Broken ISA wrapper 14 November 2022 at 4:36PM in ISAs & tax-free savings 2 replies 126 views

Solynnarr

All ideas welcome on this - I have a problem.....  I had £28k in a Nationwide Cash ISA paying rubbish interest.  2 Years ago I transferred it to a share dealing ISA with another provider (IG).  I just tried to transfer £27k back to the Nationwide ISA.  From the IG online portal I believed that I was transferring the cash back to the ISA it came from.  It ended up in the non ISA Nationwide current account.  I believe that that is because the IG portal was misleading, but that although a potential dispute/complaint/ombudsman matter in itself (because IG refuse to take any responsibility or put the matter right by liaising with Nationwide to reverse the transfer) that is not the subject of this enquiry. 

Given that Nationwide have a record of the original ISA to ISA transfer 2 years ago, and the money landing back in my current account this month from the IG ISA, where it still sits, can anyone see any way that Nationwide could be persuaded to acknowledge that the transfer to the current account is an error (whoever's fault that might be) and transfer to their ISA without using any of my ISA allowance for the current year?  Currently they are refusing to help in any way.  

Alternatively given that they say that HMRC won't let them, is there any discussion that I might have with HMRC that might solve the problem.   

ps - given the derisory interest that Nationwide have engineered by constantly downgrading rates on the various deposit accounts that I have had with them over the years - I'm extremely disgruntled about their stonewalling unwillingness to help.  I really want to support mutuals but sometimes......

eskbanker

Solynnarr said:

I had £28k in a Nationwide Cash ISA paying rubbish interest.  2 Years ago I transferred it to a share dealing ISA with another provider (IG).  I just tried to transfer £27k back to the Nationwide ISA.  From the IG online portal I believed that I was transferring the cash back to the ISA it came from.  It ended up in the non ISA Nationwide current account.  I believe that that is because the IG portal was misleading, but that although a potential dispute/complaint/ombudsman matter in itself (because IG refuse to take any responsibility or put the matter right by liaising with Nationwide to reverse the transfer) that is not the subject of this enquiry.

For future reference, ISA transfers must always be initiated via the receiving provider, so you'd have done the original transfer via IG and needed to do this one via Nationwide - no provider has the ability to 'push' ISA money to another provider's ISA, it always has to be 'pulled'.

In terms of your main question, no, there is neither any obligation nor facility for Nationwide to feed the money into an ISA outside your annual allowance, and HMRC won't intervene either.  However, if the IG product is a flexible ISA then that would allow money to be withdrawn and redeposited there, which would then allow you to start again?

masonic

As suggested above, transfer the £27k back to your flexible IG S&S ISA and then made a valid ISA transfer application to Nationwide. You could complain that IG's online platform was confusing for you, but this is your error, and other than Nationwide helping you set up the payment back to IG, neither organisation is at liberty to do as you suggest.