Hargreaves Lansdown- WARNING

jamesd

dezrez, I'm sorry to read that you were caught out as a result of not reading the description of the Hargreaves Lansdown product you bought well enough. Just so you know:

ISA: about half of the trail commission on funds rebated into the loyalty bonus account, fees are deducted from there normally. Up to £200 per year in holding fees at 0.5% for investments like shares and ETFs that don't pay trail commission.

SIPP: like the ISA except no loyalty bonus, you pay full fund annual charge without rebate. This makes it uncompetitive on costs for larger fund sizes.

Fund and share account: no holding fee, get the loyalty bonus commission rebate.

Trading in any of the account types: free online for unit trusts, OEICs and SICAVs, fairly expensive dealing charges for other transactions.

turbobob

jamesd wrote: »

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

Thanks Jamesd, you learn something new every day

masonic

dezrez wrote: »

THE FACT remains that TDW (and maybe others?) don't charge and HL do.

I don't think anyone is disputing that. However, just comparing provider management charges is meaningless when the overall cost of the underlying investments is also different.

It's a similar situation with buying "commission free" currency. It isn't necessarily cheaper, it depends on the underlying exchange rate.

As with many things, you need to look at the overall picture and calculate which platform is cheaper for you, or alternatively (as in your case) choose the charging structure that you are most comfortable with. You are obviously dead against paying a management charge to your ISA provider. That's your personal preference, but others will just want the lowest overall charging structure for their investments, even if it means paying a provider management charge.

NonGeographicalMan

dezrez wrote: »

They also seem pretty haughty when you actually get to speak to someone there

Haughty and/or just downright rude and extremely arrogant is indeed right in the case of Peter Hargeaves the CEO.

As I had worked in the funds industry for a few years from a young age I at one stage had even met him personally in my professional role and was at the time foolishly impressed by his business success.

However after I took out a Self Select PEP and ISA with them a few years ago and became concerned about a few minor issues like the fact their website was blatantly insecure with a white password box that it was easy for password logging programs to hack, about their low rate of interest on cash balances in Self Select ISAs and about the fact that it seemed basically impossible to receive copies of the fund manager reports with Hargreaves, even for a fee, I made the mistake of emailing Mr Hargreaves personally a couple of times with a few of my observations and the next thing I knew I was being asked to take my business elsewhere (finally via an extremely terse personal phone call from him during which he ended up slamming down the phone on me) because Mr Hargreaves apparently thought he offered the best value funds ISA/PEP service in town and he didn't like anyone who complained about how he did things or thought they knew better than him about how the business should be run.

I emailed the non exec directors, the company secretary (who was in my personal opinion quite clearly afraid of contradicting Mr Hargreaves) and Mr Lansdown but they all refused to intervene and I was duly kicked out. However just before I was kicked out I did buy 2800 shares in their share float which I cussedly kept until yesterday because I knew their business would still do well because of the stranglehold they have with the fund managers on getting the highest initial charge rebates as the largest player in this area.

I duly attended their first AGM at the Bristol City football ground in early 2008 and asked a few questions in return for which I simply got more extremely arrogant rudeness from Mr Hargreaves and a general flea in my ear for taking the trouble to drive 280 miles out of my way return to go there. Mr Hargreaves also insisted on turning my shareholding in to a paper certificated holding when he threw me out and also made several threats that he would sell all the funds and shares in my Self Select ISA and send me a cheque for their resulting value, so causing me to lose several years worth of ISA and PEP allowances, if I did not move elsewhere. I was therefore forced to move to Selftrade as the only other Self Select ISA manager then giving large commission discounts on the Initial Charge on funds (even though they annoyingly charge a flat rate sales fee identical to their share fee to sell funds despite the kickback they presumably still get on the annual charge from the fund manager).

Finally yesterday due to my current concern about the future of the Euro and the state of European and the US stockmarket in general I wanted to sell my 2800 Hargreaves Lansdown shares at an admittedly decent profit of around £9,400 on my original £4,400 investment (using up nearly all of this year's CGT allowance) but found that as I had certificated shares (thanks to Mr Hargreaves) that Selftrade would only deal on them if they first de-certificated them taking 10 business days to do plus at least a day in the post. I therefore checked with Hargreaves if I could sell my certificated shares through them same day and was told they charged 1% commission for the first £10,000 of certificated shares and then 0.5% plus some flat rate charge of £20 or something. So the whole sale cost for one share would be something like £135.

