Endowment's Matured But Company Aren't Paying It Out

[CW1]

Hi,

My endowment policy to pay off my mortgage matured 1 Sep but I've not been paid it. I've called the company couple of times, 5 Sep they said they hadn't received documents then after a few minutes he said "Oh yes we have, the policy's been paid but the bank transfer can take 5 working days". So I waited. Called again 8 Sep, as far as I know a bank transfer does NOT take 5 working days, it's same day or latest next [working] day. Anyway, she confirmed it'd been paid 5 Sep & it would be in my account today AT THE LATEST. It's not.

Obviously I'll have to call them again. For all they know, I might be having to pay my mortgage off *now* though as it is I'm losing interest on the surplus plus paying more interest on my mortgage than I would if I'd been able to pay it off.

Who can I complain to ? I would've thought too they should've written to me explaining the redemption figure, make it official, but I've had nothing.

TIA

[fiction-factory]

They usually show at just after7am but sometimes they appear at just before 5pm.
I would first check that they have the right account details

[murraymints]

my bank ..Barclays...always takes 5 working days for bank transfer

[murraymints]

and if it goes in on a Monday say..will not show until after close of business that day

[murraymints]

..so..should show today ?

[CW1]

They confirmed the bank details last week when I called, it's the same account the payments were made from. And I've checked during the night for say salary & it's been there. My bank (actually a building society) say if you make a payment to another bank before 2pm, it's there same day. Likewise when I've received payments, they've been there same day as it was paid, next day at the latest.

I'll call the building society too to confirm but IF it was paid last Monday, it should defo be there this morning ! Getting a bit concerned as I'm having some big work done on the house this week & he'll want paying ... *I* won't be able to just not pay ...

I still want to complain, they've been getting the interest on it since 1 Sep & *I* should be getting it (such as it is, ha !).

[murraymints]

http://financial-ombudsman.org.uk/

look here

[fiction-factory]

Yes, the Ombudsman is a the best last resort. You'd need to follow and exhaust the company's complaints procedure though before the Ombudsman would get involved.

[CW1]

Well, after about 90mins worth of phone calls, everyone's agreed it *should* be paid today though one did say to give it 6 working days as last Monday could be classed Day 0.

It transpires the account number the endowment company has used is fine but the sort code is different. That didn't affect collection of monthly payments for the last 25yrs though ! BUT the bank have checked their holding account for the last 7 days & no money's been paid. If it had, it might have been rejected (with the so called wrong sort code) & returned to sender, but the fact there's no such payment in the holding account suggests it's never been sent ! I'm now waiting for a phone call from the endowment company's account dept to request a forward trace, to find out where it's gone - how long's THAT gonna take ! - but that call won't be 'til tomorrow probably, then I'll probably have to start over ! That's if they don't insist on sending a cheque as how likely are they to send a payment to a different sort code on MY say so ?!

The endowment company also said they don't send letters re maturity so how d'I know they haven't creamed off a load of fees ! The value did fall by a £300 in the last 10 days before it matured :(

By the way, I never chose this company. The original went bust after a couple of years & another took it on, then it transferred to this lot a year or 2 ago - & it's a well known name !

[fiction-factory]

Any sign of the money yet?

[CW1]

Nope :(
Have spoken to endowment company again today, twice. They've agreed to pay it (again ??) to the correct sort code BUT they're refusing point blank to send it any other way other than by cheque (yeah, right-e-o) or CHAPS (as before, allegedly), the latter being their preferred payment method even tho' I suggested that in the circumstances it should be expediated. They're saying now it *should* only take 3 working days by CHAPS & I *should* have it Friday.

I've also told them I want to make an official complaint, especially with their refusal to find a 24hr payment method - I receive rent from my tenants hours after it's sent so there's ways ! They're still getting interest on that money, I'm not, plus I'm still paying mortgage interest I shouldn't be. So they're going to go thru' all my phone calls to them then write. We'll see, I guess *sigh*

[fiction-factory]

I wonder how the the incorrect sort code was used. I had to fill a form in to say how the money should be paid. It was done electronically,. Most payments now are done the same day but maybe this exceeds the daily limit; and I'd expect a chaps payment to be fast too.

If you are incurring extra mortgage interest as a result then you must be using the money to pay off an outstanding mortgage amount. If the policy was initially taken out as part of the mortgage as a linked endowment then maybe the mortgage provider would understand if you said you were waiting and would they stop interest accruing

[CW1]

I can't make out how the wrong sort code was used either, especially as it wasn't "wrong" when the payments were being collected. All I can think is that I would've (obviously ?) given the right sort code to the original company, they then went bust & another eventually took it over, then it was passed on to this lot quite recently, & that somewhere between all those moves it's somehow mutated.

The only correspondence I've had was their request for the original policy document to be sent to them. That said payout would be made direct to the account where payments were collected from, didn't seem I had a choice. A daily limit may be a fair point but they've never said that, just that CHAPS is their preferred method.

Your point about the mortgage interest is a good one too, though in my case the mortgage isn't actually due to be paid off 'til next year so doubt the building society would go with that. That'll all be factored into my complaint :)

I've come across this

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=2344179

which are the 2 sort codes but with a limit of £10 to 07-44-56 (the one the endowment company have) that would make sense. Still doesn't explain why the building society never received it to their holding account & returned it though.

[CW1]

Money's in my account, whoop whoop ! In fact, it's £1300 more than they said the maturity value was on 1st, so whether it's interest (surely not !) or they didn't do whatever they do on 1st & the unit value's since gone up, I'll probably never know as they said they wouldn't write to tell me a final figure or how it got to that. Interesting now to see what they say as regards my complaint ;)

Thanks for taking the time out to post, cheers :)

[ladybirder]

Oh my, I bet you're relieved. Treat yourself out of the £1300.

[ToraToraTora]

stop having a fit about interest, it's jack *** these days anyway

[CW1]

Any interest is still worth having, particularly on such a large amount, but this was never about "interest" per say, was about the unwarranted delay in a policy being paid out on time after I'd done my bit by paying in regularly for the last 25yrs. So snout out please if you've nothing constructive to say about what's an old post now anyway.

[RandyMarsh]

Surprised that the mortgage company did not have the policy assigned to them in the first place but hey, how does it feel to have that debt cleared?

[CW1]

RandyMarsh, only half the mortgage was endowment, the other half was repayment. They didn't even know about the endowment, I took it out before I got the mortgage, & was for double the amount as well. As far as they were concerned, the onus was on me to pay the outstanding half when the mortgage was due to be redeemed next year, they didn't ask how I was gonna do it.

It hasn't really hit yet, maybe not 'til the next repayment would've been due, though have to say, feels very strange saying "was" above ! LOL

[Peter Pedant]

they stopped assignment in the mid eighties randy
[ mine were then they werent ]

good news about the endowment -
actually as investment vehicles they turned out to be dogs but ho hum
you have your money

sounds as they were busting a gut to show YOU were the one who had given the wrong sort code and they sortta ( pun intended) didnt like when it dawned that it was one of their clerks mistakes