iii introducing quarterly £20 charge

tonyhamm

What the hell are we paying the FOS 28 million a year for when this sort of rampant chancing is going on and firms like iii.co.uk can apparently get away with it.

I have not signed up for any of iii.co.uk's services, beyond registering an account when it was free, and forgot about, yet get charged £20/Qrt without my consent.

They are going to have a hell of a time arguing there is even a contract there at all - a contract has to provide some benefit to both parties - what do iii.co.uk they claim I would have been paying for on a totally unused and empty account - charging my debit card without my consent?

Basia02

How do these companies get away with taking money from my debit card when I have closed my account with them. They claimed they needed my new debit card number when I closed the account to send me the money they owed me. Now they have admitted they wrongly took the money from me and will repay it. Now over a week later no sign of the money. Surely this would be theft in any other circumstance

Coz800

Have now received a refund of the £20.

Hope they don't take it again next quarter!

antonio1

iweb have just reduced their dealing charges from £10 to £5!

coolfan

I am very very disappointed..

I'm not a regular trader and I haven't logged back to iii's online system for quite a long time.

Yesterday I found that they charged me 40 pounds for two quarters. How can they do that without any communication. I called them. They said they did send me two secure messages... no phone calls, no letters, only two secure messages???

This is not like banks change their interests rates. They actually take money off people's account. The better way is that they ask people and wait for the comfirmation. If they haven't received anything by a certain date, they would then freeze people's accout. If people would like to trade again, they have to re-active and agree with iii's changes.

All I can see is that they kick the ball to us and say we should check everything and they just take money away as soon as they can.

Is this legal??? I do not want to use their service any more. Robbery!!!

JohnRo

coolfan wrote: »

I am very very disappointed..

I'm not a regular trader and I haven't logged back to iii's online system for quite a long time.

Yesterday I found that they charged me 40 pounds for two quarters. How can they do that without any communication. I called them. They said they did send me two secure messages... no phone calls, no letters, only two secure messages???

This is not like banks change their interests rates. They actually take money off people's account. The better way is that they ask people and wait for the comfirmation. If they haven't received anything by a certain date, they would then freeze people's accout. If people would like to trade again, they have to re-active and agree with iii's changes.

All I can see is that they kick the ball to us and say we should check everything and they just take money away as soon as they can.

Is this legal??? I do not want to use their service any more. Robbery!!!

The service itself is not robbery, don't get too carried away by it all.

They don't offer enough of the funds I want to be worthwhile for me and their habit of withholding dividend payouts for excessive periods of time is a tad dodgy but the service itself isn't really the problem imo.

Their problem is the way the changes to their platform and pricing structure has been handled, the platform switch from Halifax was done quite well with loads of information and lots of time to opt in and react but implementation of the new charges appears to have been rushed and done on the cheap. Shocking and hard to imagine quite how they could have made a more ham fisted effort of it all to be honest.

coolfan

JohnRo wrote: »

The service itself is not robbery, don't get too carried away by it all.

They don't offer enough of the funds I want to be worthwhile for me and their habit of withholding dividend payouts for excessive periods of time is a tad dodgy but the service itself isn't really the problem imo.

Their problem is the way the changes to their platform and pricing structure has been handled, the platform switch from Halifax was done quite well with loads of information and lots of time to opt in and react but implementation of the new charges appears to have been rushed and done on the cheap. Shocking and hard to imagine quite how they could have made a more ham fisted effort of it all to be honest.

Don't get me wrong. The service itself may be good, but the way of introducing this charge is a robbery. If people don't check their bank account often or log in to their online trading account often, how many £20 would iii take away from them???

I am not a regular trader so I have to leave them. who knows when they would change their pricing structure again, and who knows how much they would charge next time?

I am 100% certain that till now there are people who still don't know anything about iii's new pricing structure are being charged...

If they really care about their customers, they would do things differently.

dunstonh

Don't get me wrong. The service itself may be good, but the way of introducing this charge is a robbery.

Not is isnt. It is being changed to comply with forthcoming regulation requirements.

You were notified by the method of your choice. If you select an internet service and choose email as your chosen communication method then that is how you are going to get notified.

If they really care about their customers, they would do things differently.

I am sure they really regret how they handled the move from bundled to unbundled pricing. It's pretty obvious it was not done well. However, the reasons for them doing it are sound.

coolfan

dunstonh wrote: »

You were notified by the method of your choice. If you select an internet service and choose email as your chosen communication method then that is how you are going to get notified.

Thanks Dunstonh. I haven't used their online system for ages. I think there are many people like me, who don't like lots of phone calls or letters, so we set it up to use emails. However, the emails went into junk mail box, and I don't normally check the junk mail box often.

My point is that I never expect such things would happen. Maybe I am too naive, but I thought if any well-known company wants to change their pricing structure and needs to charge their customers, they would let their customers know using most obvious way, and maybe wait for confirmation first, rather than just do it straightaway. If you don't like it, you can go... that's what i feel...

Radiantsoul

dunstonh wrote: »

Not is isnt. It is being changed to comply with forthcoming regulation requirements.

You were notified by the method of your choice. If you select an internet service and choose email as your chosen communication method then that is how you are going to get notified.

I understand the reason for the change, but do feel their choice of communication method was quite poor. Often they seemed to communicate via their secure messaging systems instead of email. This means you need to actually log in to find out charges had been changed or they were going to charge you despite claiming they wouldn't.

To be fair to them I understand the need to introduce charges and they did ultimately behave in an honourable way and charged nothing for exiting them.