S&S ISA Transfer - HL to iii - Absurd Delay

masonic

Im_A_Mouse_In_Need wrote: »

I thought they had 4 weeks to respond to a complaint, but they say it is 8 weeks, and it only starts when they reply to acknowledge receipt of complaint (which took them 3 days - just to write "OK, got that")

It is 8 weeks, but it is 8 weeks from the date you first contact them about the issue.

Im_A_Mouse_In_Need

Received final decision letter from III, complaint upheld and they are offering £150 compensation (for keeping well over 60k back for just over two months)

Their explanation:

"Our transfers team incorrectly applied the account number of a different client with the same surname and same first initial as you to your cheque"

It happens that I know there are literally a handful of people in the country with my surname, as I did a lot of research on my family name a year ago and it looks like you can count on one hand how many also share my first initial.

Chances of one of them even having a S&S ISA, with III?

I make it huge odds on that they are flat out lying, as they did before when they told me they had never received the cheque. They have not even mentioned that part in this Final Decision letter.

Will see what the Ombudsman think. I would like to see III asked to show records of their claims about wrongly allocating the funds to another client account, as I am pretty confident they are just making stuff up.

le_loup

Making stuff up seems to be the only thing they're good at!

gld73

I've been told my SIPP transfer from HL to iii is complete - yet about a quarter of the value has gone missing as some funds have not been transferred, but are no longer with HL.

It's been 3 or 4 months since starting the transfer, and I'm really starting to regret moving to iii now

Nixter

Seriously, this firm should not be allowed to operate. If enough people complain, maybe something will improve, but I doubt it.

masonic

Im_A_Mouse_In_Need wrote: »

Will see what the Ombudsman think. I would like to see III asked to show records of their claims about wrongly allocating the funds to another client account, as I am pretty confident they are just making stuff up.

I reckon they did pay the money into somebody else's account, but not someone of the same name as you. Sounds very much like someone was in a rush, keyed in the wrong client number and didn't check the details before applying the credit to the account. In my book, paying the money into the wrong account is worse than misplacing the cheque, which is the only other reasonable possibility.

That aside, it should be fairly easy to convince the FOS that you've suffered a financial loss by being deprived of this money, which would clearly have been invested if it had arrived in a timely manner. Presumably you have/will invest this money now (assuming you won't move somewhere else after this incident), so the easiest thing would be to purchase your investments, note how many extra units you could have bought for the same money on the 15th April and ask for the difference plus the £150 goodwill already offered.

So, for example, if you were just using the whole pot to buy Vanguard Lifestrategy 80% Acc and invested on the 20th June, you may have got 522.07 units, but if you bought them on 15th April you'd have 537.12 units. So you are 15.05 units short, or £1976 based on their value today.

Im_A_Mouse_In_Need

But if they paid it into another account through keying error, why not just say it went to wrong account and leave it at that? They've spun a more explicit story to make it seem more excusable, without realising how unbelievably improbable it is in my case.

Thanks for your idea re lost units, will use that for FOS letter.

masonic

Im_A_Mouse_In_Need wrote: »

But if they paid it into another account through keying error, why not just say it went to wrong account and leave it at that? They've spun a more explicit story to make it seem more excusable, without realising how unbelievably improbable it is in my case.

That implies that they received the proceeds of your ISA without any personally identifiable information except your surname and first initial, which is absurd. They would have been provided with covering documentation including your full name, national insurance number and HL account number (a ISA Transfer History Form should be included with the proceeds of the ISA).

If they are really relying just on people's names to apply the transferred cash/investments, then that really is incompetent. I feel really sorry for J. Smith, whose money could end up in any number of accounts.

Im_A_Mouse_In_Need

Find it overwhelmingly more plausible that they got the cheque, paid it promptly into their intermediary account (as HL confirmed) and then made no attempt to move the funds to the intended account.

They also had weeks to trace the money they now claim was sent to the wrong account, once I had raised an issue with how long my transfer was taking.

They kept saying the cheque had never been received, and they had made multiple requests to HL to follow this up - then literally within hours of me informing them of the date HL had put on the letter about having sent the cheque (and also posting on here) the whole matter was suddenly all cleared up.

Strongly suspect that quite a few things they told me were untrue, but I also think they are more incompetent than they are downright crooked.

Either way, I'm out of pocket for a fair lump - will write to FOS today.

Nixter

Strongly suspect that quite a few things they told me were untrue, but I also think they are more incompetent than they are downright crooked.

Their computer systems must definitely be sorting accounts only by peoples surname and address.

My wife received today an apology by Interactive Investor for having accidentally transferred one of her ISA funds into my account instead.

The reason for this error was because "we both share the same surname and address". Duh!

I can't wait until I've left this incompetent firm.