jimjim wrote on Oct 11^th, 2008 at 5:20pm:


Its a shame their related parent body the FSA still refuse to get the 03 message and have even resorted to a justification that they have to minimise business operating costs (as a non business naturally!) to continue refusing to replace their 0845 Consumer Advice line.

Its also even more of a shame that most of my own cash savings were with Icesave and so I shall personally be having to avail myself of the service of the FSCS!

sherbert wrote on Nov 17^th, 2008 at 5:57pm:


As a fellow Icesave sufferer but hoping that my money will be back in my NatWest bank account on Wednesday or Thursday I would have to disagree with you that this has been handled at all well by the FSCS.

1. First and foremost from the point of view of this website the phone number quoted for contact on the www.icesave.co.uk website post the Icesave collapse and in the first email sent out by the FSCS was 0845 605 6050.  Especially bad bearing in mind that quite a few Icesave investors were British expats living overseas.

2. Due to the FSCS's technological incompetence in using an emailing house primarily associated with unwanted commercial spamming around 50% of the first emails from the FSCS (sent for them by this bunch of spammers known as www.hearfrom.com) were blocked as spam by the UK's major ISPs.  Despite this the FSCS did not have the email re-sent by an email house that knew what it was doing and/or after arranging with all major ISPs they would first whitelist emails from this address.

3. Staff on their helpline on the London 020 geographic number are poorly trained, grumpy, moody and rude towards Icesave depositors who call many of whom are likely to be emotinally distressed and/or in an acute state of financial distress.  They all seem to be temps on minimum wage who seem to resent the fact that unlike them Icesave depositors actually had money they could lose in the first place.  Service at the call centre in Newcastle is better and friendlier but make sure to call it using the geographic alternative for the 0845 number listed under Icesave on this website.

4. Especially unfairly not everyone is getting their money back at the same time and people are getting their money back in their bank account any time between about November 13th and some time in January depending on the random sequence in which the FSCS authorises their account to receive compensation and sends out a second email about it.  Also some accounts do not have a linked bank account at another bank account set up and so will have to claim manually on paper.  These people may not get their money back until late January.

5. Despite the above total inconsistency in when different people get their money back the FSCS is not paying any interest after October 7th when Icesave ceased operations on Instant Access accounts.  It is totally unfair and unjust that people (a) lose any interest at all when those in Northern Rock, Bradford & Bingley, Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS etc have not lost any interest due to those banks being bailed out by the government and (b) that different account holders with the same amount of money with Icesave in the same account are losing different amounts of interest on a random generated based basis in terms of when they are paid out.

6. It is wrong that email was relied on to notify the process for getting money back when email is not reliable in terms of getting there.  As the process was in any case slow and took weeks they should have used the 1st class post which has a 99.9% delivery reliability record.

7. I wrote to the CEO of the FSCS setting out my above issues on Wednesday 5th November but so far I have not had so much as a holding email acknowledging the complaints I have raised and saying they are being looked in to.  This is very poor and I note that the Chairman and CEO of FSCS seems to have given almost no public media interviews on the crisis.

In short the FSCS should not be congratulated at all as they have screwed up badly in the way they have run the process and are not running it fairly.  Also it was always inevitable that Icesave would be bailed out by the government as if it had not been all the other smaller overseas banks taking substantial deposits in the UK would have all had runs on them and also gone down like a bunch of ninepins. The only Icesave customers who have reason to feel grateful to the government are those with more than £35,000 deposited who had no reason to believe that more than £35,000 of their money would be protected until the day before the collapse when the government raised the limit to £50,000 and then decided they would pay out to all Icesave UK investors no matter how much they had deposited.

sherbert wrote on Nov 18^th, 2008 at 9:06am:


While I can see where you are coming from, this is after all what the FSCS exist for! They've had ever since they were created to prepare for when a bank fails.

Icesave only offered internet accounts. I believe the only people without linked accounts are people who closed the current account that they used when signing up with Icesave and hadn't registered their new account before Icesave failed.

While they explain that it's done in phases to avoid overwhelming the system, it does seem unfair that people who are arbitrarily in the later waves of refunds will lose out on interest for the intervening period.

I've yet to receive the second e-mail.

The first message got through OK. Unfortunately, I regularly delete all my spam without only a quick glance as I receive so much. Still, perhaps I'll just go to the site and try to log on, as they said I just use my usual Icesave login details. Do I just need to go to icesave.co.uk?

sherbert wrote on Nov 18^th, 2008 at 9:06am:


This is a total lie they have just invented to justify the real reason for the delay accidentally disclosed to me by a member of staff at Newcastle Building Society (acting for FSCS) last Friday on the phone.  The real reason is that not all the money is available to make all the repayments in one go.  As a result the payments are being stretched over several weeks as the government and FSCS drag up money from various places to make the payments.  FSCS already had a large amount in their scheme but this will be exhausted by the Icesave claims and the government is making up the shortfall.  It seems possible the FSCS is playing for time so that they don't suffer as severe interest penalties at various places they have term deposits with.  Or of course the FSCS may have all the money with National Savings and the government can't find all the money at once.

This is why I am angry about no interest being paid as some people are having to wait weeks longer than others for the money and may be having to borrow the resulting shortfall elsewhere but they are not receiving more compensation for the extra cost of that borrowing that is falling on them as a result.  Also the principal of a compensation scheme that is supposed to compensate 100% of losses up to £35,000/£50,000 if a bank goes down but does not compensate for interest after the bank failure date until it pays out is quite wrong.

Speaking personally my money may get to me tomorrow or on Thursday but if it does not I will have to de-invest around £5,000 in a one year Cash ISA bond with Nationwide as otherwise I will run over an overdraft limit with my bank.  And If I have to take that money out of the ISA I don't get my lost cash ISA allowance back ever.  Like a lot of people in Icesave I am currently living on interest and capital and don't have a salary coming in at present so the consequences of being cut off from my money with no certainty about when it is coming back are disastrous.  Basically FSCS don't seem to be in charge of this project and just seem to be letting the people at Newcastle Building Society (who formerly worked for Icesave under contract) do things whatever way is easiest for them.

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Yes another good point about the shambolic emails and why are they totally unsatisfactory and insecure.  Communications should have been sent by post addressed to the customer with their account number.  That way there would have been no doubt about the account in question and the communication would have got there safely.  The point is even though it was an online account Icesave did use the post for things like password changes or re-notifications of online login ID or confirming address changes.  There is therefore no excuse for the FSCS sending non personally addressed emails through an unreliable bulk email spam house.

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I don't think that is any excuse.  As Icesave customers are in an especially difficult situation having helpful staff on the line is crucial.  Also there are good call centres out there so why doesn't the FSCS use one.

Just  an up date. I filled in my wife's 'form' last Saturday and they said it would take five days. I am pleased to report that the money is in her bank today (Wednesday). So at least the system is working and I hope mine comes tomorrow and also hope that other members on this site that have money tied up in Icesave will get their money back soon.

On working lunch today (Thursday) they suggested what I have said in a previous post here, that it is advisable to check your spam folder for emails from FSCS as that is where a lot of them are ending up.