CashNews.co
A Premium Bonds customer was alarmed to see suddenly lose access to their savings that they could previously see online.
The saver contacted NS&I over X to voice their frustration, saying: “You have sent a letter to my daughter, now 16, telling her to ask me for her NS&I number.
“Now that you have removed her account from my login I have no way of identifying this. Do you make such actions difficult deliberately?”
NS&I responded to express their sympathy for the situation and spelled out the rules for the saver. They said: “When a child turns 16 they automatically become the authority on their holding as per the terms and conditions of the product.
“When the account is managed whilst she’s a child, any and all correspondence about the account is sent to the responsible parent through the post. This correspondence would quote the child’s holder’s number and or NS&I number.”
The provider further said that this documentation should be “passed onto” the child as they can now manage their own holdings.
NS&I also asked the parent if they have access to their daughter’s Bond records. The customer said that they always knew this would be the process but they were irritated by the suddent switch.
They explained: “I am unhappy about NSI’s procedures for this. I do not have my daughter’s bond records as these were held online and visible through my account. And now they are not.”
NS&I then asked if the daughter “is she still wanting to be able to access her holding with us online/over the phone as the account was previously managed by yourself?”
But the customer was still frustrated with the service, replying: “That is not relevant. You have removed her Bonds from my account and told her to access them by getting her account number from me. Which I do not have.
“So neither of us currently have access. This is NSI action without prompting / request.”
NS&I then invited the customer to use the tracing service which can be used “to trace an account with out having details”, and they included a link to a webpage with more information about this.
The saver voiced their exasperation again, stating: “I haven’t lost the details. You have taken them away. I would like them providing to myself or my daughter without insistence upon unnecessary admin.”
NS&I responded: “In these circumstances this will likely be required. It may be possible to trace the account over the telephone subject to successfully completing security checks, but there is no guarantee that a trace can be performed without the use of the linked form.”
The customer later added that their daughter had received a welcome letter but this did not include a holder number.
NS&I said in response: “We apologise for the lack of information provided in the welcome letter. If your daughter could please print off our registration form and ask us to trace her account details, we will then write back to her with her login details and her holder’s number.”