Can I take Equiniti to the small claims court?

LordVonHarley

In short I have been waiting over 40 days for a replacement shares certificate from Equiniti and am feed up.

At the beginning of June I sent off an indemnity form along with a cheque for a replacement shares cert. Cheque cashed on the 10th June and by the following week nothing had arrived so I called them to find out what had happened, I was told that they had no record of my form being delivered. You must have, says I, you cashed the cheque! This followed three weeks of me call to chase up a new Indemnity form. They ended up having to fax one over on the 3rd July, I signed it and posted it back - Not registed mail! - My mistake.
I called them again today and was told nothing had arrived, nothing was on the system and some one will call me back in the afternoon. By 17:20 no one had called so I called them only to be hung up one. 17:30 is their home time.

Now call me old fashioned but having to wait over 40 days (and counting) is taken p1ss. Can anyone suggest my next course of action?

If I was still in London I would hand deliver it but I'm in Edinburgh :mad:

Can I complain to the FSA?
Can I take them to the small claims court as the stock has gone down 12.5% since Mid June (when I should have recieved the replacements).

Does any one have their CEO's email address (Bill Dye)?

olly300

You need to write a complaint letter to them with the title "Formal Complaint". At the end of the letter state that if they do not resolve the issue to your satisfaction within 12 weeks you will be taking them to the financial ombudsman.

Send the letter via recorded delivery. In your letter state that the letter has been sent by recorded delivery.

Their address is:
The Service Quality Team
Equiniti
Aspect House
Spencer Road
Lancing
West Sussex BN99 6DA

BTW it is extremely unlikely you will get the money off them due to shares having gone down as it's your fault that you didn't have the certificate in the first place :rolleyes: , but you may get a good will payment. As it's cheaper to give you £50 then pay the £400 for the Financial Ombudsman to investigate your complaint.

Anyway thanks for reminding me that I'm going to have to chase them up soon.

LordVonHarley

Cheers Olly300,

I have never recieved the original shares certs as they where lost in the post in Sept 2006! I logged complaints with them then but did not follow them up. I've learned that you can not let a complaint slow down to a stop or your !!!!!!ed.

I have penned a strong complaints letter and will add "Offical Complaint" heading.

LordVonHarley

I got the shares cert, then 4 days later I got a letter saying they are sorry to hear my cert is lost/stolen/missing and have put a stop on it!!!!!! Mother F'ers!

I phoned up and could not get put through to complaints, told the first line support dude that I'm going straight to the Finacial ombudsman and their CEO because this has gone past a joke.

takemore02withit

I'm also having problems with Equiniti. I have been in a save as you earn scheme with work, which at the end of 3 years, you have a choice of either taking your savings as cash (cheque), or have the money put into company shares at the price they were worth at the begining of the three year savings plan, of which was the idea.

Recently out of the blue I recieved a cheque for the full amount. When I telephoned them to say they had sent me the cheque by mistake, I was told that thay had sent me a letter in December,asking me of my choice, either cash or shares and because I did not reply in the 6 months alotted time they automatically send you your savings in a cheque.

A) I did not recieve any such letter giving me that choice. Was not aware of the 6 month time limit.

Now they say that it can not be reversed and that they are not responsible for the post, if I did not recieve the letter. So now I stand to lose the money the shares would have incured in value over the past 3 years. I have an address to Service Quality to write to, Explaining the situation, but I dont hold out much hope.

I would be most grateful, for any information or help that is offered for my dilemma.
Cheers 02

Wellen

takemore02withit wrote: »

I'm also having problems with Equiniti. I have been in a save as you earn scheme with work, which at the end of 3 years, you have a choice of either taking your savings as cash (cheque), or have the money put into company shares at the price they were worth at the begining of the three year savings plan, of which was the idea.

Recently out of the blue I recieved a cheque for the full amount. When I telephoned them to say they had sent me the cheque by mistake, I was told that thay had sent me a letter in December,asking me of my choice, either cash or shares and because I did not reply in the 6 months alotted time they automatically send you your savings in a cheque.

A) I did not recieve any such letter giving me that choice. Was not aware of the 6 month time limit.

Now they say that it can not be reversed and that they are not responsible for the post, if I did not recieve the letter. So now I stand to lose the money the shares would have incured in value over the past 3 years. I have an address to Service Quality to write to, Explaining the situation, but I dont hold out much hope.

I would be most grateful, for any information or help that is offered for my dilemma.
Cheers 02

I very much doubt you will have any luck getting Equiniti to reimburse you for the money you would have made over the past 3 years with the extra shares. But unless that was your registered address on their system and you moved house without telling them, it is worth speaking to them first to see if you can sort this without having to deal with the SCC.

