I've had various accounts over the years with NSI and after reading read poor reviews I've just logged in to test the system with no problems. The website was upgraded not too long ago and it is a big improvement.

PATHETIC: They sent back to me my 60k investment cheque and application forms because by wife's date of birth was missing. My telephone number and email was included on the application form. In square one this is a poor start to my first NS&I investment but now I have to keep my fingers crossed there are not more problems down the line. Have to wonder how other companies would have handled this situation???

We have both Premium Bonds and a Direct ISA deposited with NS&I and have had this money deposited with them for several years. Recently we logged onto our account to draw down our money, the website refused to release the funds. After a number of telephone calls we were told our money could not be released due to a period of inactivity on our account, this is untrue as only a week before we drew down nearly £8k through the same method. Three weeks later we are still unable to draw down our money despite exchanging correspondence and proving our identity in writing and over the telephone. We advise anyone reading this review to not bank with this company, they conduct highly suspect business practices and yet claim to be backed by the Treasury and as such your money is safe with them. It most definitely is not. Try and complain and you will find yourself on a black magic roundabout of despair. After the banking crisis we thought the finance industry had moved on, it hasn't. Disgusted.

Once again NS&I rejects my special character in the password & locks me out. The coded telephone reset option fails despite me having full mobile service. I then have to call them & beg for a temporary password but I can only have it if I pass a security test using my credit file,VVTF! I set five special questions but they won't use them. I'm asked what was my address from 15 years ago & the credit limit on a credit card that hasn't been used in 2 years. Aaaaargh won't get your money & neither will you.

Seem to have very mixed customer service levels. Having spoken to three members of staff now - one member of staff was great and very helpful (as you would expect) and two were really poor (one of which was a supervisor). Just get the impression that they are young kids who don't care about their customers. Patronising and rude. Wouldn't recommend them

Me and wife both have accounts with them and had horrible experience to withdraw money. Got online service blocked and they do not have any backup at all we need our money urgently and struggling to get it out since last three week. Sent restore service form 10 days before but no answer passed their phone security check they you will get new password in three days by post but nothing is there. we need our own money desperately and we are middle of nowhere. We are going to close NS&I account and will never recommend to any body, please stay away from them. In the mean time last Saturday 11 AM wife ordered her lost Barclays bank card and she received it Monday morning around 9:30 am. That is called service. Now you can compare both services.

Logged on to NS&I on 3 May to close my account. Password was entered correctly but declined and my account suspended. I contacted NS&I by telephone and spent a long time speaking with an adviser. I was advised that passwords expire after 60 days - blatantly untrue as my partner subsequently logged on with his password which had not been used in more than 60 days. I had also never been advised of that. I was told that my only options were to have a temporary password sent out to me (by post!) or to have a withdrawal form sent out to me (by post!). I was not told until I asked that I could download the form myself and send it off. I paid almost £7 to send the completed form to NS&I on 3 May by guaranteed delivery, guaranteed to arrive with them on 4 May. As advised by NS&I, I marked the form URGENT. On 10 May, I received a letter dated 6 May from NS&I saying that they did not have my present signature on their records so could not process my request. They failed to tell me this on the telephone on 3 May and despite knowing that I needed access to my money urgently, they obviously sent a letter out to me by second class post, rather than contacting me by telephone. I called them on 10 May, expressed my absolute dissatisfaction at their customer service and asked for a temporary password to be issue to me immediately. The adviser said that that would be sent out that same day by first class post and I asked him to note the urgency of this now as I felt I was really being inconvenienced by the bureaucracy and inefficiency of NS&I. It took 3 days to receive my password and I have only today managed to access my money, 14 days after initially trying to and having wasted hours on telephone calls, filling out forms, sending letters and getting more and more annoyed. The staff I spoke to at NS&I were robotic and passive. There was absolutely no understanding of customer service and no-one stepped up to take responsibility for dealing with my issues. From initially deciding to invest my money in premium bonds, I have found NS&I to be behind-the-times, completely without customer service, inefficient, unresponsive and uncaring. It has been one of my poorer decisions to invest with them and I would caution anyone with money lodged at NS&I and needing their cash urgently to beware of the ridiculous processes involved.

My grandparents used NS & I Childrens Bonds to pass down some money to me over the years, totalling around 4-5 thousand pounds. They gave me 2 bonds per year until I was sixteen. I'm now 20 and looking to cash in the bonds so I can buy my first car and invest the rest of my money with my other savings. I wrote to NS&I at least 6 times in order to get a complete valuation of all my bonds (which I know now may still be incomplete). Months later I last week spent hours filling in an overly complicated form to cash my bonds in. This week, they paid up to a sum of 1000 pounds. Knowing this was wrong I rang NS&I who were rude and totally useless, saying they had paid me in full, they had no more money in my name and I would need to file a written complaint to have a hope of receiving the rest of my money. My Grandmother also rang them today and had a similar experience, and she is very worried that I won't receive my money. Having reassured her, I will be ringing again and writing in until I recieve my money. Perhaps, six months after making contact with them, they will be able to work out what they owe me. Absolutely awful and stressful experience, I cannot recommend. In fact I would strongly encourage anyone thinking of using NS&I to steer well clear of them, as their record keeping is obviously awful, their customer services are terrible, and the system they use for transferring money is shocking. If i could rate lower than 1 star I would.

