Interactive Investor Funds ISA problems

austinrodeo

I've been using Interative Investor's Funds ISA web site for a while but since they moved to a Halifax hosted service things just keep going wrong... latest issue is that buying and selling funds does not work. Having spoken to their customer support they say this only affects some funds (it's affected all I've tried to buy).

So my advice to anyone considering using Interactive Investor is simply DON'T!!

However, what are my options for transfering this mini funds ISA to another provider, perhaps a discount broker? Will I be subject to fees and is there anyway to reduce or avoid the fees? Is it a difficult process. Or would I be better waiting for Interative Investor to get their act together and fix their system (which has now been broken for a while)?

Thanks
Mark

dunstonh

re-registration doenst cost a penny.

Transfer can if you dont buy funds which are priced with zero initial charge but that would depend on whom you use.

The process is a doddle.

interest_Ted

My friend has also been having problems with iii. When he previously purchased ISAs - it was simple....select the funds, give them a debit card, and the whole thing was done in an extremely timely and efficient manner.

But since the tie up with Halifax, you have to have cleared funds in your account before you can buy. They will accept debit card but it takes at least 3 days to clear. They can also set up a direct debit but that takes 5 days to clear (plus a few days to set up).

Despite asking them several times to clarify the situation, he has had several differing answers and is none the wiser.

After a tortuous episode, he did manage to get cleared funds in his account, but due to the time they took, the funds increased beyond what he considered to be a good purchase price. So, as they only pay 1% (less 20% tax) interest on money in the account, he took the money out and placed it in a high interest account for a while.

When he went to fund the account again, he was advised that he had already used his ISA allowance for the year when he funded his account. I am not certain that the advice was correct, but he says that they were apparently quite adamant.

So be warned - funding the account is the same as purchasing the ISA.

On the other hand - purchasing Funds without the ISA wrapper can be done on an immediate basis with iii. Debit card produces cleared funds within seconds and the purchase is effected also within seconds, if you know what you want.

When it comes down to it, for small investors who are not higher rate tax payers, I would suggest that there may be no advantage of using the ISA wrapper.

Ted

austinrodeo

Its good to know its not just me experiencing these issues.

Any recommendations on a better provider? I've seen Martin's article regarding the best value but I'd also like something that is relatively easy to use... like the old iii site

Thanks