Transfer of S&S ISA with Scottish Widows to Charter Savings Bank

invuk

Spoke to both Charter and Scottish Widows earlier. Scottish Widows said they never received an application or any reminders and the correct address is as dunstonh pointed out. I was told to send it to Scottish Widows Transfer Team, 11/12 Wellington Place, Leeds, LS1 4AP. Even though it was sent to the incorrect SW address in Edinburgh I still believe someone should have picked up the application or the two reminders. Seems rather convenient given they are earning interest on over £77,000 for over a month. Charter said on there database there is only one address for SW. Apparently the same happened to someone last week which is how they figured how what had gone wrong. Because it was an ex iWeb account it comes under Halifax with the Leeds address. I did get an apology from both and £100 from Charter for loss of interest. Have decided to not bother with the transfer now and asked to have the account closed.

dunstonh

Even though it was sent to the incorrect SW address in Edinburgh I still believe someone should have picked up the application or the two reminders. 

Typically, they would refuse the transfer request electronically. If not sent in electronically, they will often not use the post to respond.

 Seems rather convenient given they are earning interest on over £77,000 for over a month. 

You cannot blame the ceding scheme for the receiving scheme not sending anything to them.

Charter said on there database there is only one address for SW

That tells you a lot about the quality of their system and the lack of chasing they did.

 Because it was an ex iWeb account it comes under Halifax with the Leeds address. 

It just emphasises how poor their system is.

eskbanker

Even though it was sent to the incorrect SW address in Edinburgh I still believe someone should have picked up the application or the two reminders.

You cannot blame the ceding scheme for the receiving scheme not sending anything to them.

I'm with OP on this - large multi-site organisations will frequently have correspondence sent to the wrong office and it's not unreasonable to expect it to be redirected internally, within sensible timescales, even though the issue is not primarily of their own making.

dunstonh

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81896505#Comment_81896505

They are not integrated. Data protection won't allow it for starters. It's not like it's a sub-unit of the same business.

eskbanker

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81896602#Comment_81896602

They're all within a banking group that has already overcome any such data protection issues when sharing personal data directly between its banking brands that are different legal entities and banking licences, so I still have difficulty accepting that it's impossible to forward post between group companies!

wmb194

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81896915#Comment_81896915

Barclays definitely shares data between its group companies as well.

dunstonh

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81897168#Comment_81897168

Back in my banking days (which, to be fair, was a very, very long time ago), the Black Horse companies couldn't share data with Lloyds Bank and vice versa. Even when staff from the BHFS worked out of the branches.

Nowadays, even where data sharing exists, it is unlikely to be carte blanche data. It will likely be specified under certain data protection classes. When group companies are highly integrated, data sharing levels could be significant. But where the group company is virtually standalone, the data share will be next to non-existent.

However, I suspect the real issue here is cost, logistics and process. Electronic transfers (which are the majority nowadays) are accepted or refused with a few refusal codes. If electronic was used, it would have just been rejected as an account not found. Most non-electronic ones use email. So, an email transfer would normally receive a reply. As it was paper, they would typically do nothing and wait for the receiving scheme to chase it up. Drafting a letter and posting it is not that common nowadays.

Remember that the receiving scheme effectively controls the transfer process. It sounds like the receiving scheme made no effort whatsoever to use the correct address or to chase. Hence, why I put the blame for the failure at the door of the receiving scheme and not the ceding scheme.

wmb194

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81897235#Comment_81897235

Lloyds has been syncing address data between its companies for certainly more than a decade. The problem here is the name change from iWeb to Scottish Widows. Scottish Widows is such a sprawling mess you can't be surprised everyone gets confused. When it was iWeb I'd wager everyone knew that meant it was Halifax Share Dealing Limited.