RetireJapan

Hello! I am new here, so apologies for not coming up with a simple first question.

My grownup children all have NS accounts in the UK, but are all here on the Kanto Plain, and none has US residence, nor a UK bank account. We want to close all three accounts. The little one has just succeeded in closing a separate "Birthday Bond" account, but they have send a warrant (basically a cheque), telling him that if he doesn't have a UK bank account he can open one with this warrant. But of course he can't.

Does anyone have any experience of persuading NS to pay out other than in this form. To transfer to a UK bank account number provided by a Transferwise account (does not accept *any* paper instrument); to transfer to someone else, like me. I am going to write to NS, but past experience of such people has been dismal; I am going to ask the bank if they can help; I also wondered if it is possible to give a solicitor (for example) a power of attorney, so she could accept the paper money. But none of these considered separately really sounds very likely to work. Help!

...doesn't seem possible to edit: of course I meant "UK residence"

Does this work?

https://www.nsandi.com/files/published_ ... ochure.pdf

Many thanks for the help. I looked at the NS&I leaflet "International Payment Service - Overseas with ease", and spent some time until I came to the bit where they actually give the rather short list of countries this works for, which does not include Japan (or the US for that matter). So this doesn't seem to help.

But! I think I may have cracked it. I looked properly at the paper trail, and the withdrawal form for my son's birthday bond, and it says "How do you want us send the payment?" I selected "pay to bank" and gave our joint account, because it said the account must be in the name of the account holder or the parent/guardian. This is misleading, because if you are over 16 they want to send the money to you, and so they ignore the bank details and send a warrant, helpfully suggesting that you can open a bank account with it (which he can't).

There is another Kafkaesque irony here: if you accidentally get the account number wrong, they send the money to someone else, and refuse to help get it back. There was a Guardian story about someone transferring his life savings, around £120k, the result of selling a house, and getting the sort code wrong. He had to spend £20k on legal fees to force the bank to find where it was. But if you *deliberately* get the details wrong (we could have written his name on our bank account details, which they should have accepted), and get the money to which you are entitled, is this perhaps fraud? (It looks, though, as though there is finally some movement on checking the name on the destination account.)

Anyway, back to the warrant: he should be able to pay this into his ordinary National Savings account, and then start again to close that account. This time he can put a bank account in his own name, by opening a (Transfer)Wise account. Ha!

So we'll see how it goes...

Well, it is not going well. We are still working on son3's accounts: I wrote an initial letter about this in 2019, but then there was a Covid situation, so we finally submitted the form completed according to their instructions in August 2020, and so far we have received three bank warrants ("like a cheque") for one account, and one warrant ("like a cheque") for the other, none of which we can use. So we are still unable to withdraw the money. Their incompetence is truly staggering. They write "Hi" type letters, totally vague, and full of inaccuracies, they send the wrong forms (saying they are sending an indemnity for third-party payment, but actually sending a form entitled "Repayment application - investor deceased". They try to offer £75 compensation, but they do not understand that they have to offer this, which we can accept or not - instead they seem to think they will just "inform" him that he is going to receive £75 - which is not remotely enough).

So I am considering the best move; we could go to the financial ombudsman, but I think this is normally for complaining that they have not compensated adequately for a screwup, not for resolving a still outstanding debt. I am also planning to write to the Guardian Money matters, but I also have to consider legal action or a threat thereof. Does anyone have any experience of the Financial Ombudsman service? Does anyone have bright ideas about an initial consultation with a UK solicitor? I don't want to threaten legal action if for example there is some legal fiction that sending a warrant means that they have actually paid him, even though they get to keep the money. Suggestions gratefully received.

Hi imaginatorium.

Sorry I don't know anything about your situation. I'm not sure what form your previous letters took, but have you tried a formal complaint? It seems like you might have an escalation problem, making a complaint might get your case looked at by somebody with authority to do more than push the standard account closure buttons. Just an idea!

https://www.nsandi.com/files/asset/pdf/ ... iendly.pdf

Thanks for the response, but I believe I have made "formal complaints"; I (well, actually my son, but I am doing it for him) put COMPLAINT at the top, and it triggers the "complaint response team", who are simply unimaginably incompetent. I mean, I have quite a lot of experience of dealing with incompetence from banks, but these people are off the scale. They do read anything properly, and do not bother to check whether anything they say is true. I have stopped even pretending to be polite, and I cannot take anything they say in good faith.

imaginatorium wrote: ↑Sat Nov 13, 2021 10:52 am Thanks for the response, but I believe I have made "formal complaints"; I (well, actually my son, but I am doing it for him) put COMPLAINT at the top, and it triggers the "complaint response team", who are simply unimaginably incompetent. I mean, I have quite a lot of experience of dealing with incompetence from banks, but these people are off the scale. They do read anything properly, and do not bother to check whether anything they say is true. I have stopped even pretending to be polite, and I cannot take anything they say in good faith.

I am rather good at complaining, if I say so myself.

My advice is to write a letter (not an email and certainly not any kind of online form) to the CEO/boss of the organization, and explain in dispassionate and concise terms the problem and what you want them to do (don't show frustration or put too much detail in).

They won't see it, but one of their assistants will and will be able to kick it down the chain and hopefully sort it out.