The Share Centre for holding unit trusts/OEICs for a flat fee

planteria

can anyone else here comment on Customer Service they have had from The Share Centre?

ChesterDog

The ISA charges must come from within the ISA, and pretty sure it's no to US shares.

sandsy

planteria wrote: »

can anyone else here comment on Customer Service they have had from The Share Centre?

I've had 2 CTFs with them for about 7 years and DH and I both opened S&S ISAs with them last March, all invested just in funds.

The website is easy to use. I've only had occasion to call CS once and my problem was sorted out promptly over the phone. I've always had good written communication from them, about fund closures and about the move to explicit charging and clean share classes. This was followed up with further notifications when each of my funds went ex-div and were transferred to the new share class.

ChesterDog

I know this sounds rather sad, but on the few occasions that I have called them, I have found everyone with whom I have had contact so friendly, helpful, efficient and courteous that I almost wish I had need to call them more frequently.

planteria

thanks guys. and sad, but lovely, ChesterDog:)

i have been doing some research, and with my plans to invest a full ISA allowance each year, it looks as though iii are a better option..

http://langcatfinancial.co.uk/2014/02/strawberry/

mikebeaches

ChesterDog wrote: »

What Share Centre desperately needs (from my viewpoint, with £10k+ in each of my funds) is a cap on the dealing costs.

Not sure if these points have been mentioned? There are two ways to achieve a cap on the dealing costs at The Share Centre.

1. Use the regular dealing option of £20 + vat per quarter, then dealing is capped at £7.50 per trade. As the fee is charged quarterly, it can be turned on and off - so as we do little day-to-day trading, apart from topping up our full ISA allowance each year - we turn on 'Frequant Trading' for that quarter, whilst investing, then turn it off again for the rest of the year and revert to regular adminstration fee only - it works for us.

2. The second option - just quote the Dail Mail flat rate trade of £12.50 - see the link:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/investing/article-1608159/Share-dealing-service-Buy-sell-UK-stock-market-shares-online-cheap-flat-fee-certificate-trades.html

Mike

mikebeaches

Oh and another thing I like about The Share Centre, in addition to excellent and efficient service (for 20+ years), is that there's no charge for 'Corporate Actions'.

Sorry if I sound like a salesman. The truth is I've become an even bigger fan after getting my fingers burnt with the new (and outrageous) ad valorem administrative charges at Hargreaves Lansdown. Might be OK for somebody starting out with small initial pot, but otherwise completely uncompetitive.

ChesterDog

Mike, thank you for those updates. I actually intended to come back and make those points myself but didn't get around to it.

And remember, holding some Share PLC shares gets you a third off the trading fees. Share PLC share price has risen about 100% already this year too!

SnowMan

mikebeaches wrote: »

Use the regular dealing option of £20 + vat per quarter, then dealing is capped at £7.50 per trade. As the fee is charged quarterly, it can be turned on and off - so as we do little day-to-day trading, apart from topping up our full ISA allowance each year - we turn on 'Frequent Trading' for that quarter, whilst investing, then turn it off again for the rest of the year and revert to regular adminstration fee only - it works for us.

That is interesting.

I've looked into what it says and found the bit that tells you how to turn frequent trading on

Simply sign in to your account, go to the 'my profile' tab and switch on frequent dealing option. Alternatively, email us at [EMAIL="service@share.co.uk"]service@share.co.uk[/EMAIL] (quoting your customer reference number) or call us on 08456 185 185.

and further on it says

Your first dealing option fee will be charged upon activation and quarterly thereafter. If you decide to cancel it, frequent dealing option will remain active until the end of the 3 months you have already paid for

Presumably you turn it off through the 'my profile' bit also.

So any change either way takes affect from the beginning of the next quarter?

Is there anything documented (or have you received any individual clarification from them) to say that you can switch as often as you like? (subject to the obvious restriction that it can be done quarterly)

What is your contingency plan if they got rid of frequent dealing while you had it switched off, or changed their policy on allowing you to switch it on and off?

mikebeaches

SnowMan wrote: »

Can you please give some more details on how practically you do the switching on and off of frequent dealing?

Do you have to switch before the start of a new quarter? What happens if you try to switch half way through a quarter (in relation to trades before and after the switch)

Is there anything documented (or have you received any individual clarification from them) to say that you can switch as often as you like?

What is your contingency plan if they got rid of frequent dealing while you had it switched off, or changed their policy on allowing you to switch it on and off?

Firstly, I turn 'frequent dealing' on with a phone call. It is activated there and then by the admin team, and confirmed whilst on the phone. You then see it noted on your online account page that it is set to 'frequent trading'. You can request frequent dealing any time / date and it will then run for 3 months. And again it is shown on your account page how long it runs for; or put another way, when the next payment becomes due. So you need to telephone (or I guess email would work) to turn it off again. In other words it's a manual process, but dead easy.

Sorry, I don't really have any answers for your other two questions re advice about whether they might suspend frequent trading, or how often you can turn it on and off - but I don't think the latter is an issue, because we've done it a few times.

And as ChesterDog says, they're really nice and helpful to deal with. When I call to make the request, they just say, 'that's fine - all done'; like it's completely routine.

Mike