I recently retired and wanted to put £50,000 in Premium Bonds and £200,000 in a growth bond from NS&I, which, when I was looking in September, paid 6.2 per cent interest.
Although I had premium bonds previously, I cashed them in a long time ago and had also closed another NS&I investment account.
When I tried to register for an online account, after filling in all the details, I was told ‘you already have an account with us.
We will email you with your NS&I number’. I never received this, so I phoned the helpline.
I explained the situation and was told to complete a special form. This I did.
Out of pocket: A reader lost out on a 6.2% bond from NS&I after the state-backed lender took weeks to close an old account
Maddeningly, the response I received was simply that my old premium bonds and investment had been repaid. There was no information on how to open an online account.
I phoned the helpline again and was told to print an online and phone service registration form and send it back, which I did.
Meanwhile, I received the same form by post. Since I hadn’t heard anything for two weeks, I thought maybe the first form didn’t reach NS&I so I went out to post the second form. But when I got back home, I found a reply to the first form.
It told me I was unable to register for the online and phone service as the details provided did not lead to any ‘active holdings’.
If my old details are not in use, then why can’t I have a new account number so that I can invest in Premium Bonds again?
I tried once more to register online, and I encountered the same message, telling me I’d be emailed my NS&I number. No email arrived.
Meanwhile, the 6.2 per cent one-year fixed rate bond has since been withdrawn from sale. Please help.
M. A., Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire.
Sally Hamilton replies: Your description of trying to deal with NS&I left me feeling positively dizzy. You were going round in circles.
It felt unfair to me that you had lost out on one of the best savings deals available at the time because of the organisation’s inability to provide you with the simple information that would let you set up your account online.
I asked the Government-backed savings bank to investigate what had gone wrong.
Within a day of me making contact, it had miraculously resolved the situation that had been driving you nuts and confirmed a mistake at its end.
An NS&I spokesman says: ‘We apologise that on this occasion due to a technical error your reader did not receive the service that she should expect when applying to open her account.’
In better news, it agreed to backdate the opening of the account to the date when you originally applied.
As the bond had been withdrawn from sale by this point, NS&I had to arrange for you to set up your account using a postal application.
When I caught up with you recently, you told me that the application had been successful.
You were delighted that your £200,000 nest egg is benefiting from 6.2 per cent interest, which outclasses by far any other one-year bond currently on the market.
Holiday firm won’t refund trip after wife’s stroke
My wife and I were booked to go on a coach trip to the Christmas markets in Cologne and Dusseldorf, Germany, with a firm called Just Go, leaving on December 8, last year.
My wife had a mini-stroke two weeks before this date and was too ill to travel. Our travel insurance started on December 8, so we were not able to claim on that.
Even though we gave the holiday firm 14 days’ notice, it refuses to return the £600 we paid.
I phoned the company on December 6 to ask if there were any places left on this break, but was told that it was fully booked.
It seems they have sold our seats and I feel that this is a nasty way to behave. This once-in-a-lifetime trip to celebrate our 60 years of marriage has turned out to be a disaster.
K. J., York.
Sally Hamilton replies: I was sorry to read about your wife’s medical emergency and how this disrupted plans for your special anniversary trip.
I felt for you and thought that if Just Go had indeed re-sold your places, as you had concluded from your own investigation, that it could well afford to refund your £600.
I contacted the firm to ask it to reconsider your request.
Just Go looked into the background and confirmed that its booking terms and conditions state clearly that refunds are not offered for cancellations made within ten weeks of departure.
It added that the last booking made for this particular Christmas market trip was in September 2023 and insisted that no further seats were sold.
The spokesman adds that bookings are typically closed four weeks before departure ‘so that the schedule can be finalised’.
He explained this is why you would have been told the trip was full when you enquired about places just two days before departure.
The company says it recommends customers take out travel insurance to cover such an eventuality. You did take out a standalone policy, but unfortunately this did not include cover for cancellation before departure.
Just Go said it was sorry for the position you found yourself in and offered a goodwill gesture of either £50 each in cash or £100 each in holiday vouchers for a future trip.
Although you told me the good news that your wife was on the mend, holiday planning was not on your mind, and so you preferred to take the cash.
After a little persuasion the company raised its offer to £75 each. Your experience is a salutary lesson in obtaining appropriate travel insurance with cancellation cover — and to buy it at the same time you make the booking.
Anna-Marie Duthie, travel insurance expert at market research group Defaqto, says: ‘When buying a single trip travel policy, you are buying the insurance for a set period to coincide with the beginning and end of your trip.
‘However, once someone buys that policy — if it includes cancellation cover — that trip will be covered for cancellation from the date of purchase.
‘Hence, it is always preferable to buy your insurance as soon as you book, to ensure you are protected before your trip starts.’
- Write to Sally Hamilton at Sally Sorts It, Money Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email [email protected] — include phone number, address and a note addressed to the offending organisation giving them permission to talk to Sally Hamilton. Please do not send original documents as we cannot take responsibility for them. No legal responsibility can be accepted by the Daily Mail for answers given.
