NS&I direct saver wrong reference number

[Wallasey123]

My elderly parents just sold their house and decided to put the money into an NS&I direct saver account.

I set this up for them, gave them all the details but said when you transfer the money in, PLEASE call me. Last Friday I get a call from my mum saying we’ve just come out of the bank (Santander) and sent the money (400k!) to the ns&i account. I asked what details they used they put the wrong bloody reference number and used her NS&I number instead of the account number. I immediately told them to go back and ask Santander who then said to contact ns&i. I called ns&i who said the money should bounce back (up to 7 working days)

I guess tomorrow is 7 working days technically but can I get some reassurance that it’ll come back? Has anyone had anything similar to this happen? What do I do if it doesn’t? I’m worried sick for them and they’re stressed too

Not sure how reassuring this is going to be for you given that both instances involved much smaller sums of money, but I have twice found I have not been paid money I was expecting and on investigating with payroll discovered I had given the wrong sort code (one time it was the sort code for my previous bank account and the other time a log in code for a software package that happened to be very similar to my sort code!). Both payments did indeed bounce back and I got my money without too much delay.

I think it should bounce back. But NS&I is quite slow. It’s quite slow in actually hitting the account which can be daunting.

I have to say I’m quite surprised that Santander didn’t follow the paperwork trail and pay into the account number unless your parents didn’t present them with all paperwork.

I think it should bounce back.

The customer number/account number thing is confusing.

i would always do a test transfer of £1 in this sort of scenario. I know it’s too late now!

Update: by some MIRACLE it went through today! The relief! I’ll be able to sleep tonight.

Yes! They saw the £5 we sent as a test leave but they didn’t spot it bouncing back 4 days later. So unimpressed

Glad it’s resolved.