iii introducing quarterly £20 charge

moneylover

Taken most of the afternoon to read all this. What a waste of my last few hours before going back to work!
Interactive Investor is no longer the dealing platform for me, but I can see that for investors with larger portfolios who are also investing regularly it could be a good bet. So are there a proportion of people on this forum thinking of moving to them which might compensate for those of us moving out?
If iii cracked in a few weeks about charges for moving out, what would happen if people had already completed the process, they would have lost out?

lvader

From what I can tell I actually gain from the changes so no need to think about moveing.

moneylover

can anyone point to the main thread on all this on the iii forum, please

westy22

hi does anyone have a copy of the original t's & c's at the time before the change as the BBC are asking me for this?

This may help - the FAQs from the platform change last year which has a link to the then T&Cs http://www.iii.co.uk/faq

victormeldrew2

Ivader...

If you are better off you must be substantially invested in funds.....anyone who is not, or just in equities directly CANNOT be better off - that's the whole issue

victormeldrew2

westy22 wrote: »

phil solo - the links above are missing the colon after the http

The links have been corrected below:

http://www.iii.co.uk/trading/share-dealing/charges-until-1July2012

http://www.iii.co.uk/trading/share-dealing/ISAandSIPPcharges-until-1July2012

moneylover wrote: »

can anyone point to the main thread on all this on the iii forum, please

Try clicking on "first " above

lvader

victormeldrew2 wrote: »

Ivader...

If you are better off you must be substantially invested in funds.....anyone who is not, or just in equities directly CANNOT be better off - that's the whole issue

I have some funds, these will be better off. I always do at least 2 £10 trades per quarter, normally it would be 3 or 4.

old_grouser

james_09 wrote: »

This is probably about as far as I will take it, but for anyone interested these are the responses I have had so far via secure messages:

As you will see from my account history I make use of the regular investment facility and typically make 2 or 3 investments a quarter at £1.5 a trade.

I only invest £100 per month, or £1,200 per annum. Using the regular investments option my dealing costs are approximately 1%.

Under the new structure I will be charged £80 per annum to invest £1,200. Which means my dealing costs will have gone up over 6 times my current charges to 6.7%. I consider this to be excessive in my circumstances and will be transferring my holdings to another provider.

Given the circumstances I would appreciate it if you would consider waiving the transfer charges. I am sure you can appreciate that by completely changing your charging structure it has forced me into closing my account.

Yours Faithfully,
................................................


Thank you for your secure message.

We believe that the charges, taken as a whole, will be advantageous for many customers.
We would be very sorry to lose any of our customers and if you would like to talk through your specific circumstances, you are welcome to call us on 0845 200 3637 or 0845 88 00 267.


If you still wish to close your account, you will need to take the following steps:

First you will need to transfer your existing holdings out of your account. You can either transfer them to another broker or withdraw them as cash. Please ensure you understand the implications of withdrawing money from your ISA account. If you wish to transfer to another broker you will need to set up a new account with them and fill in their relevant transfer forms. Your new broker will then liaise with us directly.
We will not be waiving the transfer out fees.

Once the transfer is complete or your account balance is £0, you will then need to send us a secure message confirming your instruction to close your account with Interactive Investor.

Whilst we appreciate our new pricing structure may be an unwelcome development to some customers, we consider our new charges fair and that our new pricing structure and prepayment of trading commissions per quarter still remains extremely competitive.

We have taken a lead in rebating all the income that we receive on funds holdings ahead of any forthcoming changes required by the FSA and believe that many customers will benefit by consolidating their holdings with us.

......................................

Thank you for your message.

I understand that a lot of your customers will be better off, but if you check my circumstances you will see I will be substantially worse off.

I do not buy funds, only shares. So it is of no benefit to me.

As I mentioned before the change in your pricing structure is going to increase my charges six fold.

You have given me one months notice and given the current state of the market it’s impossible for me to cash in my shares without a large loss.

I therefore believe in the interest of fairness you should offer me the opportunity for me to transfer out my investments at no cost.

If you are not willing to look into my individual circumstances I will refer this to the Financial Ombudsman.

.................................

Thank you for your secure message.

Legally, we are allowed 20 working days to make changes on accounts. Therefore, we have acted within the guidelines. We are also coming into line with our competitors, who also offer similar charges.
We will not be waving transfer out fees on the accounts.

I appreciate you may still be unhappy with my response, and you are well within your rights to take it to the financial service ombudsman.

Should you wish to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to contact us on 0845 200 3637.

Their first reply is word for word what I received, so appears to be a standard response. Perhaps they suspected that not everyone would be delighted.

guitarman001

What's the difference between a 'platform' like iii and x-o, for example? About to leave work, will check when back.

gingellr

westy22 wrote: »

This may help - the FAQs from the platform change last year which has a link to the then T&Cs

Thanks for that, i have passed it on. So lets see what happens now, hopefully they will take it further!