NS&I Reviews 10.877

I won eveyr month for last two years. Since April when they changed the rates, I have not won since, 3 months in a row now. Im going to take all my money out and invest it in a gauranteed with because this is a joke and a total con.

National Savings and Investments (NS&I) are AWFUL - dysfunctional call handling, broken I.T. systems and a consistently frustrating experience

Disgraceful telephone and IT systems. I have raised these issues repeatedly over the years and nothing has improved.

Calls are fundamentally unreliable - the agent can never hear me while I can hear them perfectly well, which inevitably leads to the call being abandoned or disconnected. This has happened to me across multiple calls and locations, including from the office. When I do eventually get through the call waiting times are unacceptably long.

The website is equally appalling. It constantly and automatically logs me out when I'm simply navigating through the dashboard.

It is impossible to enter the 6-digit security code supplied to be entered during automatic calls received to make account changes. The code is never recognised when entered.

There is no accountability - no compensation is possible and gestures of goodwill are never made to reflect the time wasted trying and failing to access my own money.

It genuinely makes me concerned about how difficult it will be to withdraw my funds.

National Savings and Investments effectively has a monopoly on its offering which makes the lack of competition even more frustrating as customers have no alternative.

The whole system is antiquated, bureaucratic and unnecessarily burdensome.

This service is appalling and inexcusable. A full overhaul of their systems and customer experience is long overdue.

Dreadful experience. They requested a signature from myself to verify my identity in regards to premium bonds I've held for 24 years since I was born, opened by a family member. I sent the signature and almost 8 weeks later I had no response. I phoned them and immediately the advisor tried to fob me off until I spoke firmly saying I need to resolve this in which he found my account and said "yes we received your signature". I never received any letter or any notice whatsoever acknowledging this and had I not have phoned they probably never would have got in touch. He yet again fobbed me off as he said he would email back office to send me a letter with my account details, surprise surprise nothing arrived over a week later. I phoned again and now the woman has told me the letter will be here in 5 working days (this is the THIRD one that should have been sent). Its now working day number 3 and still nothing, I dont have my hopes up but we shall see.

On a differnet note I have tried contacting the company multiple times prior to this and AFTER you finally manage to get past the horrendous AI robot, most of the time you get put through to someone foreign who can barely understand you and every advisor has tried their best to get me off the phone as quickly as they could without helping in any way. I dont think these people understand that they are holding OUR MONEY. Not to mention they are now all over the news for a bereavement fund scandal. Absolute crooks and I would not advise anyone to give them a single penny and if you have holdings with them get them out ASAP. Pathetic excuse of a company and especially one that deals with people's money. Never seen the likes of it.

My father’s death was reported in February, and since then I have provided all required documentation, including the Grant of Probate. Despite this, there has been no meaningful progress.

I have been calling every two weeks for updates, and each time I am told the case is “in a queue” and will be dealt with “soon.” There is never a clear explanation, timeline, or indication of where things actually stand.

This lack of transparency and progress is extremely frustrating, particularly given the circumstances. Managing an estate is difficult enough without having to chase repeatedly for basic updates.

I would expect a far more efficient and compassionate process from an organisation entrusted with people’s savings. At the very least, customers should be given realistic timescales and clear communication.

At present, the experience has been slow, opaque, and unnecessarily stressful.

I pay in every month and I’ve never won prize

Been trying to access account when asked with new password.
Absolutely ridiculous I’ve tried many times and when trying to get a robot who is a waste of time.
Need to access account, what shall I do ?

Horrendous, horrible and arrogant customer service. They withdraw £6500 from my account with no knowledge or agreement from myself. It is 2 weeks and they still haven't repaid the money. The staff just do not care and do nothing productive to help. The most disgusting organisation I have ever come across.

I thought I would buy the full allowance in Premium Bonds. But, I cannot even register a new NS&I account because the system is so poor. I have attempted 4 times and on the last attempt managed to reach the last stage before it crashed again. Luckily I only put in £25 but its crashed before taking out that amount.
I'm afraid NS&I have just lost a potential £50k purchase because after that debacle, I ain't risking my money on them.

I have been trying to claim my deceased mother's premium bonds since December 2025 and I am at the end of my tether. It is now the end of April and I still have no confirmation of when the funds will be paid. I have had documents get lost within the system, been told my case has been expedited, subsequently told there is no expedition possible, then told again my case has been expedited twice. I have had a written request for probate to be sent (probate was was already confirmed as received in writing before this!). The processes are a complete shambles and create unacceptable stress and delays, particularly after a bereavement. I am currently shuttling between the complaints department, Durham customer care team and the general premium bonds team. I was told the bereavement team are back office and are unable to be contacted via telephone (even within NSANDI which I disputed!). Today magically someone in the CCT managed to call the bereavement team supposedly. Week before last I was offered a non-automated support arrangement to expedite my case for the third time to ensure I could be paid the funds I need to complete on my house purchase in time...despite this process seemingly working I am still in no mans land. Feeling incredibly stressed about losing my house due to no funds forthcoming and I am yet again back in the Bermuda triangle that is NSANDI. I received a complaint payment of £125 a few weeks ago which doesn't go anywhere near to compensating me for the wasted time on daily calls or mental distress suffered. What a broken broken system we have...incredibly depressing and clearly needing a complete overhaul.

