Vanguard LifeStrat Via TD Direct - Quick Question

blobbi

They have siad that they are having problems adding other vanguard funds and they do not know the timeframe for it to be fixed.

jawj

Yep, I concur I am having the same prob elm with TD and Vanguard funds. Very frustrating! They were all there, then none of them were. I couldn't setup my normal monthly trade so had to contact them by email to ask them to ensure the trade would be made....

... no surprise then to find out they have done jack all and my trades have not been made.

I too have been severely disappointed with TD and their customer service. Its contradictory, very slow (up to 5 days to respond) plus you can only complain/check one thing out at one time! You have to treat every issues separately!

:mad:

This morning I have put in a formal compliant and will be looking to move my account somewhere else. Its really worrying allowing some so incompetent to be playing with my money!

Not even Interactive Investor were this bad!

Anyone have any experience of Charles Stanley? At least HL have great customer service even if their cost are higher.

If anyone is thinking about investing with TD, I strongly advise against it.

AlwaysLearnin

I feel your pain. They appear to have given up even trying to respond to me now - very frustrating.

If the platform review wasn't hanging over us I would have refered to the ombudsman and then transfered long ago (ombudsman to hopefully help avoid TD's transfer/closure fees - don't see why I should pay them to go when only doing so due to their ineptitude ), but at the moment I can't help think that it could be out of the frying pan and in to the fire...

JohnRo

jawj wrote: »

Anyone have any experience of Charles Stanley? At least HL have great customer service even if their cost are higher.

If anyone is thinking about investing with TD, I strongly advise against it.

I have accounts with TD and CS, most of what is discussed in this thread regarding TD has already been discussed previously. They've obviously got a system problem and for whatever reason they're struggling to find a solution. Why they don't come clean is the odd thing, I was having these problems with TD before the start of the year.

CS are very good imho, their customer service has been superb so far. There are some niggles on the website though since they have clearly had someone input their fund listing who can't decipher a Z from a 2.

It'll be interesting to see how long it takes them to fix that issue, but otherwise they trade in a timely manner and communication is so far excellent. I personally think their website is superb too, for me it's the best user portal available. Others may disagree of course.

jawj

@JohnRo - Would be interested to see what others are saying if you can link to the other discussion.

I would have hoped they would be transparent and that anyone with Vanguard funds would at least get an email explaining the situation, but this just reinforces their lack of customer service.

My real issue was, even when they had agreed to solve the problem and arrange the trades, they still couldn't sort that out. Plus I have also had issues with Black Rock trackers so it must be a greater problem than just Vanguard.

Thanks for the comments on CS. I would rather not move until platform reviews are over and everyone knows what the playing filed is like but I'm not sure how much more i can take.

AlwaysLearnin

JohnRo wrote: »

I have accounts with TD and CS, most of what is discussed in this thread regarding TD has already been discussed previously. They've obviously got a system problem and for whatever reason they're struggling to find a solution. Why they don't come clean is the odd thing, I was having these problems with TD before the start of the year.
.

Agree it's been touched on here and there, but frustratingly the situation appears to be going backwards if anything. I know from our previous exchange on the Vanguard thread that you have had a resolution to your issues, but presumably the underlying problem still remains, otherwise you would expect them to apply the resolution to all affected. Highlighting these on-going issues over website functionality and service may help others either in the same position, or thinking about perhaps using TD.

Out of interest, can you see the LifeStrategy funds listed in your regular investment listing any more? Also, have you been able to action any ad-hoc trade for these funds online?

Thanks

JohnRo

Last DD one of the accounts had a double VLS trade made which I complained about and got one of the two purchases reversed a few days later. Why that happened was never explained but I assume it's all part of the vanguard meltdown at TD. None of the other funds purchased at the same time had any such problem.

The others are left alone, I can see the VLS funds listed and I have, so far, had each scheduled monthly DD purchase go through as required barring the above balls up.

I haven't made any ad hoc VLS purchases recently and have no plans to, so I can't shed any light on that, sorry.

jawj

Spoke to a TD dealer today who had some knowledge:

"They cant resolve the Vanguard problem of adding it as a regular investment option. So for now they have closed all options for regular Vanguard investing. If you have over the £500 fund threshold you can deal whenever you want..."

... but as chatting with him we also found out any additional amounts must be more than 1 fund unit. This makes minimum amounts for some life strategy funds of about £120 and up to £180 on other funds.

Also nice of them to tell Vanguard fund holders!!!???

This really isn't ideal, but for anyone wanting a solution of some kind, i guess its better than nothing and having to changing provider. Of course if you are very small investor £50 a month, this isn't helpful.

This sort of resolves things out for me in a rubbish way. Its a pain you cant change provider without moving your whole account over and just move regular investing over, as the governments current rules don't allow this, you have to stay with your current company until the next tax year unless changing account completely. Had this issue with ii/hl before.

AlwaysLearnin

Thanks jawj. Like you say, you think they'd tell people, especially those expressing frustration/dissatisfaction.

Interesting that you now apparently need a minimum of 1 unit equiv value for them to deal, and/or that you can apparently action online with the min initial investment amount of £500. They have previously dealt £100 for me over the phone (i.e. less than a single unit price) and, from how I read JohnRo's posts on the Vanguard thread, he got them to set up regular investing on VLS for him somehow, so again the options appear to be going backwards.

Obviously another option could be differing knowledge of different customer service people... Either way, it's a bit of a mess.

bigfreddiel

blobbi wrote: »

OK so spoke to them again and ALL investments done as a regular investor (both shares and funds) are charged £1.50 commission. So guess I will hav to do it manually each month. What a pain.

i don't get it - why pay £1.50 when buying manually is free!

Anyway, I've used TD for 15+ years, buying PEPs, ISAs in shares,etfs and funds - never had a probem, but i must admit their web app is a tad old fashioned and has a few quirks

what can make life easier is to use the stockwatch feature to keep an eye on equities, etfs, funds that you are interested in - then just use the buy button next to the one you want to buy.

also one you've invested in the fund or equity then the portfolio view has a buy button, couldn't be simpler

cheers

fj