Clearly I wasn't happy about paying this but due to my market jitters and the gain I had made on the shares wanted to sell them yesterday. So I scoured the internet and found most brokers don't now like certificated shares (or especially same day dealing with a new client) until I found Jarvis Investment Management in Tonbridge where I found the three members of staff I spoke to all unfailingly polite and who were also very happy indeed to sell certificated shares up to a value of £23,000 with no prior customer knowledge for a flat fee of just £19.50

After I had sold the shares I actually regretted not keeping just one of them to try and attend future AGMS to query with the other directors the suitability of employing such a bad tempered Chief Executive, especially as after I attended the 2008 AGM the registrars mysteriously also managed to fail to send me an invite to the 2009 and 2010 AGMs. After persistent evasiveness as to why this happened they came up with some feeble excuse that their records seemed to show I had a nominee holding to explain why I had not been invited. But I find it very suspicious indeed that I did not get my AGM invite when Mr Hargreaves so obviously didn't enjoy my attendance at the 2008 AGM.

Whilst this company remains unbeatable for its initial charge rebate deals on funds it has all been achieved through old fashioned Ryanair style high pressure commercial muscle with the funds groups and if you want a company that actually treats you well as a customer and who takes on board customer suggestions in a positive manner then you should definitely take your business elsewhere.:mad:

EDIT:- A bit more Googling reveals that I am not the only person to have found Mr Hargreaves to be rude and arrogant towards those who hold a point of view he does not share. Mr Michael Nichols at Wallace Nichols Financial Services is quite clearly someone else who he has also badly upset as the below article from the Money Marketing website shows

See www.moneymarketing.co.uk/opinion/lets-have-a-balanced-debate-not-hargreaves-diatribes/176768.article

What an arrogant, pompous rant from that publicity-seeking man Peter Hargreaves (Money Marketing, October 10)............

In summary I would suggest that there is probably much in common in terms of both their business methods and their attitude towards customers who don't like those business methods between Mr Peter Hargreaves and Mr Michael O'Leary. It therefore seems entirely fitting that I personally no longer do business with either Hargreaves Lansdown or Ryanair.:j

jimjames

dezrez wrote: »

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.
THE FACT remains that TDW (and maybe others?) don't charge and HL do.

The problem is that your selective quotes are blatently untrue - HL do not take 0.5% on ALL your investments - and are liable to confuse readers who do not delve deeper.

HL do NOT charge fees on ISAs over £5100 unless you are holding shares. For most investors (myself included) that hold funds there is no charge to hold with HL and without adding this qualification your post will only mislead people. In fact it appears from the posts above that HL are actually cheaper than TDW for funds are they rebate some commission that TDW do not.

I've no connection with HL other than being a (currently) happy investor with them.

middlepuss

I've just opened a HL account. I had been buying M&G Recovery with an M&G regular monthly saving plan and paying 4% initial charge. M&G do do a no-initial-charge version of the Recovery unit trust (X class I think it's called) but you can't buy these via monthly savings.

So I now invest monthly in the M&G Recovery fund via HL and pay no initial fee AND get a quarter of a percent of the annual management charge rebated. Seems like a very good deal to me. (Am I right or am I missing something!!!???)

Interesting that mr nongeographicalman likens HL to Ryanair: with Ryanair if you understand what you're buying you'll probabaly be very happy because of the price. But if you don't read the small print about the charges for luggage, check in, meals, etc you'll get upset.

jimjames

middlepuss wrote: »

So I now invest monthly in the M&G Recovery fund via HL and pay no initial fee AND get a quarter of a percent of the annual management charge rebated. Seems like a very good deal to me. (Am I right or am I missing something!!!???)

About 15 years ago I was doing that; it seems crazy that going direct to the fund manager without an adviser is far more expensive that buying through a middle man! Fund groups deserve all the high pressure commission cutting tactics from the likes of HL that they get for this kind of behaviour!

You aren't missing anything. For fund ISAs (not necessarily shares) HL are very good value and either beat or match pretty much all other offerings.

I also have some ISAs via Best Invest / Cofunds which are also discounted but the HL web platform has to be one of the best transactional websites I've ever used. They really have thought properly how it is to be used and made it very useful and easy to work. To be able to log in to check balances,transactions and amend DD payments instantly is brilliant and something a few other providers should think about implementing.

I'm a little disappointed about the story of the personal grudge that appears to have been held by Mr H of HL against the poster above which seems incredibly petty but I've also met a number of other business people who react in the same way.