NS&I blocked my withdrawal... but won’t give me a proper explanation

P.S. writes: I attempted to withdraw funds from my NS&I Direct Saver account, but the transaction failed, returning a message telling me to telephone its call centre. I did this and was told that ‘additional security’ had been placed on my account, and that staff would call me – but, of course, this did not happen. I emailed a number of times, but received no meaningful reply, so I wrote to NS&I’s chief executive Ian Ackerley, but received no response.

THE replies you got from NS&I were hardly helpful. All you wanted was to make a withdrawal of your own money, so it was beyond annoying to be told: ‘We’re very busy at the moment, so we are only replying to emails that are a complaint, a request to cancel an account within the cooling-off period, a Freedom of Information request, or about your rights under the Data Protection Act.’

And when you did make a formal complaint, NS&I’s customer service team told you it only acted as a go-between, passing messages to the customer care team – as if NS&I’s internal organisation should be of any significance to you, when all you wanted was to make a withdrawal from your account, and an explanation of why it was blocked in the first place.

I have that explanation. When you applied for a withdrawal online, you were caught by a random security check. The check should have been completed quickly and your account restored, but this was not done and officials then got bogged down in the complaints process without anyone sorting it out until you waited patiently for three months before contacting me.

As you know, your account has been unfrozen and your withdrawal has gone ahead. NS&I has offered its apologies and £100 as an ‘inconvenience payment’, but you have decided to press on with a complaint through the Financial Ombudsman Service.