JamesFrance
Member of DD Central
Port Grimaud 1974
Posts: 1,317
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Post by JamesFrance on Dec 10, 2019 11:43:14 GMT
Yesterday I decided to buy some premium bonds with money withdrawn from P2P, as the return seemed similar to the best available savings accounts.
The website said to fill in the on-line application form and they would create an account at the same time. After going through all the steps they asked for bank card details then immediately took thousands from my bank account. Only then did they say I would not be in the draw until February and I must upload a photo of my passport and a certified proof of address, too much bother for the low likely return for the short time I expected to hold them. I have been back in the UK for less than a year so auto checks don't seem to work, even though my Experian rating is good.
This morning I phoned them to ask if I could send an original proof of address by post, the answer was yes but I would have to then send a certified passport copy as they need to be certified if posted but not if uploaded. I said no problem, I would upload the passport and post the address proof. The reply was that they don't allow that, they both have to be sent the same way!
Having had enough I told them to cancel and return my money immediately. Yes they could do that but it would take over a week as there would be 2 days of processing then the payment would be made by bacs transfer which would be another 3 working days to reach my account. What happened to 21st century instant transfers? They said they would not even be sending an email to confirm the transfer. All a complete waste of time, but my bank has no savings account paying even half a per cent, so it will sit in the current account until needed as I cannot be bothered to open one for that.
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r00lish67
Member of DD Central
Posts: 2,691
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Post by r00lish67 on Dec 10, 2019 12:00:21 GMT
Yesterday I decided to buy some premium bonds with money withdrawn from P2P, as the return seemed similar to the best available savings accounts.
The website said to fill in the on-line application form and they would create an account at the same time. After going through all the steps they asked for bank card details then immediately took thousands from my bank account. Only then did they say I would not be in the draw until February and I must upload a photo of my passport and a certified proof of address, too much bother for the low likely return for the short time I expected to hold them. I have been back in the UK for less than a year so auto checks don't seem to work, even though my Experian rating is good.
This morning I phoned them to ask if I could send an original proof of address by post, the answer was yes but I would have to then send a certified passport copy as they need to be certified if posted but not if uploaded. I said no problem, I would upload the passport and post the address proof. The reply was that they don't allow that, they both have to be sent the same way!
Having had enough I told them to cancel and return my money immediately. Yes they could do that but it would take over a week as there would be 2 days of processing then the payment would be made by bacs transfer which would be another 3 working days to reach my account. What happened to 21st century instant transfers? They said they would not even be sending an email to confirm the transfer. All a complete waste of time, but my bank has no savings account paying even half a per cent, so it will sit in the current account until needed as I cannot be bothered to open one for that.
The funny thing with premium bonds is that everyone who has them here seems to be beating the average return. Quite extraordinary. Not worth even going for the Marcus account at 1.45%? By all accounts as slick an opening process as exists anywhere, was certainly my experience.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Dec 10, 2019 12:18:02 GMT
I had premium bonds for years, but cashed them in because I always seemed to be getting less than average returns, often much less. I decided to put money back in about a year ago when P2P was looking a bit dodgy to me and I was moving more into cash. I'm slightly ahead this time around so far, but I have a lot of 'bad luck' to catch up on from before.
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r00lish67
Member of DD Central
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Post by r00lish67 on Dec 10, 2019 12:43:09 GMT
As far as I'm concerned, as a non-taxpayer, the median rate of return of premium bonds is about 1.00%. The median is the only really relevant measure as the mean also includes those who win a million. I can get nearly/actually double that elsewhere by plonking it into fixed rate savings accounts, so I do. Appreciate it's more marginal for taxpayers.
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Post by bracknellboy on Dec 10, 2019 12:59:42 GMT
As far as I'm concerned, as a non-taxpayer, the median rate of return of premium bonds is about 1.00%. The median is the only really relevant measure as the mean also includes those who win a million. I can get nearly/actually double that elsewhere by plonking it into fixed rate savings accounts, so I do. I'm not sure about the actual "median" rate, and I'm not sure where you would get that. Nonetheless agree that the headline rate (currently 1.4%) is not what should be used.
Assuming you are putting in sufficient money for a sufficient period of time, then with the current "prize" distribution as it is, a reasonable rate to use would be to adjust the headline rate for the element made up of "Low Value" prizes (25/50/100), or even just the lowest value (25). That would give you a value of 1.26% and 1.2% respectively. Then adjust if you are a tax payer.
Quite a few years ago they "levelled" things out quite a bit compared to how they were: from memory they reduced the minimum from £50 to £25 (my memory might be bad on that one) and increased the %age distribution in the Low Prize (and specfically the lowest) value. All of which of course made the returns somewhat more predictable.
Still, if you only hold £50 of PBs, don't moan that "you've never won anything". Instead cash them in and use the money to buy a copy of "Statistics for Dummies".
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r00lish67
Member of DD Central
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Post by r00lish67 on Dec 10, 2019 13:19:53 GMT
As far as I'm concerned, as a non-taxpayer, the median rate of return of premium bonds is about 1.00%. The median is the only really relevant measure as the mean also includes those who win a million. I can get nearly/actually double that elsewhere by plonking it into fixed rate savings accounts, so I do. I'm not sure about the actual "median" rate, and I'm not sure where you would get that. Nonetheless agree that the headline rate (currently 1.4%) is not what should be used.
