A BLACKPOOL MP has called Premium Bonds to account for a mix-up which denied winners of £350,000 worth of prizes for months on end.

The 815 winners, who bought bonds in £5,000 blocks in August and September last year, were mistakenly recorded as ineligible to receive prizes in what National Savings termed "an exceptional operational error".

The bond holders were all sent their rightful winnings and an apology - plus interest totalling £20,000 - as soon as customers' complaints brought the mistake to light at Premium Bonds' Blackpool HQ last week.

But seven winners had died before the mix-up was revealed.

Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden said: "It's very concerning that this should happen.

"The main thing is that they appear to have rectified it and made the payments as quickly as possible, but I do expect them to review their structures to make sure it cannot happen again - it could undermine people's confidence in the draw.

"They have promised me a full dossier on what happened."

National Savings chief executive Peter Bareau said: "As soon as this issue came to light we took immediate action to identify the source of the problem and put it right.

"Our priority has been to apologise to customers for the delay and ensure no-one was out of pocket.

"I would like to emphasise this was an unprecendented one-off operational error which only affected those 815 customers to whom we have already written with a cheque for their prize money.

"We have introduced additional checks to ensure this does not happen again."

The bonds affected had the prefixes 70SB, 70SF, 70SK, 70SL, 70SN, 70SP, 70SS, 70ST and 70SW.

The delay had no connection with the draw computer Ernie (Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment) and no numbers were left out of the draw, said National Savings.

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