Thought I'd Opened an ISA with Nationwide

TonyWd

I January 2024 I was planning for my retirement in August 2024 and thought I would open an ISA in my name and another in my wifes name to get the 2023/24 allowance.
There website links took me to the ISA page were there where options for different types of ISA, Investment ISA (based on shares performance), a cash ISA, and a Lifetime ISA.
I chose the Cash ISA that offered 4.1% fixed after 2 years.
I opened accounts for both myself and my wife and put the maximum annual allowance in both, part of the online application asked me to confirm that I had not already used my annual allowance for that tax year. The path I took on the website and the application questions all pointed to an ISA account.
In September, after my retirement I went to wet up ISA's using the 2024/25 allowance.
The website had now changed, there were no options for different types of ISA, just a single option for a cash ISA, so myself and my wife opened an account each.
The new account appears in a different section on their webpage, the new one is under a new heading of Tax Free Savings.
I have contacted Nationwide and asked why last years account is not listed under Tax Free Savings.
Their reply is that I did not open an ISA last tax year, I opened a 2 year Fixed Cash Bond.
When I explained the webpages I had gone through and the options I was given to open different types of ISA, Nationwide are saying that they have not offered those options for many years now.

Their webpages have now changed so I can not show them the choices I chose.

Just wondered if I am the only one that made this mistake, or have others followed their offers in January and ended up with accounts that they thought were ISA's but are not.

Is this a genuine mistake on my behalf or were the webpages misleading?
The fact that I answered questions if I had made other ISA investments in that tax year and Nationwide say they did not offer some of the products that I saw in January, makes me think it is not a straight forward mistake by me.

eskbanker

It sounds like you were on a completely different website altogether if you were presented with options that Nationwide wouldn't have been offering at the time!  The good news is that it wasn't some sort of dodgy clone if Nationwide recognise that you did deposit money with them, although it won't be accessible mid-term in the way that it would have been in an ISA, and interest will be taxable too.

Unlikely to be particularly productive to pursue that any further though, but presumably when you opened the accounts, you'd have received some sort of confirmation by email or post, so that should have indicated what you'd opened, and that would have been the time to challenge it - can you locate the confirmation notification?

TonyWd

Yes, the money is with Nationwide and safe, just disappointed that I'm a year behind where I thought I was getting my retirement/ redundancy tied up tax free in ISA's.
Was curious to see if anyone else found it misleading, and the fact the options have reduced and simpler now.
Made me wonder if the product was listed incorrectly,  all the paper work / confirmations say 2 year cash bond, but the the website route and questions gave me belief it was an ISA.
I'm annoyed with myself, but also I went into the branch to set them up and they told me it was easier to do it online at home.

eskbanker

TonyWd said:

Was curious to see if anyone else found it misleading, and the fact the options have reduced and simpler now.

There website links took me to the ISA page were there where options for different types of ISA, Investment ISA (based on shares performance), a cash ISA, and a Lifetime ISA.

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/savings/help/isas-explained/ lists all the types of ISA being clarifying that "At Nationwide we only offer cash ISAs" - the link from there to their cash ISAs takes you to a generic page with both taxable savings accounts and cash ISAs, but the ability (enabled by default) to filter out non-ISAs: https://www.nationwide.co.uk/savings/compare-savings-accounts-and-isas/?filters=isa

Checking the 'no' button on that page will show non-ISAs as well as ISAs, so is perhaps something you may have done inadvertently at the time?

https://web.archive.org/web/20231221113522/https://www.nationwide.co.uk/savings/help/isas-explained/ is the archived version of that top-level ISA page that would have been published at the start of the year, and at that stage they did claim to offer S&S ISAs: "At Nationwide we offer cash ISAs and stocks and shares ISAs".

TonyWd said:

I chose the Cash ISA that offered 4.1% fixed after 2 years.
I opened accounts for both myself and my wife and put the maximum annual allowance in both, part of the online application asked me to confirm that I had not already used my annual allowance for that tax year.

Still baffled by this annual allowance question if it wasn't an ISA, but if all the paperwork supports their case that it wasn't an ISA you opened then I can't see you convincing them otherwise after all this time.

wmb194

Did you start an application, quit it and then went back later and started a new application? This could explain why you saw the usual Isa blurb but ultimately opened the wrong account.

refluxer

I'm not sure what page you were on, but I don't remember them offering Stocks and Shares ISAs or Lifetime ISAs so if they did, it must have been a long time ago and definitely many years before Jan 2024 (as they stated). I think they used to offer a Help To Buy ISA a while ago, but there is no mention of a Lifetime ISA (which superseded them in 2019) on their account interest page either - at least not as far as I can see.

Are you sure you weren't thinking of this help page, where all the different types of ISAs are mentioned for info (but not actually offered) ?

I've opened a couple of fixed rate cash ISAs online with Nationwide in the last few years and haven't had any problems so with all that in mind, unfortunately, I'm guessing you've simply opened the wrong type of account. As mentioned above, you would have had to check the boxes to confirm that you had read the account T&Cs so it's unfortunate that you didn't spot the mistake.

In online banking, their fixed rate cash ISAs are called 'FRISA' and fixed rate online bonds are listed as 'FROB'.

TonyWd

I know that when my account was created and the product name was FROB I thought it a little strange, but with the questions I was asked to open the accounts and the route I took through the Web pages and my in branch conversation, i convinced myself that it was an ISA. It was only when I opened another ISA in the new tax year that I suspected it was not an ISA.

Thankyou for the responses,  I realise that I will have no way of proving that a product was wrongly listed on their Web page,  my money is safe and will have to accept that a larger proportion of my savings will be taxable