Assuming you are putting in sufficient money for a sufficient period of time, then with the current "prize" distribution as it is, a reasonable rate to use would be to adjust the headline rate for the element made up of "Low Value" prizes (25/50/100), or even just the lowest value (25). That would give you a value of 1.26% and 1.2% respectively. Then adjust if you are a tax payer.
Quite a few years ago they "levelled" things out quite a bit compared to how they were: from memory they reduced the minimum from £50 to £25 (my memory might be bad on that one) and increased the %age distribution in the Low Prize (and specfically the lowest) value. All of which of course made the returns somewhat more predictable.
Still, if you only hold £50 of PBs, don't moan that "you've never won anything". Instead cash them in and use the money to buy a copy of "Statistics for Dummies".
For ref, I use MSE. It's apparently actually surprisingly complicated to work out the median - MSE had to source an advanced mathematician apparently! For brevity I used 1.00%, but it varies by the amount invested. That figure comes from the bit which says "how much can i expect to win", and entering £50k.
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archie
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Post by archie on Dec 10, 2019 13:42:47 GMT
Just for fun I worked out my 2019 return as 1.6%.
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jonno
Member of DD Central
nil satis nisi optimum
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Post by jonno on Dec 10, 2019 14:22:48 GMT
Just for fun I worked out my 2019 return as 1.6%. Wouldn't have been much "fun" if it had worked out at 0.01%
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Post by gravitykillz on Dec 10, 2019 19:10:14 GMT
Yesterday I decided to buy some premium bonds with money withdrawn from P2P, as the return seemed similar to the best available savings accounts.
The website said to fill in the on-line application form and they would create an account at the same time. After going through all the steps they asked for bank card details then immediately took thousands from my bank account. Only then did they say I would not be in the draw until February and I must upload a photo of my passport and a certified proof of address, too much bother for the low likely return for the short time I expected to hold them. I have been back in the UK for less than a year so auto checks don't seem to work, even though my Experian rating is good.
This morning I phoned them to ask if I could send an original proof of address by post, the answer was yes but I would have to then send a certified passport copy as they need to be certified if posted but not if uploaded. I said no problem, I would upload the passport and post the address proof. The reply was that they don't allow that, they both have to be sent the same way!
Having had enough I told them to cancel and return my money immediately. Yes they could do that but it would take over a week as there would be 2 days of processing then the payment would be made by bacs transfer which would be another 3 working days to reach my account. What happened to 21st century instant transfers? They said they would not even be sending an email to confirm the transfer. All a complete waste of time, but my bank has no savings account paying even half a per cent, so it will sit in the current account until needed as I cannot be bothered to open one for that.
Are you on the electoral register? I bought 25k worth of bonds in October and I didn't have to do any of that. Anyways I won £25 x 3 (£75) for the December draw!
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JamesFrance
Member of DD Central
Port Grimaud 1974
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Post by JamesFrance on Dec 11, 2019 8:17:40 GMT
Are you on the electoral register? I bought 25k worth of bonds in October and I didn't have to do any of that. Anyways I won £25 x 3 (£75) for the December draw! Yes, but I have only been UK resident since the beginning of this year after 15 years in France. I did not agree to all and sundry having access to my register information, so maybe that would have made a difference.
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scc
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Post by scc on Dec 11, 2019 13:30:32 GMT
I don't remember any rigmarole with buying premium bonds personally. But it was a long time ago I bought my first.
I'm building my holding back up again as I reduce P2P. As investments go they are appalling (one step up from leaving it all in your current account) - especially the cash drag. But they are kind of fun, super safe and very liquid - if a rather better opportunity comes along. For a few years, that's been P2P where the risk/reward was worth it. Not sure it still is - especially with ratesetter.
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daveb
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Post by daveb on Dec 11, 2019 16:07:33 GMT
The MSE page is helpful here, you can stick a few different amounts in and see what you'd get with average luck. I doubt if it's worth putting less than about £30k in from when I last looked at it a while ago, for the reasons above. The prize notification email doesn't say what you've won, just "you have good news from NSandI" so from getting the email until logging into the actual site you can fantasise about the million pound prize...
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Post by gravitykillz on Dec 12, 2019 7:57:21 GMT
Are you on the electoral register? I bought 25k worth of bonds in October and I didn't have to do any of that. Anyways I won £25 x 3 (£75) for the December draw! Yes, but I have only been UK resident since the beginning of this year after 15 years in France. I did not agree to all and sundry having access to my register information, so maybe that would have made a difference. Yes. It is important to be on the electoral register of you are living in the uk. Otherwise you will find it difficult to apply for loans or open bank accounts.
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JamesFrance
Member of DD Central
Port Grimaud 1974
Posts: 1,317
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Post by JamesFrance on Dec 18, 2019 8:34:50 GMT
Yesterday, a week after NS&I agreed to return my money to my account there was no sign of it so I phoned them again.
They said they would be sending it today and I should get it by the end of the week. Pathetic. 2 weeks to return money they took instantly from my bank before saying they would need all sorts of certified docs.
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Post by gravitykillz on Dec 18, 2019 10:34:54 GMT
The other day I increased my bond holdings from 25 to 30k. I am hoping for a big prize someday. It's cheaper than the national lottery!
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