Children's Bonds - NS&I Scam - 1990's

Casatigeo

In the early 1990's my wife and I invested a few thousand pounds from the little we had at the time in Children's Bonds for each of our daughters. 

Now they are in their early 30's and needing some funds for the next stage of their lives we decided it was a good time to cash in the bonds. 

It is not easy to apply for a repayment - however after completing the lengthy form and with evidence of the original investment we applied for repayment for one daughter - only to receive a letter last week advising they had already repaid the bond. This in untrue - they letter claims 'this is based on information on their computer files' however two paragraphs later NS&I state they have not retained documents to prove this and then went on to explain it is not fair to the tax payer to keep detailed records or ask them to search and prove this! 

I have had to lodge a complaint to try and start the process for repayment. Although we have not moved for 30 + years the correspondence from NS&I has been nonexistent since 1997 on this topic. 

Has anyone else had this experience and solved it positively? Thanks JC

wmb194

Casatigeo said:

In the early 1990's my wife and I invested a few thousand pounds from the little we had at the time in Children's Bonds for each of our daughters. 

Now they are in their early 30's and needing some funds for the next stage of their lives we decided it was a good time to cash in the bonds. 

It is not easy to apply for a repayment - however after completing the lengthy form and with evidence of the original investment we applied for repayment for one daughter - only to receive a letter last week advising they had already repaid the bond. This in untrue - they letter claims 'this is based on information on their computer files' however two paragraphs later NS&I state they have not retained documents to prove this and then went on to explain it is not fair to the tax payer to keep detailed records or ask them to search and prove this! 

I have had to lodge a complaint to try and start the process for repayment. Although we have not moved for 30 + years the correspondence from NS&I has been nonexistent since 1997 on this topic. 

Has anyone else had this experience and solved it positively? Thanks JC

There was a thread about this a year or so ago that I'm struggling to find that has/had good information but these were or became five year bonds.  IIRC the 1990s Children's Bonds were called Children's Bonus Bonds but these eventually became the five-year Children's bonds that were discontinued in 2017.



https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2017/09/nsi-closes-childrens-bonds-to-new-applicants/

https://www.nsandi.com/help/manage-your-savings/maturing-investments/closed-accounts

https://www.nsandi.com/historical-interest-rates

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/savings/investing/childrens-bonds

jimjames

I remember the same thread but also can't find it. Shame as there seemed a similarity so might have been some useful info

xylophone

See

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-5430329/Do-cash-500m-haul-baby-bonds.html

At the end of the article it says

Customers can trace missing bonds through the service MyLostAccount.org.uk.

Worth a try?

mattojgb

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80272584#Comment_80272584

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79710562#Comment_79710562

Swipe

xylophone said:

See

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-5430329/Do-cash-500m-haul-baby-bonds.html

At the end of the article it says

Customers can trace missing bonds through the service MyLostAccount.org.uk.

Worth a try?

Good luck with that. It took NS&I 4 months to respond to my lost childhood post office savings accounts and then it was a form filling bonanza with multiple wrong letters sent out to get my money. Also cost me a few quid in postage because they are too tight to send SAEs.

bondwarrior

Thank you to wmb194 we have also received a similar letter to yours, "Like many large organisations Nationals & Investments does not retain paper documents for too many years after a transaction has been completed. Indeed our only requirement for retaining historic document is so a satisfactory audit of our accounts can take place. There is no legal requirement for retain repayment documents permanently. Therefore, we retain sufficient information in our computer records to enable the status of individual bonds to be confirmed to customers"

Shouldn't have they transferred all there paper records to electronic files as many large & small organisation have done. This is not historic, it is only 1997. 

The letter continue in an appalling way which you should all be aware of: "I am sure you will appreciate that we cannot justify the cost to the tax-payer of sorting and maintaining the substantial amount of paper these transactions have generated over the years. Furthermore, such costs are even less defensive in view of the few requests we receive for information about bonds that have been repaid many years previously."

How dare they patronise us when the money was giving to the Post Office in good faith! No communication to the bond purchaser or to the name person on the bond has ever been made or payment. Furthermore since no payment can be made without the Bond holder completing a form called 'Instructions to cash in children's bonds'; how can they repay any money.

I did wonder watching 'The Post Office versus Mr Bates' how come the postmasters handled such large sums and now I know. This money is our money which has been stolen. I am starting the long journey to recover £1,000 paid in 1997.
I wish Martin Lewis could help make the process simpler for us all.  

