claiming old share money

biderman1969

not sure if this is exactly the right section to post, so apologies if im wrong

Had a letter today, regarding Friends Provident shares I had years ago, I had contacted FP before saying I'd moved and changed my address, never heard anything more from them, but the letter today was from a company called ProSearch saying I had £284 owing to me by FP shares since they were taken over by Resolution Limited. Seemed straight forward when I rang them, saying they were a specialist tracing company and to just fill in the form and return it to them. However, reading the small print I saw that they charge 10% plus VAT! Hhhhhmmmm, contacted Resolution Limited, spoke to a nice lady, confirmed everything, then she told me that they charge an admin fee of £35!

!!!!!!!

Told her on the phone that I had already told FP that I had moved and gave them my address and she said to write in and title it as a formal complaint with regards to the fee

On closer examination of the letter it looks like a former neighbour has opened the letter and forwarded it on to me, and the company ProSearch seems to be a subsidiary of Resolution Limited, the crafty barstewards, so it seems that they want to get a fee out of me either way!

Is it likely I can actually get MY money without paying that fee if I make it a formal complaint?

I find it disgusting that they are actually charging me the fee, and yet haven't actually found me at all, it seems it was former neighbour that's forwarded it to me anyway!

[Deleted User]

Hi,

do you still have share certificate, if so you can sell through an online broker.

Have a look here, might help.

biderman1969

Cheers fella, not sure if i do, would have to dig really, really deep, lol, but won't it still cost me? Never done it before, lol

[Deleted User]

Hi,

have a look here.

If you want to deal in certificate form then costs £20 min, but if you tranfer into nominee account, only £11.95, no charge to transfer.

What has happened to any dividends over the years?

You should contact registrar to find out if you are due anything from them.

Edit: found this old thread about Prosearch, get a cup of coffee and have a read through it, should help.

grey_gym_sock

if your shares are in certificated form, and you can't find the certificate, then there will be unavoidable charges to get a replacement certificate. however, that's separate from charges for being "traced" (which might be avoidable - not sure).

icarus1984

You have some choices to reclaim your money:

Fill in Prosearch's form and send it in, reclaim your money with a deduction in the form of their charges (and they did track you down, they are a legitimate company that do the same for many companies with large amounts of shareholders who haven't used their shares or claimed dividends including Santander, Tesco's, BT and more)

You also have the option to speak directly to the Registrar, in Friends Providents case this is Equiniti. They will not charge you the same fee Prosearch do however if you do not have the Certificate you will have to complete a Letter of Indemnity, basically it's a cover for the Registrar to say "I have lost the share cert, I definately haven't sold them and am trying to illegally claim free shares". This can be countersigned by several banks (not building societies) instead of Equiniti's own countersignatury but all charge for the service depending on the value of the claim. In some instances it may actually be more expensive to go via this method since this cost is absorbed in part of Prosearch's charges.

If I were you I'd contact Equiniti, making sure you have any previous share related information, and ask for your current share holdings (they may require several peices of evidence to show you are the same Joe Bloggs that bought the shares then and lives somewhere else now though) but make no mention of the Prosearch letter as they are a part of the same group, and so may be inadvertantly redirected to them instead.

That said, if you didn't realise you were entitled to all of this money, and only now know because of Prosearch, then surely that deduction is worth it in trade of them doing the time consuming leg work?

biderman1969

Consuming leg work? They wrote to my old address, and I believe a neighbour forwarded it to me at my new address, hhhhhmmmm that's some leg work there, let me think.......... the cost of a stamp? I actually thought the shares had been suspended, scrapped, whatever else you may call it as I always followed share prices in the tabloids and it had just disappeared, so thought that was that (as I'm not a finance expert) and the only other shares I have ever had we're abbey national ones which I sold

Spoke to the FSA who gave me a number to speak to the comp au secretary for shares (?), very nice lady, told her i have spoke to the FSA and so she took a lot of details off me, and said they wouldn't be charging me to forward me the money, so fingers crossed........