Hargreaves Lansdown- WARNING

Aegis

dezrez wrote: »

OK - lets stick to facts then; Dunstonh, you've hyperlinked to TDW site- but not to the part where they state ISA's over £5,100 FREE not sure why you didn't highlight this? (I'm not allowed to paste links as i'm a newbie- follow Dunstonh's own link above and then click ISA's in the table to the left)

I did. The ISA account management fee is the ongoing fee you save by going to TD Waterhouse. The flipside to this is that it appears TD Waterhouse do not rebate any of the annual charges on funds. If the annual saving with HL is c0.2%, this means that for someone investing in funds rather than shares, TD waterhouse would be charging (implicitly) an additional £200 a year per £100k of holdings.

All in all, as is usually detailed fully to anyone coming here, HL are far better than most for funds which pay trail commission and more expensive than the best providers for shares.

sunil1234

forgive me but if you were using dragon oil trades within your ISAs then you would incur more fees than with Unit Trusts as H-L arent the cheapest for share dealing

Have i got this right?

thanks

nrsql

The warning about h-l share dealing is valid - and if you mentioned that in the title it might have been better received. The rest of the info you provide is useful but I think most people here know that h-l is expensive for share dealing/

You could have come here (or to many other sites) and said you were abaout to take out a share based isa with h-l. You would have quickly been told that it's not a good idea and that there were cheaper providers.
I'll agree that it takes a lot of time to read the small print which is why it's worth asking questions like that on forums.
Not sure the forum is biased to h-l - just that they provide a good and cheap sevice for investing in funds in an isa. Other things they are not so good at - shares, sipps, research...

Their recommendations are probably where they could most be criticised.
Oddly they have dropped the jupiter high income from their wealth 150 mainly due to it's performance during the bounce back - but it seems to have bounced more strongly than the invesco high income which is still in the wealth 150.

p00hsticks

dezrez wrote: »

private message me on xxxxxxx

Posting e-mail addresses on forums such as these is generally not a good idea if you don't want to get spammed to death - I'd strongly recommend editting your post to remove it. People can send a private message to you at the e-maiol address you used when you registered simply by clicking on your user name - no need to publicise the details.

dezrez

nrsql- thanks for your balanced post. At the time of investing with HL I had done my homework and their 'transfer-in' bonus and fees were better than TDW (5+ years ago). My ONLY point to all members is: TDW don't charge fees on ISA's above £5,100: HL do - as your ISA grows you pay more fees with HL as they take a set 0.5% on all your investments - mine have grown so significantly (see above) that i got hit with an unexpected back-dated £700 worth of fees- they took this when i put cash into both our ISA's- without warning.

AEGIS: Not sure why you have responded to my point addressed to Dunstonh- are you working togeher or one and the same? I already have one ISA with TDW and don't get charged ANY fees, at all.
Message to HL apologists/staff: Yes, I'm sure all the T's &C's are there and I have been remiss in not studying these- i accept that and I've paid the price, literally. THE FACT remains that TDW (and maybe others?) don't charge and HL do.

No matter how many times you try to contest or spin this, going off on tangents, the Fact remains that had my funds been in TDW I would not have had £700 removed in fees from my cash deposit. My initial post- written in haste and anger late at night - was simply to try to point this out to any other unwitting investors, which I naively thought was the point of these forums.

Mr_K

Don't know about HL, but I've found Fidelity easy to deal with. Never paid any initial charges, all the funds I could want and they've just introduced a handy portfolio performance feature.

cloud_dog

dezrez, I think most people who spare the time to research, quickly find out that HL have their plusses and minusses.

They are good for the individual for their ISA and SIPP if you wish to only invest in Unit Trusts (I know Dunstonh will say there are cheaper options but for me without an IFA they are the best option).

They are not good (competitive) if you wish to invest in stocks and shares (non commission generating investments; as has been mentioned on this board).

dezrez wrote: »

It's exactly because I am good at generating wealth that i have no time to study in depth HL's reams and reams of small print.

I think this statement should be the route cause of your anger, and this is really where you should be focussing your attention.

dunstonh

OK - lets stick to facts then; Dunstonh, you've hyperlinked to TDW site- but not to the part where they state ISA's over £5,100 FREE not sure why you didn't highlight this? (I'm not allowed to paste links as i'm a newbie- follow Dunstonh's own link above and then click ISA's in the table to the left)

You are looking just at the wrapper. Not the charges within the investments used. On a typical 1.5% amc unit trust fund, TDW will be paid 0.5% (which normally goes to the IFA but TDW keep it). They will also be paid around 0.3% as the platform provider with the rest going to the fund house.

As mentioned above, HL rebate some of that on ISAs and unwrapped investments. TDW do not.

They are good for the individual for their ISA and SIPP if you wish to only invest in Unit Trusts (I know Dunstonh will say there are cheaper options but for me without an IFA they are the best option).

For a DIY investor who wants unit trust funds and doesnt want to use an IFA then they are probably the best option going at this time.

nrsql

dezrez wrote: »

nrsql- thanks for your balanced post. At the time of investing with HL I had done my homework and their 'transfer-in' bonus and fees were better than TDW (5+ years ago). My ONLY point to all members is: TDW don't charge fees on ISA's above £5,100: HL do - as your ISA grows you pay more fees with HL as they take a set 0.5% on all your investments - mine have grown so significantly (see above) that i got hit with an unexpected back-dated £700 worth of fees- they took this when i put cash into both our ISA's- without warning.

Was this multiple years of charges or did it includes dealing costs? Charges should be capped at £200. If it's multiple years then you're right - you should have been able to see the charges, same really goes for dealing costs.

Must admit for share dealing I wouldn't use a platform that didn't provide stop loss/trailing stop loss type facilities even if they were cheap (don't think this does).

jamesd

turbobob wrote: »

I would imagine they are also making money through lending shares held in nominee accounts, although I haven't looked into that. Pretty sure TDW do this.

I hope that neither does it, since it's a clear breach of the ISA rules that prohibit the activity:

"Stock lending
10.56 Stock lending is a transaction where somebody “borrows” securities from another person by taking a transfer of the securities from that person in order to enable him or her to fulfil a contract to sell securities of that kind to a third person. In return he or she promises to transfer securities of the same kind to the person from whom he or she has “borrowed” the securities that have gone to the third person and to compensate the “lender” for any dividends which would have been received during the loan period when he or she does so.
10.57 “Lending” of this sort by a manager is not compatible with his or her duties as an ISA manager. The title to investments must be vested in the ISA manager or his or her nominee, or jointly in one of them and the investor, the share certificate must be held by the manager or as he or she may direct and, above all, the investments must be in the beneficial ownership of the investor. None of this is compatible with an arrangement under which the investments are sold to a third person and subsequently replaced by different investments of the same kind."