Hargreaves Lansdown marketing just a load of rubbish?

blinko

almondsalty wrote: »

I told myself that I wouldn't respond to you. But go back and read my posts in full, and stop picking up on my initial response. Because there has been many more to answer your 'question since then'.

Oh and nice 'cover', responding first to the new HL charges post and mentioning iii.

I'm sure the HL team will be proud of your damage control online. Not wasting any more time dealing with what appears to be an incompetent HL employee :money:

your attempts to discredit me as a HL employee are poor. I haven't used them for 6 months (sold all my holdings first week of Jan) and I only ever used them for funds

at the end of the day the bottom line is the following

1. I put a question forward to challenge your position

2. my question was how do YOU think it was compiled (W150) ? your response "I should ask HL" ????

3. your argument has become totally destroyed because you cannot answer a simple question !!!

le_loup

Please fellas, you are repeating yourselves ad nauseum!

jamesd

jamesd wrote: »

For smaller amounts they are often very competitive for funds.

I partially withdraw this. They just announced a price rise for smaller fund holdings. They won't pay partial commission rebates any more where a holding is smaller than £1,000, even where they previously did so in the ISA and fund and share accounts.

That price rise for funds applies to about £8,500 of fund money that I have with them, about 13% of the otherwise eligible total. The funds I hold mainly for diversification or in segregated pots.

They also announced some positive changes to share dealing, lower prices in general, limit and stop-loss orders and access to the US and Canadian markets for online trading.

masonic

blinko wrote: »

sure this is what this forum is all about, but its not fair to slag them off for

1.Making a profit
2.Trying to generate business

Agreed, but I think the issue at hand here is neither of those things, but deceptive marketing. It is certainly fair to slag off a company for steering its customers towards products that pay higher commission and pretending that those products have been selected because they are best for the customer. However farcical the claims behind the Wealth 150 may appear to you, some people will believe them and those people are being misled.

While I'm not going to complain about that and happily ignore marketing of this type wherever I find it, I find your posts and agenda quite offensive. Trying to prevent others from expressing views that differ from your own is not acceptable behaviour.

blinko

masonic wrote: »

Agreed, but I think the issue at hand here is neither of those things, but deceptive marketing. It is certainly fair to slag off a company for steering its customers towards products that pay higher commission and pretending that those products have been selected because they are best for the customer. However farcical the claims behind the Wealth 150 may appear to you, some people will believe them and those people are being misled. .

HL do what EVERY company in the entire world do, they market products with the aim to generate profit.

As with ALL marketing it is the purchasers responsbility to verify the claims.

masonic wrote: »

"certainly fair to slag off a company for steering its customers towards products that pay higher commission.

" do you know of a profit generating company/salesman that wouldn't do this ?

masonic wrote: »

While I'm not going to complain about that and happily ignore marketing of this type wherever I find it, I find your posts and agenda quite offensive. Trying to prevent others from expressing views that differ from your own is not acceptable behaviour.

I have never prevented anyone from posting there views. People post what they like, Where have I done this ?

His argument was totally flawed, I simply put one question forward, he couldn't answer this question, his entire argument fell down.

Trying to prevent others from expressing views that differ from your own is not acceptable behaviour.

What are my views ? I'd love to hear them.

masonic

blinko wrote: »

HL do what EVERY company in the entire world do, they market products with the aim to generate profit.

As with ALL marketing it is the purchasers responsbility to verify the claims.

" do you know of a profit generating company/salesman that wouldn't do this ?

Many other companies do this to varying degrees. Not "EVERY company in the entire world" does. It is the reason why some industries, such as the banking sector, need tight regulation - because naive customers end up being mis-sold products. What HL is doing is obviously not as bad as that, but it is still deceptive and people have a right to complain about that if feel they have been misled.

I have never prevented anyone from posting there views. People post what they like, Where have I done this ?

I did not say you prevented anyone from posting their views, I said that you were trying to do so. You are not capable of controlling what is posted here. What you can and have done is suggest that it is wrong for somebody to express certain views here after launching into an unpleasant personal attack against that person that made it difficult for them to go on posting here.

His argument was totally flawed, I simply put one question forward, he couldn't answer this question, his entire argument fell down.

Then let me do the same for you...
Do you believe that there is not even a single customer of HL who doesn't know that the Wealth 150 is selected, at least partly, based upon the size of commission paid to HL?

What are my views ? I'd love to hear them.

Your view, unless I'm very much mistaken, is that HL should not be slagged off for marketing the Wealth 150 as a list of funds selected because they are best for the customer, rather than best for HL.

That is the only view you've expressed here that I am disagreeing with.

sabretoothtigger

I noticed HL charge me half a percent initial price spread on a tracker fund that already charges over 1%
Not exactly the best fee structure so lucky I got the timing right on this latest rally

I guess a fee levied via a price spread means I will be paying for it on the exit as well. They used to just charge the sell price both ways

utigers

I'm not keen on the pratices of HL either. For those with experience of this company we understand the game they play, its the people with very basic knowledge that end up suffering. I'm guilty years ago got sucked in with 'investment ideas' for my SIPP etc.......2 complete dogs and 2 average funds, the same happened with 4 ISA funds.

My mum paid for 'advice' recently and ended up with 10 funds all in the top 150.....ouch wish I had known she was doing this!

Artemis Strategic Assets - Still plugging this one too, well I'll keep watching it thank-you. I bet HL are hoping it takes off or more egg on their face? Do they plug every Artemis fund? Energy one recently too and a few I hold WERE in the top 150 too. HL must have a good deal with them.

One thing made me laugh in the 'INVESTMENT TIMES' was the article on how good the Pharmaceutical sector is, yet only 4 weeks or so ago they dropped AXA Health from the top 150 because of a manager change. This fund never got a mention??? Why??? Had it still been in the top 150 the article would have been very different.

I do like HL for the obvious reasons, but I think they need to be more transparent and responsible as a financial products provider to 'customers' that have varying amounts of knowledge.

blinko

I admit I did get overheated in this topic but that was mainly due to the original posters low post count. I don't like it when people make up new usernames just to slag off a company. why ??

I do think that some people will look at the wealth 150 and think its best for them although I do thjink its pretty obvious that they are hand picked in HL best interests. I do think they have some good ideas and I do understand the unit trust market better through there explanations and articles, which I read but have so far never acted on I always do my own research and luckily i managed to make 30% return in 3 months from september and cashing out in Jan, although I have maanegd to lose 30% in picking dodgy shares but what can you do.

almondsalty

blinko wrote: »

I admit I did get overheated in this topic but that was mainly due to the original posters low post count. I don't like it when people make up new usernames just to slag off a company. why ??

I do think that some people will look at the wealth 150 and think its best for them although I do thjink its pretty obvious that they are hand picked in HL best interests. I do think they have some good ideas and I do understand the unit trust market better through there explanations and articles, which I read but have so far never acted on I always do my own research and luckily i managed to make 30% return in 3 months from september and cashing out in Jan, although I have maanegd to lose 30% in picking dodgy shares but what can you do.

As many people have stated, it is not 'pretty obvious' for many people that these funds are picked in HL's best interests as you stated. And is it really 'right' for a company to be stating that they have been picked based on the customers best interests if they haven't? Especially a FTSE 100 PLC company? Your posts have been full of HL praise from years ago since you joined, your posting times are very corporate too ie. 8AM in the morning and not on weekends. This is very suspicious and one must ask why HL is on your mind in the first thing in the morning?