Leaving HL without transfer charges

fozzeh

Interesting read here:

http://www.whatinvestment.co.uk/comment-and-analysis/2454442/hargreaves-lansdown-et-al-need-to-make-isa-transfers-easier-and-cheaper.thtml

It’s interesting because it is a very blas! view. Some of it is laughable, some of it is ok, usual journalism. Few points:

- Exit charges are just standard. For some brokers, it is a bit of a cash cow. For others which don’t charge other fees (such as an annual management charge, custodian fee, portfolio maintenance fee, etc), it’s a balance. Regardless, if it is in black and white, you are liable. With HL, adding them in is wrong and a breach of T&C’s.
- Also, the exit fee can be looked at on some levels as an entry fee. Sure, a broker will accept you with open arms if you say “Here’s £100,000 of my money” but you probably wouldn’t go somewhere if you had an Entry Charge as you may feel it is a wasted effort and can bide your time to evaluate and exit charge more so. A lot of admin work can go into receiving things in-specie…I’m talking days here. Cash can too but usually not (depending on the level of service you want/have).
- “Advisers” won’t want exit fees because it cuts their margins more than their clients. Investing in OEIC’s and UT’s that these advisers have is detrimental also; they make more money out of it themselves (commission based referrals) and you make less. You can also be bonded to them if they are a branded product. Always been the case, more prevalent now.
- “Many platforms offer to cover exit fees”…wow, 4 listed! And one of those I would tell people not to transfer to; begins with B and ends in ‘arclays’.
- The ‘automated system’ he does refer to does exist…but you have to be a member as a firm of brokers…and these brokers get charged a fee and how is this passed on? It’s all swings and roundabouts.
- “Peter Jones” - Whilst your shares may be held in ‘electronic format’…they may not actually be in what you think is electronic but is paper based. It may be electronic at the fund provider’s end but not at the broker end. Again, for it to be dealt with more electronically, the broker needs an account (probably with CoFunds) and that isn’t free either! Also, if transferring electronically there will be account setup, AML verification, etc etc. and this takes a bit of time. I don’t think he has personally tried and transferred ‘Orbita Capital Return Strategy Fund Z’ shares

Could easily add more in…easily about the administrative nightmare that it is trying to deal with Barclays…

richyg

Another complaint letter received offering to waive charges. It looks like a slicker exercise now, turnaround 2 days including post and also including the complaints procedure documents.

With 577,000 customers I am sure HL will just weather this out.

This forum looks to have less than 200 participants - less probably with HL - say half - ie 100 who have actively moved.

This probably leaves 576,900 HL customers shouting at their Daily Mail every morning and blaming the bloody foreigners and the EU for all their ills.

:beer:

R.

geoffgeofftygeoff

Sorry getting confused - is the letter from post 371 (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=64686053&postcount=371) the first contact that folks are making with HL or are they making contact first with an initial message - if so what?

Thanks for any help...

naedanger

geoffgeofftygeoff wrote: »

Sorry getting confused - is the letter from post 371 (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=64686053&postcount=371) the first contact that folks are making with HL or are they making contact first with an initial message - if so what?

Thanks for any help...

It is the initial message. If you prefer, you can send it as a secure message or email rather than as a letter. However I suggest you keep if formal.

It may seem a bit blunt for an initial message but HL were (at least initially) brushing off legitimate complaints because they were written less formally.

gadgetmind

richyg wrote: »

This probably leaves 576,900 HL customers shouting at their Daily Mail every morning and blaming the bloody foreigners and the EU for all their ills.

My damp finger in the air is that they'll lose 20% of their customers over the next few months and it'll be mostly those with larger pots. If HL's business model is to cater for 100s of 1000s of small fry, then so be it. Their business, their business model, and they are welcome to it.

I posted 2xISA and 1xSIPP transfer forms today.

organic_wanabe

DH and I sent ours by secure message on Sunday evening and received an official letter through the post today. As a 'gesture of goodwill' they are waiving our transfer charges for any transfer request received before 31st March and will ensure that the new charging structure is not applied to our accounts while the transfer takes place. They also state that it will only be possible to make an accurate comparison from 1 March and would like to have dialogue with us after that date. I had said on another thread that I might be tempted to say if I was offered 0.25% but I had second thoughts and decided that I really did not want to stay with them.

The letter arrived just as we were going out the door - in fact we were on our way to the Jack Vettriano exhibition in Glasgow. (Fabulous but another opportunity missed, we last went to one of his early - if not the first - Exhibitions in Edinburgh in the late 1980's where we could have picked up an original for a few hundred pounds! Strange in the current exhibition there is nothing pre-1992.) While we were in Glasgow we took the opportunity to hand-deliver our transfer forms to Interactive Investor in West Regent Street, Glasgow who were delighted to see us and promised that the forms will be posted to H-L without delay and we will each benefit from their £120 cash/£120 commission-free trades as they have received our forms before 28 February 2014.

I have been 'humming and hawing' for weeks wondering whether I could be bothered transferring - after all I am mostly, now, a 'Waitrose type of girl'! However, I am only a 'Waitrose type of girl' because I have watched the pennies over the years. IMHO, H-L really has lessons to learn from this whole PR disaster - I suspect they will be very surprised at the outflow of funds they will be experiencing at present. For those who are still swithering, do input your figures into one of the spreadsheets available to get an indication of how much better off you will be by transferring.

FailedTheTuringTest

Hi, all. Just one more voice confirming that HL will waive the transfer fees if you ask twice and use phrases such as "Please accept this email as a formal complaint" and "please advise me whether that is your official, final decision, in which case I will proceed with forwarding my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service."

I sent one message by secure message within their website asking for exit fees to be waived and received a "no" reply a few days later. I then sent a second message repeating my request and saying I would go to the Ombudsman. They did not reply within the web site, but within one week I had a letter in the post which says they feel they are within their rights to charge exit fees but "have always aimed to be viewed as a fair and reasonable company" and have therefore waived the fee. Which saves me a bundle on transferring out both a SIPP and an ISA.

Thank you very much to everyone here for encouraging and helping each other! :happyhear

rpc

fozzeh wrote: »

Regardless, if it is in black and white, you are liable.

That's it - when I move platforms I am going to amend the T&C to require that they provide Sunday roast weekly and grant me droit de seigneur over the senior staff, their spouses and daughters.

If it's in black and white, it must be binding.

Imnoexpert_2

Received my offer to grant free transfer as a gesture of goodwill today. I wasn't offered a lower % fee.

I sent a slightly amended version of the template letter on this site a few days ago. I hadn't sent a prior request asking for the fee to be withdrawn. In my case HL's new charges (or at least the change to a % fee) would have saved me a lot, so I am just using this as a reason to get lower fees elsewhere and avoid transfer fees.

I have to say I now feel HL have acted ok and have demonstrated that they have listened, do value my custom, and have responded quickly, efficiently and sensibly. Although I will still move away - -though I might now wait until after 1 March when I see the new fund charges to decide- I wouldn't rule out returning to them at some point in the future when the dust settles and they use their considerable power to win back the business they have lost.

Just checking but there is no disadvantage to waiting till after 1 March is there? I know I may lose the £120 incentive II are offering.

gadgetmind

My wife is getting a free transfer but I haven't bothered too much about my ISA as, 1) I can move all to one fund so it's "only" £50 to move, 2) BestInvest will cover this charge anyway.

I'm not sure about when to move all my existing HL holdings into a single fund. I posted my forms to BestInvest on Thursday so will probably have all of next week. Even if this doesn't happen, BestInvest will pay up to £500 (yes!) but TBH I begrudge HL getting this money!