Fury at pensioner bonds ‘shambles’
Demand for high interest plan crashes website
THE launch of the Government’s much-heralded pensioner bonds was in chaos yesterday when a sales hotline and website went into meltdown within minutes.
Huge demand for the high-interest investments for the over-65s caused the National Savings and Investments (NS&I) site to crash.
Frustrated callers also found that a helpline was constantly engaged, with no queuing system or call back service.
Experts last night claimed bosses had wildly underestimated demand for the bonds despite months of planning, while furious pensioners branded the launch a ‘shambles’.
Telling savers not to panic, NS&I insisted the fixed-rate bonds would not sell out – saying it would be several months before sales reach the Treasury’s £10billion limit.
But financial experts said they could go within weeks or even days, warning it could be a case of ‘blink and you’ll miss them’.
Susan Hannums, at comparison website Savingschampion. co.uk, said: ‘Experts have been warning NS&I for months that demand for the long awaited pensioner bonds would be high.
‘However, it seems these warnings have been ignored with insufficient measures to cope with demand.
‘This is causing pensioners to panic that the bonds will sell out before they get a chance to apply.’ The Treasury launched the eagerly-awaited bonds in a bid to help older people suffering from record-low interest rates on savings accounts. A one-year bond offers a 2.8 per cent interest rate – almost double the typically rate on the high street.
Despite the problems, savers had taken out some £270million worth of bonds in 26,000 separate transactions by 3.30pm yesterday. But the figures suggest that if demand remains steady the bonds could sell out within five weeks.
If pensioners continue to deposit an average of about £10,400 each, then about one million of Britain’s 11 million over-65s would benefit from the bonds before they run out.
Martin Lewis, f ounder of MoneySavingExpert.com, said as few as 500,000 savers would be able to get their hands on the bonds if everyone used their maximum allowance.
Sylvia Waycot, of Moneyfacts. co.uk, said: ‘This bond is going to be gone in days if not sooner.’
Yesterday, complaints flooded in from angry savers fearing they would miss out because of the problems on launch day.
Mike Harvey, from Ealing, west London, spent five hours trying to get through before giving up.
The 65-year- old former surveyor said: ‘It’s been a total joke. It’s been so badly managed I’m going to give up.’ Robert Coul- som, 79, f rom north Wales, branded the service ‘ a total shambles’ after also waiting five hours to get through.
Former nurse Susan Smith, 67, from Lincoln, accused NS&I of ‘woeful’ behaviour, adding: ‘I can’t believe it’s got the government backing it and it still falls apart on day one.’
Savers should be allowed to ‘roll up’ their unused ISA allocation and use it later for one-off financial windfalls such as house sales and inheritance, a thinktank will say today.
Policy Exchange says people should be given more flexibility to build up their tax-free savings pots during the course of a lifetime and called for the creation of a ‘Bonus ISA’.
‘Falls apart on day one’