Savers seeking to withdraw money from Icesave, an arm of Landsbanki, the Icelandic bank, today found they could not operate their accounts online.
A message on the Icesave website said: “We have been experiencing intermittent faults with our website over the last 12 hours. These were intermittent faults randomly affecting different groups of customers at random intervals. Our IT team has now resolved the issue.”
But Times readers said this morning that the website was allowing them to look at their accounts but not to take money out.
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I am one of the 300,000, having opened an Icesave account a year ago on the recommendation of many of the financial web sites. I have three specific questions; can anyone answer them?
1) Where has our £4.5Bn actually gone?
2) On Monday 7th, the Icesave web site had a long message from the MD, Mark Simsey-Durrant explaining the low leverage and safety of Icesave – 24 hours later it is in effect bust – can legal action be taken against them or Mr Simsey-Durrant personally for misrepresentation or insolvent trading?
3) Iceland is guaranteeing 100% of the savings of Icelandic nationals only – is this not discriminatorily racist and can legal action be taken?
I spoke with an Icesave manager at 11am today and asked why i couldn't make a withdrawal(ie close my account). The manager could only say the CEO was in a meeting and that he and all his staff at the only UK call centre in Newcastle were told to give out the same message...they could not make any comments and, for the time being, people would not be able to operate their accounts. I was told to go to the website for further updates. I had to ask for an apology for this dreadful situation as one wasn't offered!!!!
I have my entire life savings with this bank and, despite the assurances regarding up to £50k protection ,I would be extremely concerned at this moment in time because as, in the event of the bank going bellyup, we will be dealing with the two countries when it comes to any compensation payouts. The Icelandic system will be responsible for the the initial amount of 20,800 euros and the UK for the remainder up to £50,000.
However here's the rub....if the Icelandic protection system cannot payout(eg in the case of the country itself going bankrupt) we could , in theory,lose this initial amount!!
I spoke with the FSA today and they are saying as far as they understand this 20,800 euros would HAVE to be paid unsed EU regulations because, although they are FULL EU MEMBERS yet, they have signed up to the treaty and are therefore liable.
I'll leave it up to the readers of this forum to decide what to do next ....good luck as I think we may need it!!!
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