New request for personal info from Selftrade

SnowMan

BBC Moneybox are featuring this issue tomorrow (radio 4 12 noon)

Nicholas-bloody-Parsons

ducky2004 wrote: »

Intentionally filling in inaccurate information such as "no" is not advisable as that will get you into trouble.

Im trembling in my boots... What "trouble" is that?

Their threat to freeze accounts is empty. They cannot seize your assets and keep them forever. :mad:

If they refuse your instruction to sell a share and the company goes bust; then what? What happens in the case of a 2009 style stock market crash? They have to act on rights issues, pay dividends etc....

I am minded to write and inform them that they will be legally liable for any losses and invoice them for loss of interest on cash on deposit, should they unilaterally decide to freeze my S&S ISA.

ducky2004

Nicholas-bloody-Parsons wrote: »

Im trembling in my boots... What "trouble" is that?

Their threat to freeze accounts is empty. They cannot seize your assets and keep them forever. :mad:

If they refuse your instruction to sell a share and the company goes bust; then what? What happens in the case of a 2009 style stock market crash? They have to act on rights issues, pay dividends etc....

I am minded to write and inform them that they will be legally liable for any losses and invoice them for loss of interest on cash on deposit, should they unilaterally decide to freeze my S&S ISA.

It sounds like you have a lot more faith than me in FCA, Treasury and the Justice system in protecting the public from KYC (and other silly demands) from financial institutions. Also, have you read their latest terms and conditions ?

You are welcome to try and may worth a try if it is only a small portfolio that will not affect your wealth much. If I have several years worth of ISA and a day job to attend to, I would simply fill in the 3 pages with protest and annoyance, but nevertheless filled them in. OF COURSE - I disclaim all responsibilities from the actions that you take or not take.

On reading other Fool thread, it looks like they have reduced the 10 pages sent out in January 14 to 3 pages now (on 2nd mailing), so a tiny improvement there.

chineplate

Nicholas-bloody-Parsons wrote: »

Im trembling in my boots... What "trouble" is that?

Their threat to freeze accounts is empty. They cannot seize your assets and keep them forever. :mad:

If they refuse your instruction to sell a share and the company goes bust; then what? What happens in the case of a 2009 style stock market crash? They have to act on rights issues, pay dividends etc....

I am minded to write and inform them that they will be legally liable for any losses and invoice them for loss of interest on cash on deposit, should they unilaterally decide to freeze my S&S ISA.

How about they act on all your instructions except returning any assets to you. That may not be trouble, but, it's hell of an inconvenience.

Uncle_Stinky

Received my form this morning (F102B 0414), only 3 pages, took about 5 mins to fill in, no documents requested.

However, Source of Wealth section is, as discussed in previous posts, impossible to fill in, except possibly by someone who has acquired wealth in a short amount of time.

I have just put 80% from employment, listed employers (with year ranges) since 1968 - luckily only five - and put 'no idea' for details of amount involved.

Similarly for Investment/Trading, I have put 'no idea of returns' although I could conceivably come up with an approx figure for the past 24 years if I waded through my records, but certainly not a 'detailed description'.

Just going to pop it in the post, hopefully this v1 will be acceptable.

SailorSam

They've just been talking about this on R4 Moneybox, Selftrade had turned down the opportunity of coming on to be asked about why they were asking for all this information. They issued a statement to say they weren't threatening to freeze the accounts of customers who wouldn't give them the information but the people in the studio all agreed it sounded as if the threat was there.
One of the guests said the type of things they were asking could be a valuable marketing tool. If for example you had £100k with selftrade but declared you had a total wealth of £1M, they could start to try and get a bigger share.

dougz_2

Moneybox downloadable here http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/moneybox/moneybox_20140426-1204a.mp3

Good news in that neither the FCA statement, the Information Commissioner statement, or the MP interviewed sounded in favour of what Selftrade have been trying to do.

It also sounds to me like Selftrade themselves may be about to backtrack on their ridiculous demands, 04:23 "... we are aware that a number of customers have raised questions and we are therefore considering what simplifications we could bring to the process"

I suggest holding fire on sending back the nasty questionnaires already sent and wait for something much easier.

Chordeiles

One of the guests said the type of things they were asking could be a valuable marketing tool. If for example you had £100k with selftrade but declared you had a total wealth of £1M, they could start to try and get a bigger share.

I too heard the "moneybox" article on BBC R4.

I have to doubt any theory that they are using this as a marketing tool, my own theory is that they are losing money on their UK operation and are actively trying to drive away (some ?) customers. It's probably the little customers they want to lose most, that would fit with closing to new customers during the "ISA Season".

By the way, I never saw the questionnaire myself. Been with them since early 2001 when they were German-owned (and called Comdirect) and it was by far the best share dealing site I had ever seen. Sad how you can make a great choice and then it turns into a nightmare. Did you see all the complaints about the website on Selftrade's own forums? I can't even get past the login.

Nipper_55

My legal advice is that S/T have certainly issued a threat. There can be no doubt about that.

The word 'if' means that if a certain condition does either take place or does not take place they may act.
The word 'may' means expressing possibility.
The word 'restrict' means to stop someone acting as they wish.

In fact I am told that a court would possibly find that as it a threat to retain our money that does not belong to S/T is involved, it could be construed that blackmail is being carried out ! This would be a serious charge to be levied at S/T. I think they are sailing very close to the wind.

Perhaps we should tell S/T that if they suspect that we are a posing a high risk of Money Laundering it is their duty to inform HMRC or if they think we may be Terrorists it is their duty to inform the Police or MI5. ( if this happens and an officer from any of the above should arrive on your doorstep, make sure you call a reporter and photographer from a national newspaper to attend the interview !)

redbuzzard

They are owned by SocGen as far as I know, so should at least not run off with client money. I can only think they have got themselves into a pickle with the regulator(s) and been told to make sure that any shortcomings in their KYC precautions are made good before they pay out any affected client funds.

If the regulator has told them to produce their proposals for new customers for approval, that might also explain why they have stopped accepting (or are unable to accept) new customers.

What is puzzling is the way they have gone about it - I'd expect any organisation that cared about customer service to be more open, and if expense was to be incurred by customers because of its earlier omissions to reimburse those costs - or even offer a flat credit of £50 or so by way of recompense to go with an explanation and apology.

I haven't anything with Selftrade, but I'd be inclined to test the water by asking them for confirmation that they would reimburse my reasonable costs in helping them to meet their obligations.