Sent in my bond application by post, received a letter saying that my bank account no. was not valid. Phoned by to be told rudely they would help me correct MY mistake - it was THEIR mistake. 4 weeks later I have no account no, despite ringing up many many times - they say they have send out the account no again but I have not received it. I have been told all sorts of misinformation about how I can pay money into my account which I wished to do while I was abroad. Finally today I have received another letter saying that my signature differs from the signature they have on record and they cannot go ahead with a request!!!. I have used the same signature for 30 years with NO PROBLEM!!! DO NOT USE THEY ARE TOTALLY INCOMPETENT, AND POORLY TRAINED IF AT ALL!!!!

Tried to open an ISA account, but never received my password for use with this. Had to phone up and ask for paper forms to be sent to me to give me a temporary password. Filled in the forms and sent them back. Waited over a week for my new password. When I got it, it didn't work. Phoned up and was told rather rudely, that I hadn't read the letter that came with the password. They told me that I had to phone up to access my account and not to do this online. The letter did not state this, said that I could use it online. I was told that I would have to wait for a new password to be sent again and this would take two days. Been a week, still no password. Considering this is a government backed organisation, they are completely incompetent and have a customer service that would be better placed in Syria than the United Kingdom. DO NOT USE NS&I.

I tried to open the pensioner bond online and the site crashed at the end of the transaction. Rang NS&I and was told to wait 2 hours and if no email from them try again. I left it for 11 hours, no email so tried again. This time it was successful. The following day I noticed two amounts of 10k had been taken from my account. I have now been trying for 2 weeks to get 10k back from them. Their customer service is appalling, they never return your calls. I waited in for several days as promised a callback but nothing. They don't really care. i was eventually promised the money would be back in my account last week, guess what still no money. I really want to cancel the bond that I have with them as i do not wish to deal with them for the next 3 years but I have been told they will deduct 90 days interest if I close the account despite the formal complaint I made and the continuing trouble I am having trying to get my 10k back from them. Believe me they are not worth the hassle or the anxiety, bank elsewhere.

The worst customer service I have ever experienced. The level of arrogance is beyond belief and staff lack any form of professionalism which you would expect from a financial institution. The could not care attitude is totally unacceptable and staff seriously need re training before the business completely goes to the dogs. Between my wife, daughter and myself we had in the access of £100,000 invested with NS&i but following our customer service experience the full sum has been invested elsewhere. However, I suspect the arrogant, rude and incompetent staff at NS&i do not give a toss. Avoid like the plague.

I am really frustrated as a new customer, I opened a premium bond account online, got the form through the post to sign, and returned it. I then heard nothing for a couple of weeks, and then got an email saying I had a secure message waiting for me, and that I should log on with the number that comes through the post.
The number never came, so I phoned them up. They claimed that neither of the account opening reference numbers were valid, and therefore refused to speak to me.

I phoned the complaint line and they said I had to write in. I got quite upset (as they have such a large sum of my money), but the guy said "dont worry, if there was a problem at account opening, we would have sent the money back to you." That makes it ok then.... Worst customer service and prodcedures ever, I won't be leaving my money with them when I get it sorted out, and I will not be using them again. Archaic.

One of the worst websites I have to deal with. Not designed for the customer, designed by somebody who knows all the internal NS&I jargon. The password system is extremely complicated but if you write all your passwords down (we are told not to write passwords down) it is just about useable. You fill in a page of information and you cannot proceed because there is only a "back" button at the bottom of the page - no help as to what you have done wrong. You send an email for assistance and they reply "I am sorry you have had difficulty in withdrawing funds" I wasn't even trying to withdraw funds. Avoid this website at all costs!

We sent the registration forms on 8th April, requested encashment of bonds on 17th, received our login details on 18th, logged in on 25th to check progress to find that the cash had been sent on 18th and was in our bank account on 22nd - all within 2 weeks! Well done all concerned the nice lady on the telephone.

In reading other peoples experiences with this company i do not really need to say anything more. Just AVOID this firm at all costs. They are SO old fashioned, unhelpful and arrogant it beggars belief! Getting my money back, was virtually impossible (took months) but even more frustrating was their system if you forget your online password! You fill out the online form, push "forgot password" and expect a new one to be sent to your email inbox. Nothing was there, so I went through the process 9 times expecting 9 different passwords to arrive in my email. None did! I then realise, after speaking with their unhelpful staff (who, by the way, try to avoid actually discussing anything at all over the phone) was advised that 9 brand new passwords would be winging their way to me in the POST!!! In separate letters as i pushed it 9 separate times! So working out which was the newest was a right treat!

I have been unable to withdraw my money over the last week which is now impacting the purchase of my first house. When trying to withdraw my money I have been asked security questions which I have never set. For example - What is your first borns middle name? - I only have one son, and he has no middle name. Been told it will take up to another 5 days to resolve, but reading other reviews here I am not holding my breath.

Responses are generally via irrelevant templates, staff are rude, arrogant and dismissive. Frequent breaches of data protection (sending sensitive data to wrong addresses) are not rectified. They simply - from a service perspective - do not know what they are doing. Swathes of unqualified and uneducated masses staffing the Glasow support centre. AVOID, AVOID, AVOID. Put your money into a competent organisation.