State-sanctioned ‘theft’ from the deceased takes many creative forms: Inheritance Tax, intestacy rules, not honouring ‘in perpetuity’ freehold burial plot deeds, and sneakily it seems even pinching their Premium Bonds (PBs)!
Living PB holders may lose out by not using other investment vehicles, but these lack the monthly thrill of imagining a big £5,000 to £1M win, or even winning some of the many other £25 to £1,000 cash prizes in lieu of interest. Unlike other ‘lotteries’, PB odds at 21,000 to 1 are much better and each £1 individually numbered PB lasts forever i.e. you never (theoretically) lose your stake money.
However, advert over – there is possibly a long-standing hushed up scandal, maybe even a few?
PBs were launched in 1956. Back then, you could buy £1 bond certificates over the counter at Post Offices (remember those?). These days they’re only available in £25 multiples on-line, by telephone or written application to the UK’s National Savings & Investment Agency (NS&I). Each of 121+ billion (yes really that many according to Wikipedia) bought £1 unique PB numbers are entered into every monthly draw, but those belonging to deceased holders can only win for 12 months after their demise. Q: How do NS&I know who has died? A: They don’t unless you tell them.
Now this doesn’t immediately ring GPO Horizon type scandal bells – but bear with me, maybe it should.
NS&I implies that each and every one of the 121+ billion PBs has a name and address attached to it. This surely means that NS&I’s own ‘ERNIE’ (look he, she or they up) has a database of billions of names and addresses – is it computerised or a quaint old-fashioned paper or card index system (probably big enough to fill the Albert Hall by now)? NS&I never say, but always strongly imply that this mega-database really does exist, and such vagueness of course actually suits their practices very well. How? Read on.
Suppose you find an old PB certificate among late lamented Uncle Fred’s stuff. Try contacting NS&I requesting transferal into your name, or for his (now arguably your) stake money back, but be prepared for a long correspondence, probably costing both you and NS&I more than the ancient PB(s) value. Even supplying a photocopy of the certificate(s) isn’t enough, you must say who the original PB buyer was and provide their address at the time of purchase. All quite difficult if you’re not sure if Uncle Fred actually bought the PBs himself or just found it in Granny Fanny’s attic, or indeed what address(es) Fred or Fanny lived at and conceivably now more than 50 or 60 years ago. Fail to provide this information to NS&I’s satisfaction (N.b. they won’t provide any helpful hints), and your ‘inheritance’ will effectively be appropriated by them.
It gets still more dubious, if 121+ billion PB numbers are entered into each monthly draw – how come none from the 1950s, 60s, 70s, or 80s ever seem to win a really big prize? Admittedly the number of these geriatric PBs (yet another little secret NS&I likes to keep) are probably humongously outnumbered by much more recent purchases, with almost all the big winners holding the maximum £50K, but nevertheless…fishy isn’t it?
Surely with 121+ billion PBs allegedly still fully active, a fair percentage must belong to either deceased or completely unaware holders? Isn’t this similar to dead dictators’ moolah still supposedly mouldering in welcoming Swiss Bank vaults? Were you as a child denied a toy, book or sweets by a family friend or relative who thought your little eyes would light up on receiving a lovely PB instead? I bet you’ve forgotten or lost the proof.
NS&I is owned by the Treasury and is quick to supply trite soundbites to the MSM every bloody month, ad infinitum, when Mr. Smith who has £50K of PBs wins £1M, but Ms. Jones then pipes up with her perpetual whinge about having held £17 since 1960, but she has never ever won a penny – it’s so unfair! Those intrepid financial ‘expert’ columnists never really take NS&I to task by asking the right probing questions. I do often wonder, why?
NS&I has probably appropriated many £millions, possibly even £billions, of others’ money and has so far clean gotten away with it. Furthermore, they don’t ever acknowledge or answer any questions they find inconvenient. One day NS&I may well come a cropper if a 1950s PB does win £1M and they then have to publicly admit the holder is pushing up daisies and is ineligible to become a millionaire corpse, and any heirs, even if in possession of the winning PB certificate, still won’t be striking it lucky. Perhaps there are secret protocols to prevent this situation arising or any embarrassment? We should be told.
The odds of winning are surely adversely skewed by the sheer unknown number of apparently ‘ineligible’ entries put into each month’s draw, since NS&I always gleefully admit to entering every uncashed PB into each and every draw. Additionally, many living people may have ‘lost’ their own gifted money or inheritance assets to this particular under the radar state-sanctioned ‘theft’, but it’s nigh on impossible to prove either for many individuals or cumulatively for the UK population.
Surely NS&I have the nous, if not the incentive, to clean up their 68-year-old PB act? If not, I can easily explain to them and their ‘Agent Million’ (look he, she or they up) how to make a start.
Martin Rispin has had a career in many different sectors, most lately in the fields of English Tourism and Heritage based Urban Regeneration. He now lives, retired, in Kingston upon Hull.
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Yes odd isn’t it that the questions needing answers are ignored and even big name ‘Financial Experts’ never go anywhere near anything except reconfirming the published rules that savvy holders already know.