Interactive Investor - An Incompetent Firm

Nixter

Let me just start by saying that I’m another member who is still in the middle of an in-specie transfer from HL to Interactive Investor. 24 weeks has now passed and I still have incomplete funds in my ISA, Trading and SIPP accounts.

What is more worrying is their flood of admin mistakes. Let me list what their incompetent admin team has so far managed to accomplish:

1) Interactive accidentally credited one of my wives funds into my ISA account instead. 8 weeks has passed and I’m still waiting for them to correct this mistake.

2) Interactive accidentally credited a cheque from my HL ISA account into my Interactive trading account. As a result the cash is now outside my ISA wrapper. I’m still waiting for them to correct this mistake.

3) Interactive accidentally transferred £3000 too many units into one of my funds. Retrospectively, this is not a complaint should they never sort it out. ;-)

4) I have to send a secure message each month to check when my accrued dividends are due, because they don’t seem to act until you contact them.

5) They still haven’t payed any tax credits on ISA dividends even though they were due months ago.

I’m quite frankly so !!!!ed off now with this incompetent firm so am seriously considering moving AGAIN to another provider once the transfer has been completed. Is anyone with Halifax Sharedealing? I need a fixed fee platform as a percentage based fee will cost too much. :mad::mad::mad:

Many thanks
Nick

le_loup

I have immense sympathy having had myself a few similar problems. It has been going through my head to crawl back to H-L - very undecided - starting the whole process again fills me with dread.
I too need a fixed fee; Halifax, from memory, did not cover some of my funds.

dunstonh

I need a fixed fee platform as a percentage based fee will cost too much.

<devils advocate mode on>

Perhaps you are getting the service you are paying for?

Nixter

I was expecting a RyanAir type of service which normally takes you from A to B, but these jokers can't even get you to B.

ozzage

I'm moving a bunch of ETFs from Halifax Sharedealing TO III (alongside a bigger move from HL to III)

So far Halifax has probably been the most incompetent of the three in terms of screwing up the transfer.

I've been in contact with them many, many times since February as they keep trying to a) charge me exit fees despite agreeing not to and b) wanting me to fill out a form before doing anything (which I already filled out months ago!)

So far the ETFs simply haven't moved at all and I predict a letter any day asking me to fill out the authorisation form yet again :P

They also claim to have contacted III several times without response. III claim to have contacted THEM several times without response. I can't even guess who's telling lies there.

On the plus side, they gave me £50 as compensation for all the transfer screw-ups.

Archi_Bald

Nixter wrote: »

5) They still haven’t payed any tax credits on ISA dividends even though they were due months ago.

Tax credits on ISA dividends? Can you explain what you are expecting III to do?

Nixter

Interactive Investor's website seems to call everything a 'dividend' even when it's a unit trust distribution (interest) payment. So, what I was referring to was an OEIC fund which pays interest net of tax.

Since it's inside the tax wrapper, it's the job of the fund platform to claim back the tax on my behalf. I never had any issues with Hargreaves Lansdown but clearly RyanEasyJet is another story.

I have since moved all my funds into accumulation units in order to avoid this problem in the future.

kidmugsy

Every few weeks I feel called upon to remark that we've always had excellent service from HL. I must add that we have no shares in them, nor any other connection.

Any views on iWeb or AJBell Yousomethingorother?

Archi_Bald

kidmugsy wrote: »

Any views on iWeb or AJBell Yousomethingorother?

I don't have an ISA with any of them but tried to transfer my SIPP from HL to Halifax Sharedealing, which is administered by AJ Bell. To cut a very long story short, I ended up cancelling the transfer after AJ Bell had made a completely unbelievable amount of mistakes, and after I realised their systems were inflexible and ancient (e.g. have to send a cheque if you want to make just one deposit a year, can't pay by debit card).

My SIPP is going to stay at HL now even though I'd still love to escape. Fortunately, the transfer experience didn't cost me any money since I had a free exit card from HL, and Halifax/AJ Bell couldn't possibly charge me anything for their catalogue of errors.

I am not saying that HL are the best SIPP provider but I wouldn't wish AJ Bell in any guise on my worst enemy.

sorcerer

Archi_Bald wrote: »

Tax credits on ISA dividends? Can you explain what you are expecting III to do?

To pay them out, as they have always down with Hargreaves Lansdown. Yes u do get Tax Credits in ISAs.

sorcerer

By the way, you get rebates every three months, so you might get tax credit every three months also, next qty begins 5th June, so lets see what happens.