Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday’s ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.
M.C. writes: My dear wife passed away in February. She had £1,000 in premium bonds, so I wrote to National Savings & Investments (NS&I) with her death certificate.
I heard nothing more until April, when a prize cheque for £25 arrived.
It was made out to my wife, so I returned it, but six weeks later NS&I said staff could not find the original correspondence.
Poor form: National Savings & Investments sent an unbankable cheque
What a chapter of errors. First you received a prize cheque that could not be banked as your wife had died. Then NS&I admitted it had lost the earlier correspondence, though you gave staff a copy of the letter they sent you to acknowledge that they had been informed of your wife’s death.
But more was to come. You had asked for the bonds to be transferred to you, but nobody had told you that you had to complete a particular NS&I form to apply for this. So, you jumped through this further hoop and sent the completed form in May.
Four weeks later, NS&I replied. But instead of transferring the bonds and issuing a new prize cheque, staff decided to treat your claim as a complaint and offered to put you in touch with the Ombudsman. So, six months after you lost your wife, you still had no idea when you would received her £1,000 investment or the £25 prize.
I asked officials at NS&I headquarters to look into what had gone wrong, and I am glad to say they moved faster than I could have hoped.
Premium bonds can stay in prize draws for up to a year after the holder dies, but they cannot be transferred. They can only be encashed. So NS&I has redeemed your wife’s holding and has sent £1,000 straight to your bank account.
The officials were frank. With refreshing honesty, they told me: ‘We did not scan the copy of Mr C’s late wife’s death certificate into our system, and thus Mrs C’s death was not registered with us. This was a case of human error.’
When you expressed your disbelief at this, NS&I treated the matter as a complaint and two different departments became involved – just as the pandemic meant that both teams were short of staff in the office.
The team handling the complaint then contacted you ahead of the bereavement team that was meant to put things right, and this added a further layer of confusion.
As well as the £1,000 in your bank account, you now have a £25 prize cheque issued in your name.
NS&I has also paid you £31 in lost interest, which it calculates at a very generous 8 per cent, and it has added a further £100 as a gesture of goodwill to apologise for the distress, upset and inconvenience caused.
Fraud-friendly Britain will not pursue crooks who cheated you of £10,000
M.P. writes: At the beginning of April last year, I invested £10,000 in sustainable energy bonds marketed by Whitehorse Finance.
The bonds were to mature in April this year, but now I find I cannot contact the firm, nor do I know how to report this issue.
Too late: Last year Tony was already investigating this scam by Whitehorse Finance
You could not have known, unfortunately, that last year I was already investigating this scam. Three weeks after you invested, I warned that there was a whole series of false claims in the way these interest-bearing bonds were sold.
Whitehorse Finance was a trading name used by a company called Prime Guard Ltd, owned and run by Tashfeen Mogul, who also used the names Whitehorse Bonds and Whitehorse Capital. He claimed: ‘For over a decade, Whitehorse Capital has provided investment and wealth management to individuals, families, groups and institutions.’
This was a lie. Mogul also claimed that investors’ funds were safe, because: ‘All investments made with the Whitehorse Finance Group are asset backed against company assets which include gold, cash and real estate.’ Another lie.
And if all else failed, Mogul added: ‘Our Wealth Protection Scheme will be utilised to cover any shortfall.’
But of course this was a lie as well, just like his claim that his firm – barely a year old – had 2,300 investors and managed £127million of investments. All of these lies add up to the criminal offence of fraud, but frauds like this are rarely investigated now. Spotting a prosecution is like seeing Elvis at the supermarket.
Investor Mark Taber runs an online campaign to expose firms such as Whitehorse. Last week he reported three more to the Financial Conduct Authority, but he told me: ‘This takes the number I have reported so far this year to more than 350, yet still no effective action is being taken to prevent the adverts from appearing or to prosecute those behind them.’
The watchdog has become like a failed state, not just incapable of exercising power, but dangerous in that it gives the public the illusion of safety with none in reality.
What happened to Prime Guard? Earlier this year it was struck off by Companies House, though the name has recently been registered for a new, unconnected business.
Mogul told Companies House he had handed control to a man named Storey. However, our weak laws do not oblige crooks or anyone else to give their address in public records.
In fact, you can use any old name and address to set up a company, which is why we are one of the most fraud-friendly nations in the world.
In short then, you will not see your £10,000 again. You could report all this to the police, and even give them a copy of my warning from last year. But nothing will happen.
If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email [email protected]. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.
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