Basically ALL companies will have terms and if at any point you were in breach of those terms then you wont get what you want. But if you are on the right side of Equinitis terms then talk to them, use in writing also and send it rec delivery! Who knows you may find that if you can show you are in the right, maybe you can get something positive.

takemore02withit

Wellen wrote: »

I very much doubt you will have any luck getting Equiniti to reimburse you for the money you would have made over the past 3 years with the extra shares. But unless that was your registered address on their system and you moved house without telling them, it is worth speaking to them first to see if you can sort this without having to deal with the SCC.

Basically ALL companies will have terms and if at any point you were in breach of those terms then you wont get what you want. But if you are on the right side of Equinitis terms then talk to them, use in writing also and send it rec delivery! Who knows you may find that if you can show you are in the right, maybe you can get something positive.

Thanks for your response Wellen. I haven't changed my address in the past 3 years. In fact Ive lived at this address for the past 20 years. I wrote to them 2weeks ago (rec delivery) but still await a reply. Thanks again for taking the time. 02

Midas2U

As far as Bill Dye's [ full name William Ellsworth Dye] e-mail, try e-mailing [EMAIL="Bill.Dye@LloydsTSB-Registrars.co.uk"]Bill.Dye@LloydsTSB-Registrars.co.uk[/EMAIL]. It can only bounce. Equiniti seem to be keeping the old Lloyds TSB e-mail address so its worth a try. If it bounces try various permutations of William Ellsworth Dye such as William.Dye, William.E.Dye in front of the @ symbol. If none of these work try [EMAIL="Bill.Dye@equiniti.com"]Bill.Dye@equiniti.com[/EMAIL]. With e-mail addresses its sometimes a question of trial and error

When I had a problem like this I sent an e-mail to the relevant Company Secretary complaining about the Registrars and suggesting a motion of no confidence in the Registrars be tabled at the next shareholders meeting. I copied the Registrars CEO and the results were superb. If I have any further problems if have a direct tel.no. to use.

Equiniti Financial Services Limited real address is:

Highdown House
Yeoman Way
Worthing
West Sussex
BN13 3RA

Tel: 01903 833 888
Fax: 01903 833 233

May be one way of resolving the issue. Good Luck.

trisontana

I have just had a run-in with this company. Back at the beginning of October I decided to sell my Alliance and Leicester shares before that company was taken over by Banco Santander. The sale seemed to go through OK, but then a week later I received a letter from them saying that I would probably be receiving a letter from Santander showing that my A&L shares had been transferred into Santander. So Equinti asked me to send off my Statement of Ownership of the new shares, plus a transfer form, to enable the sale of the shares to be finalized.

I did this, but then after three weeks I had not heard from them and had not received my cheque for the share-sale. On Monday I rang Equinti to ask them what had happened to my money. After being passed from one department to another it turns out that the sale had been cancelled (for "corporate reasons") and that I still own the Santander shares. Now they are arranging for me to receive a new Statement of Ownership of the shares, plus a share-sale form, so I can at last sell the shares, a month after the originally date.

According to the last person I spoke to I should have received notification that the sale had been cancelled, but I didn't.


It also looks as though I could lose money over their errors. This is because the shares have gone down since my original "sale" . If I sell them now I will get at least £100 less than if the shares had been sold at the beginning of October. I suppose I could hang on to them and hope the shares eventually rise in price.

Two days ago I emailed them using their dedicated complaints email address. To as yet I haven't heard anything. What a shambles of a company!

Midas2U

I note from the FSA website the contact for complaints is:

Equiniti Financial Services Limited
Aspect House
Spencer Road
Lancing
West Sussex
BN99 8AH
Phone: 01903 833 888
Fax:
Email:
Website:


[EMAIL="Gavin.Downs@equiniti.com"]Gavin.Downs@equiniti.com[/EMAIL]
www.equiniti.com
Contact(s) responsible for mediation:Mr Gavin Dalziel Downs



As Mr. Downs appears on FSA site with an equiniti.com and a LloydsTSB-Registrars.co.uk email, I would think a mailing to [EMAIL="Bill.Dye@equiniti.com"]Bill.Dye@equiniti.com[/EMAIL] is more likely to get to Mr Dye than the mail address I previously suggested. The phone number above connects directly to Mr Downs.

trisontana

An update to the above. It turns out that they had sold our shares and we did receive the price for them we were quoted back in October. That's the good news.

But there is a sting in the tale. Because of the time they took over the sale we were both mistakenly given a dividend from Banco Santander amounting to the princely sum of £7.23 each. Today we both received letters asking for this money back. I actually had this money transferred directly into a my bank and I have paid it back to them. My wife should have received a cheque, which never appeared. So now they have got to send her the cheque again, she has to pay it into the bank and then send them £7.23!

To make things worse at the bottom of the letter is this :-

If we do not receive payment within seven days of this letter we may take legal steps to recover any outstanding monies owed to us

Very heavy handed for a total sum of £14.46.