Interactive Investor - An Incompetent Firm

Freecall

I see that the ii trading platform is down this morning.

le_loup

Archi_Bald wrote: »

Hmh. Sounds a bit of a conundrum, of the sorts of timing the market....

I don't disagree. The biggest problem is not in or out of the market but the uncertainty caused by a wait of months and the errors during the process. It must be easier with a cash transfer. Until I experienced this process, I had no idea how traumatic it could be ...this is my life savings we're talking about.
Next time - if I can face it - it'll be cash, I will pay the repurchase price, I will be out of the market. As you say, in the grand scheme of things, it's a mere bagatelle!

Freecall

Freecall wrote: »

I see that the ii trading platform is down this morning.

Back up again now. The guy on the phone said that it was off-line for less than 10 minutes due to a 'glitch'.

le_loup

Freecall wrote: »

I see that the ii trading platform is down this morning.

It's OK now.


Edit: Snap!

oldfella

have been happy with Cavendish for many years and had originally planned to move to III.
when all the problems surfaced decided to wait a few months, looks like I will be waiting at least until 2015.

Im_A_Mouse_In_Need

le_loup wrote: »

It took about four months and multiple c0ck-ups between platforms and fund managers!
OK, I was still in the market but could not trade because things were "in-transit". I have a feeling (what do I know?) that if you apply to a new platform, sell the old platform yourself before new contacts old and get the cash transferred, you are out of the market but for just a couple of weeks, like a cash ISA transfer.

I did transfer cash, and now wish I had done the opposite - 10 weeks out of the market, and III had my funds nearly the whole time.

They told me on several occasions that they had not seen a cheque from previous provider, which I later discovered was completely untrue.

When III did allocate the funds to my ISA account, they misrepresented what had happened, making out that my cheque was in its final clearing stages (they had drawn the funds 9 weeks prior)

When I told them how long they were sitting on my cash (thanks to previous provider checking when funds were drawn out of their intermediary account) III did not even respond/acknowledge this aspect of my complaint.

I am switching all funds into one holding, in readiness to move on. No way I could recommend anyone having anything to do with this firm.

They are either incompetent, dishonest or both. Stay well away is my suggestion.

[On the subject of "you get what you pay for" I did consult the best buy tables and specifically avoided the cheapest platforms as I thought they could be a shambles and overrun by transfers - III looked like the next best option for a flat fee]

lejog2003

Perhaps posters here would like to fill in iii's customer service survey.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/iii_survey2013?icn=2013survey&ici=trading_logout&c=4552870

I told them they really need to get the fundamental functionality of their website right.

Nixter

lejog2003 wrote: »

Perhaps posters here would like to fill in iii's customer service survey.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/iii_survey2013?icn=2013survey&ici=trading_logout&c=4552870

I told them they really need to get the fundamental functionality of their website right.

Great, I gave them... 0 out of 10.

Nixter

Here's an idea. As I'm mainly invested in the Vanguard LifeStrategy fund range, I'm thinking that I could possibly take a DIY approach with Hargreaves Lansdown and reconstruct the holdings with ETFs instead. It would require more work in terms of rebalancing, etc, but I would be able to get capped charges at £45/year for the ISA and £200 for the SIPP.

Their dealing charges are quite high though, so if I hold 10 ETFs I would pay around £120 in dealing charges.

Maybe still worth it for the peace of mind if the company doesn't screw things up like iii.

DiamondLil

Following ChesterDog's comments, I'm looking at The Share Centre.
Does anyone have any views on them please? The website seems (to me) a lot more user friendly than III.
(Perhaps we should consider a league table of some kind on here).