

Sea_Shell

Maybe they've already won and trousered the winnings too!

Always a risk to entrust your money to someone else.

I can't see any benefit of having a syndicate, over just having individual accounts.  Each bond, regardless of whose name they're in, has the same chance of winning.   You gain nothing by pooling them.

kazwookie

As it is all online, just ask the other person for the login / PW, as see what  it says.

I have a few PB, it is all listed, there is no need to 'gather it all' as it si there instantly.

I have a feeling you have been done over.  I would start to get very firm with the other person.

Section62

dailukjai said:

Messages are not answered and the one occasion we met (in July 2021) I was assured that she was gathering all the relevant bonds before selling them and that this was time consuming!

My question is can I take this issue to small claims as clearly, after nearly two years, my colleague is at best reluctant to pay me?

This is a red flag.  Even without online account management, all bonds held by one person should be under a single holder's number and all correspondence would relate to that number, not to individual bonds.

It would be a trivial exercise for them to ask NS&I what the current holding value is, and divide that number in the correct proportions.

I would suggest making contact again and say that you need the money (for something) and can she arrange to pay that money into your account (or whatever) by a given date (say two weeks ahead).  With Christmas coming up you have a good 'excuse' to say why you need the money now, without doing so in an overly confrontational way which might adversely affect your relationship(s) with ex-colleagues.  Ask for a reply confirming that she will be progressing this by that date.

Ideally you want some confirmation/acknowledgement in writing that this debt exists before progressing down a more formal route.

If no response, or an inadequate response, that would be the time to send a more formal letter before claim IMV.

MX5huggy

Of course you benefit from pooling (if the pool is run fairly). You have a better chance of winning a prize in any draw and a better chance of winning a bigger prize. 

eskbanker

As suggested at https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/legal-system/small-claims/making-a-small-claim/, start with a Letter Before Action to show that you're serious....

Selling two-thirds of a PB holding is very straightforward, unless she erroneously believes that she needs to liquidate two-thirds of each purchase individually!

Alexland

Assess what evidence you have maybe create some new evidence from having friendly email correspondence about the debt maybe get them to confirm the total amount invested based on contributions but if they aren't paying up you might need to consider taking action.
I once managed to recover a debt by having some email correspondence with moneyclaim.gov.uk to clarify an aspect of the process and then shared it it the organisation that I was about to launch proceedings against. Once they see emails about the situation from the courts service they know you are serious about recovery.

Sea_Shell

MX5huggy said:

Of course you benefit from pooling (if the pool is run fairly). You have a better chance of winning a prize in any draw and a better chance of winning a bigger prize. 

Does that work though, statistically, if you then have to also split the winnings?

Especially as the OP is now the major "shareholder".   Would they not have be better to have their % bonds in their own name, and get to keep 100% of the winnings?



All that aside, there are huge red flags here regarding the honestly and integrity of the bond holder.

refluxer

Sea_Shell said:

MX5huggy said:

Of course you benefit from pooling (if the pool is run fairly). You have a better chance of winning a prize in any draw and a better chance of winning a bigger prize. 

Does that work though, statistically, if you then have to also split the winnings?

Especially as the OP is now the major "shareholder".   Would they not have be better to have their % bonds in their own name, and get to keep 100% of the winnings?

I would imagine this was set up with the intentions of splitting any 'big wins', just like a lottery syndicate.

Your chances would therefore be 3 times higher of winning a million in a 3-person syndicate, but obviously at the expense of only getting 1/3 of the prize money.