Good service

So easy to do

It was quick and easy to do. Simple.

Whilst dealing with complicated health and marital issues, I suddenly needed to use some of the money I had in my nsandi. MAJOR FLAWS in their system.

Because I hadn’t withdrawn anything in so long and had only been adding to the account, whilst I logged in to my account fine, I failed ONE out of three questions that are asked when WITHDRAWING only, and got locked out of my account.

Not only did I have no money and need the money urgently, but I had to change address because of my marital situation and their records didn’t reflect my correct marital name despite completing the correct forms.

I went WEEKS, with no money, no answers, and sassy customer service agents patronising me whilst providing useless information. Despite actioning the exact requests they had, and PASSING security on the phone multiple times, providing CERTIFIED EVIDENCE of my identity (despite the cost and me having no money to pay for it) I wasted WEEKS trying to gain access whilst struggling emotionally, physically and financially being led by inconsistent, poor, ‘advice’.

Train your customer service team better!!! You had £50k of my money and couldn’t get your acts together to allow me to provide my identity and documents and regain access. I nearly had a mental breakdown trying to sort it out and suffered immensely from the stress of each action meeting a dead end and starting from scratch with another agent.

If you are going to hold money like it’s in Fort Knox, you need to provide the absolute best customer service possible. Alongside it. Everyone should know the protocol for situations where clients need to update their details after divorce/change of address/accidentally locking yourself out (which does happen if you withdraw once after 3 years- some people must forget after 30+) provide clear and consistent guidance.

Very quick to take the money. Disappointing to hear all the rumours about NSandI ‘losing’ clients money but based on the experience I’ve had- makes sense!

Don’t use because if you need support from them and something goes awry, you may never see your money again, even if you prove your identity with all your documents.

My husband unexpectedly became ill and died a traumatic death at a local hospital because the hospital firstly sent a high risk patient home from A&E with acid reflux. When he returned to A&E just two days later there was no chance to save him. He was too poorly to recover. He was put on so many machines together with having to spend each day in a cpap hood before he died 10 days later.

We kept our joint savings in premium bonds. Easy access to your money is what they state should you need it. During my husbands time in hospital - I could not ask him to release the premium bonds in his name back to our bank account even though I would need that money to bury him and pay a number of other immediate bills because he was so poorly.

When he died I contacted premium bonds and told them I needed immediate access to that money. The best that they could offer would be for me to present them with an invoice from the funeral home and they would pay it. No other money would be made available to me even though it was our joint savings with the majority of it being in his name to keep a high amount in one account for better odds. The funds going into premium bonds always came out of a joint account and any prizes were paid back to that joint account.

I finally managed to send them a grant of letters which takes months to obtain. You can try to obtain this document by yourself if the estate is just savings but for more complicated estates, it is prudent to use a solicitor. It has cost me £2132. This amount of money is spent just to obtain my savings back from premium bonds.

My husband died in August 2025. It has taken me 7 months to obtain the document and even though they now acknowledge receipt of that document they state that they will choose to take a further two months to release my money. Please take precautions not to find yourself in my position.

I have asked them to repay the £2132 to me that it cost for the grant of probate document. They will not do this. Instead they tell me that I don’t need to use a solicitor to get a grant of probate. They do not have a clue and are quite reckless with there comments. However they have given £75 compensation. 🧐

We left our joint savings in premium bonds for many years without receiving very much in prize money but you leave it just in case. There is £136 billion in premium bonds and only around 6 million prizes which means it is difficult with those odds to make any money each year.

It is a very high probability that most of us will make much more by depositing our cash in one of the many savings accounts and Isa’s on offer with the high street banks and building society’s

I have read some of the reviews on premium bonds and feel that they are thoroughly antiquated in every respect unless of course you are giving them your money. They make that process very easy.

I have always had bonds for years and have not been let down at all online or phone👍.

I have had a saving account with NS&I for a long time. I put a little away each month. The direct debit was easy to set up and maintain. The account is easy to check and when I want to use my money it is a straight forward process to transfer money into another account.

This is about the Premium Bond Draws... which are held on the 1st of every single month, what I find hard to accept is that they are all hidden and out of slight behind closed doors personally I find this very suspect because it can lead to all manor of abuse and underhand activity... infact these days there should be available access to the viewing of the live draw every month particularly with the technology that we have at our disposal today but this is not being allowed to happen for some strange reason...

Transactions are always straightforward and website is simple to use.

Best decision I have ever made in joining them, I have had great returns and certainly accumulated more than a normal savings account would be able to offer