National Savings & Investments is descending into customer service chaos, Money Mail can reveal.
We have been inundated with emails and letters from customers who are at their wit’s end after chaotic dealings with NS&I.
Blunders include:
- Putting customers on hold for up to half an hour – then disconnecting.
- Banning customers from accessing their accounts for weeks due to issues with the new security system.
- Taking months to hand over a deceased client’s savings to his widow after losing an original death certificate.
- Rejecting applications for Premium Bonds without any explanation.
Blunders: Frustrated NS&I savers complain of a slew of customer service issues at the state-backed lender
Frustrated customers are also turning to review website Trustpilot to share their complaints. NS&I currently scores an absolute top score of one star out of five on the website.
It hasn’t received a single review above one star in the past ten days.
The failures mark a dismal start for new boss Dax Harkins, who took over as CEO of the state savings bank last month.
It also casts a shadow over the recent improvements to the overall prices offered to Premium Bond savers.
NS&I increased the amount it pays out in prizes five times in the year through March.
The number of £100,000 and £50,000 prizes also increased tenfold during last month’s draw, compared to the number available around this time last year.
Of particular concern are escalating call times at the Treasury-backed savings provider, which 21 million customers entrust with their hard-earned money.
Money Mail believes that no one should be on hold for more than ten minutes.
In our Pick Up Or Pay Up campaign, we are calling for new laws to force Britain’s big companies to pick up the phone or face hefty fines.
NS&I has outsourced its call center to the French technology company Atos. However, this isn’t the first time the group has faced customer service shortcomings.
Prize boost: NS&I increased the amount it pays out in prizes five times in the year to March. The number of prizes of £100,000 and £50,000 also increased tenfold in last month’s draw
Money Mail understands that NS&I is currently reviewing its contract with Atos, which expires next year.
Last month, our sister newspaper, The Mail on Sunday, highlighted the plight of annoyed customers who have rejected applications for Premium Bonds and been refunded without any explanation from NS&I.
Following this, numerous customers have contacted us to share similar sad stories and other customer service complaints.
I lost my husband’s death certificate
Reader Belinda Scottow spent months and hours on hold with NS&I, begging customer service to return her late husband’s £5,200 Premium Bond holdings.
Her husband, Nigel, died suddenly of heart failure last May at the age of 66, on the morning of their daughter’s wedding in Italy.
The family went through with the wedding ceremony knowing that this is what Nigel would have wanted.
Belinda, a retired hotel chef, has been handling Nigel’s business and sorting out paperwork since January.
But instead of helping Belinda through this difficult time, NS&I has lost Nigel’s original death certificate and has still not returned his Premium Bond money.
Without this vital paperwork, Belinda would not have been able to manage her husband’s estates – the legal and financial process of handling his personal affairs, including money in the bank, property ownership, and bills.
Fortunately, she had made copies of the original death certificate – and was later able to get it certified by a lawyer for £30.
But without the foresight to carry a copy, Belinda would have been stranded without any access to her husband’s frozen finances.
“I sent the Italian death certificate and a British coroner’s report confirming his death at the end of January by registered letter,” says Belinda.
“But in March — after hearing nothing but excuses for why they still didn’t have a file on the paperwork — I realized they’d lost it. But no one will take responsibility.
“Employees just try to dissuade me by claiming that a “system scan issue” is responsible — whatever the hell that means.
“It is very disturbing that I have lost my husband’s personal papers. I’ve been paid £125 in compensation, but this just feels like a cheap insult.’
NS&I is taking so long to repay the Premium Bonds that in the meantime one of Nigel’s bonds has become the trump card with a profit of £100.
Belinda adds: ‘Now NS&I demands a copy of the will as proof before returning the money. But since it’s already lost a death certificate and a coroner’s report, of course I don’t want to send it in.”
Granddaughter can’t get a profit
John Rees of Bath in Somerset bought £200 worth of Premium Bonds on the birth of his granddaughter Emily.
Now 23, Emily has won awards for the first time in her life, but NS&I has yet to hand them over.
Emily now lives with her parents in Canada, so John helps her access her winnings.
But despite its efforts, NS&I has not paid.
Retired teacher John, 90, says: ‘Emily won £50 at the start of the year and £100 in March. The only problem is that she can’t get the prizes. I called on her behalf, but spent hours on the phone not reaching NS&I.
“Clearly there are few staff, or no one bothered to answer my call despite being on the line for half an hour each time.”
John has also written letters to the state savings bank.
He says: ‘All I get back is a form letter, which says: ‘Sorry, we can’t release the details of other bondholders.’ I didn’t ask for this and just want her to get the prizes.’
Telephone averse: For ‘general questions’, the NS&I website promotes the options of sending a social media Tweet, using the ‘web chat’ service, sending messages via Facebook or sending an email
Excluded from my £50,000 bill
Customers are also experiencing problems with new security measures for the NS&I website, which are intended to prevent fraud.
NS&I introduced a two-factor authentication process last August. Now when a customer tries to log into their account, NS&I sends them a one-time access code to their phone number to make sure it’s really them.
The access code is sent as a text message or automatic phone call.
Adrian Smith [not his real name] has also been locked out of his account since mid-April and has been denied access to his £50,000 worth of Premium Bonds.
The 59-year-old maintenance engineer from Bristol says: ‘I tried several times to log into my account using the two-factor security process, but my password didn’t work.
“I spent an hour on the phone talking to four different employees to reset my password. But they must have mistyped the new password because the next time I tried to log in it was rejected and I was told no more attempts could be made to access my funds online.”
Adrian underwent several more fruitless phone calls and was told he would receive a change form by email. “But nothing yet,” he says.
It’s not the first time NS&I’s customer service has been in chaos.
Three years ago it handed out £1 million in compensation to customers for poor service after receiving more than 40,000 complaints. NS&I apologized for its mistakes at the time and said it had learned from its mistakes.
Regarding the latest outages, NS&I says: ‘We are sorry that some of your readers have not received the high level of service they have come to expect from us.
“In April, the average speed to answer calls was ten minutes, but some times of the day are busier than others.” NS&I adds: “With regard to the bereavement process, we may request a copy of a will, probate or death certificate.
“These documents will be returned to the person who sent them to us.” And about the anti-fraud measures, the bank says: ‘Last year we added two-factor authentication to our website as part of our security. More than three million online customers have successfully registered. If you have not passed, you can call customer service on 08085 007 007.’
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