In cash since October/November

srcandas

jem16 wrote: »

I don't take him seriously but there are many who know no better and will. For that reason I don't think he's harmless.

Jem I agree he has a one-track message which he uses every opportunity to promote but his fundamental message is not "bad advice" per se.

And as I said he counters the over the top promotion of the financial industry which gets offered here with barely a bat of the eye lid.

And to be fair this thread and the OPs predicament seems to rather defend Big Fred's argument.

And his style of posting at least magnifies his extreme position. If there are gullible readers out their who miss-read him then I'm afraid they are beyond help.

Biut back to topic and an enthralling case :beer:

jem16

srcandas wrote: »

And as I said he counters the over the top promotion of the financial industry which gets offered here with barely a bat of the eye lid.

Can't say I've noticed any over the top promotion of the financial industry.

And to be fair this thread and the OPs predicament seems to rather defend Big Fred's argument.

To be fair to the financial industry, most people come on to a forum to complain rather than praise. Reading the replies from this thread and more particularly the other thread by the OP on her IFA problems, the most useful replies have come from IFAs posting on this board.

atush

over the top promotion of the financial industry which gets offered here with barely a bat of the eye lid.

Can't say I have either. I am a DIY type, but having said this, I advise the fairly clueless to go to IFAs. And there are more clueless here than I can believe.

and this IFA is a bad IFA and needs to have a formal complaint filed against them.

waccamole

jem16 wrote: »

Fair enough to a certain extent as pension transfers are usually done as cash although I would have expected the fund recommendation to have been done prior to the transfer so that the funds would have been invested as they were received.

I agree, I should have questioned at the time that he hadn't made specific fund recommendations.

jem16 wrote: »

That was not his decision to make on his own. Once the funds were received he should have discussed his recommendations with you and agreed with you as to what course of action should be taken. Why did he not contact you?

Good point - he should have done.

jem16 wrote: »

Did this meeting take place?

Yes, it was ahead of that meeting that I decided to check the Aviva website myself and discovered that the funds were in cash. I raised it with him then and after that I started this thread.

jem16 wrote: »

Would you have chosen to drip feed from last November?

No, in my opinion I was in the market and just transferring to the Aviva wrap and at the same time reviewing the funds we were invested in as that hadn't been done for a while. I didn't view this as a lump sum investment which I can understand it might not be right to invest in one go.

Perhaps you should ask him to compensate you for the loss of growth?

I definitely need to decide my next move.

Thanks

jamesd

Formal complaint asking for redress to put you in the position you would be in if the money hadn't been transferred and refund of all charges by the IFA, including reimbursement of costs of transferring elsewhere. You were invested. He moved you to uninvested, far below your apparent risk tolerance (because you were already invested), and caused a substantial loss as a result, without doing a fact find to determine that it was appropriate to dramatically reduce the risk tolerance of your investments.

mania112's post is right.

jem16

jamesd wrote: »

without doing a fact find to determine that it was appropriate to dramatically reduce the risk tolerance of your investments.

I agree that the IFA has not acted appropriately but how does this;

waccamole wrote: »

"Fund Selection

I have initially chosen to invest all the funds into cash until the transfers have been received. Once these have been applied I will look to change your funds to match your attitude to risk as agreed."

translate into "the IFA has not done a factfind"?

I read it as the attitude to risk has already been agreed and once the funds were all received in cash, they would be changed to funds to match that attitude.

jamesd

The original post: "I was surprised to find when I checked online recently that all of the funds were invested in cash and had been since they were transferred over during October and November.

When I asked my IFA why, he said that in October he thought that the market was high so decided not to go straight back in. In fact the markets have continued to rise. He thinks a correction is due so is waiting before moving back in.

When I queried why I was in cash I didn't even realise that the markets had risen - I thought it was a bad idea anyway not realising how bad!

I could understand if I'd come to him with a cash lump sum to invest that it may be best to drip feed the money in to shares. But, I was already invested so expected to remain invested."

And the IFA never switched to match attitude to risk after the transfers were completed. Not even to the original risk level.

The client not receiving the letter that was supposedly dated 4 October is of interest. Given that the client didn't want that and the IFA did nothing from then until now even thought he markets were rising. It looks more as though the IFA did the transfers then completely forgot about the client until the client came asking why the money hadn't been invested.

waccamole

We did talk about attitude to risk and what would be appropriate and agreed that an 'adventurous' approach would be taken as the rest of our pensions were DB or more cautious DC schemes.

jem16

jamesd wrote: »

And the IFA never switched to match attitude to risk after the transfers were completed. Not even to the original risk level.

The client not receiving the letter that was supposedly dated 4 October is of interest. Given that the client didn't want that and the IFA did nothing from then until now even thought he markets were rising. It looks more as though the IFA did the transfers then completely forgot about the client until the client came asking why the money hadn't been invested.

Yes I agree that the IFA has acted wrongly, either through forgetfulness or through thinking he can time the market without agreeing that course of action. However none of that suggested that no factfind was carried out.

The OP has grounds for complaint but purely on the basis of the agreed course of action not taking place resulting in lost growth.

waccamole

jem16 wrote: »

Yes I agree that the IFA has acted wrongly, either through forgetfulness or through thinking he can time the market without agreeing that course of action. However none of that suggested that no factfind was carried out.

The OP has grounds for complaint but purely on the basis of the agreed course of action not taking place resulting in lost growth.

I agree. I'm satisfied that a factfind was carried out.

I'm not sure whether this situation arose through forgetfulness/sloppy admin or attempting to time the market. My gut feel is that it's the former, the latter just doesn't ring true but I've no way of knowing for sure.

But that doesn't really matter, the net result is the same. If it's the former then they've messed up and lied to try and cover it up - not trustworthy. If it's the latter then it was done against what was agreed - not trustworthy.

Letter of complaint will soon be on it's way and I'll look for another IFA (no.6 - or more!). I'll soon be an expert on the local market!

Thanks to everyone who's made constructive comments on this thread. :beer:

W