Premium bonds from age 16

[Symposium]

I’m wondering if anyone has experience of their 16 year old taking control of their premium bonds account? I helped my son fill out the form and got a family friend to write the covering letter witnessing his signature. We sent it to them at the beginning of September. I thought we would have heard something by now? I tried calling them last week and they said it might be that they need more information like a passport or birth certificate but wait until we hear . Is it usual to take this long though? Starting to worry it’s got lost!

It takes a while. The first thing we knew that he’d got control was that he won a prize and it by cheque directly to him!

That’s interesting, did you stand off a form ?

It was a total nightmare!! Took forever and had to send things off multiple times. I cant remember how it got resolved but took about 4 months!! Ended up with my son having to ring them as wouldn't talk to me once hed sent the initial form off!

Yep exactly the same here. Utterly ridiculous old fashioned bureaucracy. DD only has a few hundred so not even likely to win. Ive told her to cash it out and we’ll put it in her JISA.

It took us a couple of weeks but we did send the form, signed covering letter and copy of passport straight away. On signing in with new temporary password it had our old home phone number which would not let us update online so needed my DD to phone them. Needed to set up passwords, memorable security questions, PIN number. She was traumatised after it took so long being passed from one person to another for security reasons. She now is able to access her account online but can’t go paperless or reinvest her prizes. She won’t now call them to sort it out as the last phone call has put her off.
Wishing you a speedy outcome. 😊

It’s just weird that there’s now a suggestion that a passport might be needed. Why don’t they just ask for that in the first place?? We’ve done all that it says to do but it’s just silence . Should we expect something in the post or what? Or should I get my son to ring them ?

I would get your son to ring them.

So finally a letter has come. It’s so weird. It says we are unable to issue an online account as we need to confirm your address! ? And asks him to fill out the exact same form again .. and have it witnessed again . I’m baffled . I can’t think what was not acceptable in the first form. We didn’t forget to write his address on it! And they’ve literally just posted this to him.. at his address?!