I would not recommend anyone invest in NS&I !

fwor

It seems reasonable that there's a balance to be had somewhere - as far as I can see a bond in 1997 would have been a 5-year fixed duration bond, and it seems reasonable to assume that NS&I tried to contact the bond holder when that time was up. It's not entirely rational to expect that they should keep detailed records from 20 years ago, because it costs a lot of money to carry that data from one system to the next as they are updated.

The unfortunate fact is that people tend to forget the finer details of what actually happened two decades ago, and the original paperwork can get separated from subsequent updates (relating to withdrawals). The initial paperwork then gets found, and it can lead to people chasing bonds that have already paid out...

Section62

bondwarrior said:

...

How dare they patronise us when the money was giving to the Post Office in good faith! No communication to the bond purchaser or to the name person on the bond has ever been made or payment. Furthermore since no payment can be made without the Bond holder completing a form called 'Instructions to cash in children's bonds'; how can they repay any money.

I did wonder watching 'The Post Office versus Mr Bates' how come the postmasters handled such large sums and now I know. This money is our money which has been stolen. I am starting the long journey to recover £1,000 paid in 1997.
I wish Martin Lewis could help make the process simpler for us all.  

I would not recommend anyone invest in NS&I !

The Post Office and NS&I are not the same thing.  The Post Officed handled transactions on behalf of NS&I, but the issue of keeping records of investments is solely down to NS&I.

wmb194

bondwarrior said:

Thank you to wmb194 we have also received a similar letter to yours, "Like many large organisations Nationals & Investments does not retain paper documents for too many years after a transaction has been completed. Indeed our only requirement for retaining historic document is so a satisfactory audit of our accounts can take place. There is no legal requirement for retain repayment documents permanently. Therefore, we retain sufficient information in our computer records to enable the status of individual bonds to be confirmed to customers"

Shouldn't have they transferred all there paper records to electronic files as many large & small organisation have done. This is not historic, it is only 1997. 

The letter continue in an appalling way which you should all be aware of: "I am sure you will appreciate that we cannot justify the cost to the tax-payer of sorting and maintaining the substantial amount of paper these transactions have generated over the years. Furthermore, such costs are even less defensive in view of the few requests we receive for information about bonds that have been repaid many years previously."

How dare they patronise us when the money was giving to the Post Office in good faith! No communication to the bond purchaser or to the name person on the bond has ever been made or payment. Furthermore since no payment can be made without the Bond holder completing a form called 'Instructions to cash in children's bonds'; how can they repay any money.

I did wonder watching 'The Post Office versus Mr Bates' how come the postmasters handled such large sums and now I know. This money is our money which has been stolen. I am starting the long journey to recover £1,000 paid in 1997.
I wish Martin Lewis could help make the process simpler for us all.  

I would not recommend anyone invest in NS&I !

I didn't receive a letter, the OP did; the lesson is not to avoid NS&I but to keep on top of your accounts and finances. Forgetting an account for the best part of thirty years and then wondering what happened when it was a five year bond has a good chance of not working out very well. My guess is that these bonds matured and the money was returned in the early 2000s. 

However, I do agree that NS&I could have done a better job of keeping its digital records. These days storage is cheap and e.g., Lloyds Bank has no problem providing me detailed statements from twenty years ago via internet banking but IIRC the law is on NS&I's side, where it says organisations only have to keep these types of records for six years.

eskbanker

wmb194 said:

However, I do agree that NS&I could have done a better job of keeping its digital records. These days storage is cheap and e.g., Lloyds Bank has no problem providing me detailed statements from twenty years ago via internet banking but IIRC the law is on NS&I's side, where it says organisations only have to keep these types of records for six years.

I don't believe the law actually says that as such, but there are various different factors influencing data retention policies:

1. The generic limitations legislation, preventing court action after six years
2. The Data Protection Act, under which organisations essentially have to have their own business justification for retaining personal data, which will naturally vary from one to another
3. FCA regulations, which require that regulated financial institutions implement data retention policies appropriate to the specific type of data, e.g. they'd expect records of an account being closed to be kept for longer than detailed transaction history.  However, NS&I technically isn't a regulated institution....
4. Record-keeping mandates imposed by other government bodies, e.g. HMRC for VAT and other taxes, Companies House, etc.