Iii

xylophone

Relative 2 who has Foreign and Colonial High Income is still waiting for the December dividend.

By and large, I haven't had too bad a time with II but the inconsistency of payments and the sheer illogicality of a system where an enquiry of an internal team can take up to five working days ( in the age of the computer not to mention the telephone), is both irritating and very hard to understand.

For relative number 2, dividend payments are very definitely a supplement to income so that consistency would be appreciated!

Both she and relative number 1 also have accounts with HL so are in a position to compare service and costs - by choosing II for funds there is of course a real saving. In that respect it was a case of horses for courses.

arnemetiae

This is my first time on the forum but I have been following. I have lost patience with ii. Quite apart from the late payment of dividends, their incompetence is quite extraordinary ... they keep adding funds to our accounts. When I told them repeatedly that they were not ours, they eventually took them off only for them to reappear two months later. This is so extraordinary that I have had to triple check that we have never bought these funds, knowing full well we have not. But their incompetence was confirmed when a new additional fund appeared this week in our portfolio for a company I have never had anything to do with. It makes me realise that somebody out there is probably not going to get their dividend because their fund is in our account!!! Sorry!!

All we want is an efficient, competent, prompt, low cost, easy to use platform. Who do people recommend?

JenniferK

arnemetiae wrote: »

All we want is an efficient, competent, prompt, low cost, easy to use platform. Who do people recommend?

Went from III to AJ Bell Youinvest. The difference is astounding.

Nocto

arnemetiae wrote: »

All we want is an efficient, competent, prompt, low cost, easy to use platform. Who do people recommend?

I’ve used the following brokers:

Halifax Share Dealing - They were very good. Only left due to lack of commission rebates.

Cavendish Online - Also good. Left due to uncapped fees on clean funds.

Interactive Investor - Poor. Though my only actual problem to date is the very late dividends.

iWeb - Opened an account a few months ago, but not used it yet. Looks exactly the same as my HSD account, and as they own & run iWeb I assume that the service is the same. They also don’t rebate commission, and as they don’t convert ‘dirty’ funds on transfer aren’t suitable for my investments yet.

AJ Bell - Opened account last week, so far unused. Looks okay, and other posters on this forum are reporting good service. They convert ‘dirty’ funds during transfer, but don’t automatically pay out dividends upon receipt. You can arrange for them to be paid out monthly.

I’m currently undecided whether to transfer to AJ Bell right away, or waiting until my funds are converted to clean ones by II (could be a while…), and moving to iWeb. With each post I read like yours I’m getting more inclined to move sooner rather than later. Also, I’m wondering if II can be trusted not to mess up the fund conversion process.

For anyone who’s interested, my previous transfers took the following amount of time (from posting forms until all funds showing in new account):

HSD to Cavendish - about 3 months

Cavendish to II - about 2 months

I’d be interested to hear from others how long the transfer process took out of II, and if there were any problems.

DiamondLil

arnemetiae wrote: »

This is my first time on the forum but I have been following. I have lost patience with ii. Quite apart from the late payment of dividends, their incompetence is quite extraordinary ... they keep adding funds to our accounts. When I told them repeatedly that they were not ours, they eventually took them off only for them to reappear two months later. This is so extraordinary that I have had to triple check that we have never bought these funds, knowing full well we have not. But their incompetence was confirmed when a new additional fund appeared this week in our portfolio for a company I have never had anything to do with. It makes me realise that somebody out there is probably not going to get their dividend because their fund is in our account!!! Sorry!!

All we want is an efficient, competent, prompt, low cost, easy to use platform. Who do people recommend?

I urge you to complain on their Facebook page; it worked wonders for me and I was contacted within hours and problems were sorted out p.d.q. after that.

juliamarsh

DiamondLil wrote: »

I urge you to complain on their Facebook page; it worked wonders for me and I was contacted within hours and problems were sorted out p.d.q. after that.

It does work, but there are soon more problems to take the place of the ones that were sorted out. Nocto you were extremely lucky if your transfer from Cavendish to III only took 2 months - did you not have very many holdings?

Nocto

juliamarsh wrote: »

Nocto you were extremely lucky if your transfer from Cavendish to III only took 2 months - did you not have very many holdings?

I only have 10 holdings. Easy to manage (and keep track of the dividends!), and I think it’s helped me avoid some of the worst problems at II.

Though of course it does mean that one late dividend (or an unexpectedly low one) can leave a rather large hole in my finances. An IFA friend keeps telling me that I should have 20 - 30 funds, but to be honest I can’t be bothered with the hassle of choosing a load of new investments!

I don’t trade much either, I think I’ve only changed two holdings in the last five years. Which is why I’m hesitating over transferring to AJ Bell. Whilst it would be a minor niggle to have to login to the account to transfer out cash after payment (or in to cover fees), and a lot better than constantly chasing II, my old HSD & Cavendish accounts used to run on ‘autopilot', I didn’t check on them for months at a time.

masonic

Nocto wrote: »

An IFA friend keeps telling me that I should have 20 - 30 funds

Wow, that sounds like real overkill. The general rule of thumb is no more than 15, but preferably fewer. 20-30 individual shares sounds more plausible.

juliamarsh

masonic wrote: »

Wow, that sounds like real overkill. The general rule of thumb is no more than 15, but preferably fewer. 20-30 individual shares sounds more plausible.

Oh gosh, I have zillions...no wonder my transfer was a nightmare!!

masonic

juliamarsh wrote: »

Oh gosh, I have zillions...no wonder my transfer was a nightmare!!

It took them well over 3 months to transfer my 6, so I don't think having a small number helped all that much.