How can this be legal?

mum23boys_2

Yep, I know sweet diddly squat to be honest about shares!
Received a cheque this morning for dividends to which i'm entitled to apparently twice a year, subtotal £83.70 & Georgesons have taken yet more of my bl**dy money £ 7.74, for their so called services!
I'm so annoyed because I've still not been sent a copy of my original form & I'm still adament that they're in breach of their own terms & conditions!

Biggles

If Georgesons are sending you your dividends, then you must have signed your (remaining) shares over to them as a nominee account?

The dividend on Standard Life shares was only 11.5p last year, so you wouldn't get £80 twice each year on 400 shares, so Georgesons must have paid you all the outstanding dividends since their flotation on the stock market in 2006 (dividends that you were already entitled to) as a result of you signing them up as your 'agent'.

The bad (OK, worse) news is that, if you have signed your shares over to them to manage, you will presumably get charged each year by way of a deduction from your dividend, or even as a separate fee. Please don't tell me you signed a bank direct debit authority as part of their form?

mum23boys_2

Hi there,

No havent given any bank details at all. Although with the cheque yesterday was a letter to say that I could have the dividends paid directly into my bank account but i'm not going to fill it in.
I'm in the process of now putting a letter of complaint together as I'm sure they cant get away with what they have done.
Even if they say i've signed to agree to the 10% commision, according to them I didnt tick any box to instruct them to do anything, so the form shoulkd have been returned to me!
If I get no joy then it will be a job for the FSO to decide I guess.

nilrem_2

I still say that Working lunch might be interested in this story, you have nowt to lose and it might prevent a few others falling into the 'trap'.:eek:

mum23boys_2

Cheers Nilrem, i'll get onto it!!

Ema_M

How do you find out what it is concerning? I got a letter from them this am but do not want to pay them !

Ema

meggsy

Ema_M wrote: »

How do you find out what it is concerning? I got a letter from them this am but do not want to pay them !

Ema

If it was me I would just send them an email to ask [EMAIL="assetreunification@georgeson.com"]assetreunification@georgeson.com[/EMAIL]

http://www.georgeson.com/unclaimed/georgeson-letter.html

peter_taylor_116

Good luck to mum23boys, i hope you get a refund on their charges.

I recieved a letter from Georgesons today and i will be contact the company in question directly, i dont have a problem with paying them 10% as i was oblivious to the possile share option, I do object to people are handled and with the messages left here i would rather deal direct

Mikeyorks

The Registrar for Standard Life shares ..... is Computershare.

Georgeson is, to all intents and purposes, part of Computershare! They are referenced on the Computershare website and share their Bristol address. All a bit too incestuous? This is the final item on a list of subsidiary companies on the Computershare site :

Georgeson
Georgeson is a world-leading provider of strategic consulting services to corporations and shareholder groups by allowing them to make informed decisions on crucial corporate control and governance initiatives. Their main area of expertise is in orchestrating complex solicitations such as hostile and friendly acquisitions, proxy fights and takeover defences; continually working to help their clients to maximize vote returns. Georgeson also specialise in helping companies to reunite their shareholders with unclaimed entitlements via their Post-Merger CleanUp Asset Reunification services.

.... definitely worth pressing for full clarification. And if the original is 'archived' that means it can be 'retrieved'. That's what things are archived for!

cottager

Very recently I had a similar situation to some posters here, receiving a letter out of the blue from Capita Tracing Solutions about an unclaimed cash entitlement for a small number of shares (company was taken over) which they could handle for me, for a fee (an agreement form to fill in, sign and return was enclosed), but in fairness they also pointed out I could achieve the same thing by contacting the registrar direct.

The fee seemed a bit steep compared with the amount owing, so I asked on MSE and was advised it would be cheaper going through the registrar directly.

And the registrar is..... Capita!
So it's a bit like Mikeyorks is saying above for Computershare and Georgesons, as Capita Tracing Solutions is an arm of Capita itself.

I phoned Capita (as the registrar, not the tracing bit), they found me within seconds on the system, and told me all I needed to do was write a letter claiming the amount and enclosing the share certificate -- the wording had to formally say I was accepting the offer (which for some reason that now escapes me I had omitted to do at the time the company was taken over 4 years ago, hence the unclaimed amount I'm entitled to).