iii threatening to sell my shares if i don't pay quarterly fee

tonyhamm

Hi Musba - forget the advice here.

Under CONTRACT LAW a party has to AGREE to a change in terms of a contract. You did not agree. III could have let you opt-in to the new agreement. Notice is not agreement and cannot be deemed as agreement. If iii really wanted people to agree to the new terms they could have put a tick box on the website. Instead they have simply changed the agreement and charged you! (and me!)

PM me. This is common law which is tried and tested over hundreds of years and basic stuff.

If this wasn't the case imagine the result. I could open a company online offering one service for free, and collected millions of peoples details, and change the contract completely, sending them a email buried in junk email from the company claiming its notice, then start charging the 99% who have not read it.

Ark_Welder

Finally, and most importantly, any right to vary
may be fair if the consumers can exit from the
contract before being affected – but obviously
adequate advance notice of the variation must
be given and the consumer must not suffer
any loss or significant inconvenience by
cancelling.

Page 14. http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/unfair_contract_terms/oft143.pdf

grey_gym_sock

under contract law, you did agree a change in the terms of the contact, because you agreed to the original contract, which explicitly gave iii the right to vary the terms of the contract.

the unfair contract terms legislation is a better argument. was the notice given adequate? well, you could argue it wasn't.

(which means - not that anybody cares - that it's legislation, not common law, that gives the best argument here.)

matzuba

Thanks for the constructive feedback guys!
appreciate the advice and not judgement!

sabretoothtigger

The main thing with contract law is the company will argue you are liable no matter what. However it doesnt matter if you agreed to give your first born as payment, the contract law must comply with actual laws passed by parliament.
You are just a clueless customer, thats your main leverage not that you are actually in the right so dont act hostile at any point just persevere.
Their lawyers/staff will insist they are the law but they are just a participant same as you and you should argue from a general point of legal view not on specifics they define

Your best chance might be to write in and complain stating details and your dispute rationally.

After that complaint you can ask the regulator to arbitrate the dispute.

Personally I dont think receipt of an email is legally enforceable but several companies are prepared to then levy hundreds of pounds in fees if you do not respond to exclusive communication that way. Co-op is one of them.

I still think a letter is needed but didnt iii send one to everyone

It does sound like this account will need to be closed and I expect iii will do that and send you a cheque regardless of anything you say. You may get the fees back at some point later


I do sympathise as advice for shares is often, put them in a drawer and forget about them for a few years. That can be profitable as many good operations can take at least half a decade to even start returning on the investment.

However in this case iii changed the rules mid game and and now you lose, you got a reasonable objection from the pov of a 'unsophisticated retail investor'

tonyhamm

My story is that I opened a free stocks and shares ISA. They soon started taking money shortly after. And I had no idea. I got the fees back, but it took a long time - after I escalated it to FOS, iii caved. But getting my fees back, that's not good enough and I am going after them for damages in small claims court as they did not cough up in time. Because they held onto my money I lost out on market gains in a stocks and shares ISA, and only opened a cash ISA. So, I have lost that whole additional ISA allocation of (11,280-5,640) = £5,640 going forwards in time due to this companies unfair and underhand practices, putting any reasonable person off investing in all such products.I can put a value on that and claim for that in court.

The situation is really a bit like the banks a few years ago.

For years they could get away with charging penalties for going overdrawn, and for this or that breech of contract.

They pretended their complex contracts and terms let them do this, even though in basic contract law for over a hundred years its impossible to charge another party to a contract penalties beyond actual provable losses from breech of the contract.

The banks sustained the trick for years by NEVER letting it get as far as court and caving in well beforehand, refunding fees to the 0.1% who persisted in their complaints and you will find the same is true of iii.

Then a law student let the cat out the bag, helped by the internet, and the next thing is this forum becomes the number one place for issuing letters to get fees back from the banks.

In this case the contract is wrong on (a) Notice and (b) Agreement.

It references Clause 20, which is a unilateral variation clause. Unilateral variation of terms clauses in consumer contracts is generally deemed an unfair practice by the Office of fair trading and can only be used for minor variations.

So what happens is like the banks iii front it out and cave when pressed.

1. What you have to do in the first instance is complain, which is what you have done.

They will then reply that under clause 20.1 of the terms they have given notice blah blah...

2. Next demand a formal complaint is raised over the illegal fees. And cut and paste this...

" I demand that my complaint is formally dealt with under your complaints procedure. These fees are illegal and I demand you drop such demands instantly.
Notice was not given in a reasonable manner, sent as it was amongst junk email. This doesn't comply with Consumer Law and I did not agree to any new contract arrangement. Silence from a party to a contract even if given proper notice of new terms is not agreement.

Any unilateral variation clauses (like Clause 20) in the contract are invalid for major changes, and breech section 10 of the Guidance for the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 published by the Office of Fair Trading.

I would like written confirmation you will not try to apply these fees to my account. If you do not provide this I plan to take the issue further with the FOS scheme and my local county court to make sure contract law is properly enforced.

Any actions which damage my good standing and credit record claiming I owe fees I do not may also result in legal action for compensation."

Its very important that you get them to follow their own formal complaints procedure at this stage and not be fobbed off with some half assed reply.

3. They will reply by letter saying this and that about terms, (as they did with me) but at the end of all their longwinded legal justifications they will say they have given you a refund/let you off the fees 'as a goodwill gesture'

C_Mababejive

If you feel aggrieved then write to them,ensuring the letter is headed COMPLAINT. I too had issues with this. I cancelled my account when they first decided to charge and got a confirmation email. Months later i noted they had deducted about 3 lots of charges. Luckily i had the old email so i printed it with complaint letter and posted it off. Got apology letter and refund.

tonyhamm

If you persist in complaining they send you a letter like THIS sent to me refunding your charges.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/160242747/III-Refund

tonyhamm

http://www.scribd.com/doc/160762684/FSO-Complaint-Form-for-iii-co-uk-charging-of-fees-without-customer-consent-or-agreement

Download the proper form and cut and paste from this, add your details and send it off.

baggieaggie

I'm in the same situation as the OP - I logged into my ii account tonight for the first time in ages to discover that these quarterly charges had been applied to my account. And, like the OP, I received no email notification whatsoever from ii regarding this charge, so this was a complete shock. (And the email addy I registered with several years ago hasn't changed.)

From what I've read on this thread, it's unlikely that ii will refund these charges willingly when I phone them tomorrow, so the above link to the FSA complaint form is most welcome. Thank you.