Alliance Trust Savings massive fee hike

juliamarsh

I recently received correspondence from the adjudicator on my case who found in my favour, said that the charges were unreasonable and that AT should refund me. Not surprisingly they disagreed and said they wanted it looked at by the Ombudsman so I am presently waiting for that to happen. However now, as well as arguing that it was unfair to charge the fees in the first place, I am arguing that if they are going to charge for a service then they should at least provide one, and their level of service was so appalling that it did not warrant paying for. They got my share certificates wrong, refused to provide me with closing statements unless I paid £25 apiece (which I didn't) and in November I found that one of the accounts that they should have closed in July had not been closed at all and they had levied fees on it! I had to make phonecall after phonecall to sort out all their mess-ups and even now they are still sending me accountholder letters even though I never want to hear from them again! Will post on here when I receive the Ombudsman's decision, fingers and toes crossed!

juliamarsh

juliamarsh wrote: »

I accept that I am likely to have to pay charges to a provider once trail commission is stopped, and I do not object to the idea of paying reasonable charges to an organisation like Hargreaves Lansdown for instance, because their service is excellent and highly professional and I believe I could trust them to set their charges at a fair level

How wrong I turned out to be!!! I have eaten my words....

le_loup

You are not alone. Many of us thought the same.

grey_gym_sock

each provider gets pilloried in turn, when they introduce their new charges.

Rollinghome

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

each provider gets pilloried in turn, when they introduce their new charges.

No surprise there but would be mistake to say "they're all wrong so they're all right".

It's an industry that doesn't have particularly high standards, where some are even worse than others, and too often a magnet for the greedy and unscrupulous.

What seems to have annoyed people most about Hargreaves Lansdown's introduction of new charges has been their cynicism - the news management, the introduction of deliberately confusing pricing to mask their already high headline fees, and the disingenuous, if not dishonest, handling of resulting complaints.

koru

I agree, but HL were hardly likely to be completely candid, by saying something like:

"Most of you, our customers, may not have realised it but we have for many years been getting away with indirectly creaming off about 0.65% of your investments each year, even though this is double or triple what we need to cover our costs and even though this represents £6500 for those of you with investments of £1m. As we now have to be explicit about our cut, we realise we can't get away with quite as much, so we are announcing a charge of 0.45%. We will therefore be lightening your pocket to a lesser degree than we used to, so we imagine you will be duly grateful and won't even think of jumping ship to one of those nasty, cheaper platforms..."

juliamarsh

Koru I couldn't have put it better myself! Can I ask you, have you had a final decision from the Ombudsman yet about your complaint against ATS? The adjudicator found in my favour, ATS insisted it went to the Ombudsman, and now after over 18 months the Ombudsman has come back and overturned the adjudicator's decision and said that it was reasonable for ATS to apply the exit fees. They did at least say that ATS should pay me a sum of money for the distress and inconvenience caused by their various mess ups over the closure of my accounts, but the amount is less than I paid out in exit fees. It is a provisional decision at the moment, and I have a few weeks to send them any further information I think they should consider. I am well fed up, my case is pretty well a carbon copy of the one that Malfesto brought and won, except that the fees I had to pay were higher, so I can't understand why they have reached this decision. Also, the fact that this time ATS are offering customers a 2 month fee free exit period is pretty much a public admission that they knew they were wrong not to do so last time!

naedanger

juliamarsh wrote: »

Koru I couldn't have put it better myself! Can I ask you, have you had a final decision from the Ombudsman yet about your complaint against ATS? The adjudicator found in my favour, ATS insisted it went to the Ombudsman, and now after over 18 months the Ombudsman has come back and overturned the adjudicator's decision and said that it was reasonable for ATS to apply the exit fees. They did at least say that ATS should pay me a sum of money for the distress and inconvenience caused by their various mess ups over the closure of my accounts, but the amount is less than I paid out in exit fees. It is a provisional decision at the moment, and I have a few weeks to send them any further information I think they should consider. I am well fed up, my case is pretty well a carbon copy of the one that Malfesto brought and won, except that the fees I had to pay were higher, so I can't understand why they have reached this decision. Also, the fact that this time ATS are offering customers a 2 month fee free exit period is pretty much a public admission that they knew they were wrong not to do so last time!

Is there any way you can post exactly what the Ombudsman has said?

juliamarsh

Not sure, it arrived by post rather than email and is a pretty long letter. I will scan it tomorrow and see if I can then copy and paste it. If not I will try to type out the most relevant bits. I would be immensely grateful for any help and advice that anyone is able to offer!!

naedanger

juliamarsh wrote: »

Not sure, it arrived by post rather than email and is a pretty long letter. I will scan it tomorrow and see if I can then copy and paste it. If not I will try to type out the most relevant bits. I would be immensely grateful for any help and advice that anyone is able to offer!!

I will certainly look at it.

Is it possible to give the gist of the Ombudsman's argument e.g. the increase was not that material, or price matters are not covered by the UCT regulations, etc? (Note I don't think these are valid arguments.) Is there anything specific to your case?

(If Alliance Trust increased their charges and would not let you exit free of charge I am very surprised at the Ombudsman's provisional decision, unless there is something specific to your case e.g. you knew before starting with Alliance Trust of the actual increases.)