Currency exchange fiasco - just take it on the chin?

Samsonite1

We have been with the same bank forever and never really had much of a problem, but recently my OH got incensed by the timing of trying to purchase some US shares and how the bank dealt with it.

Essentially, there was a work shares investment opportunity and application for doing this happened to be the week of the EU referendum. The application was filled, all documentation provided, but then each day the bank decided they wanted more documentation and it had to be in person. It seemed to be incompetence from the banking staff, but it took all week and they finally said that they could process it on Friday 24th June (yes, the day after the referendum), but the shares would cost £6k more than they did when they drew up the amounts earlier in the week. At one point they asked for passports again, having taken copies earlier in the week.

I would appreciate thoughts on is whether or not the bank was just doing their job and it was terrible timing or whether they had the power to authorise at the originally quoted exchange rate.

Either way, there was a lot of incompetence on the bank's part - we went into the branch 3 times that week for hours at a time. It should have been a fairly simple transaction. Should we judge them on this one experience? I guess when you call on your bank's services to do something involving a decent amount of money and they screw it up, you lose some confidence in them - what will happen next time?

My OH wants to move banks because of this, even though it is crying over spilled milk to a certain extent. I suppose the resentment will always be there now. There are some decent accounts out there to move to, but at the same time - this is the only blip in decades, so is it worth the upheaval (or is moving pretty stress free?).

Thanks

eskbanker

Make a formal complaint to the bank, in particular highlighting how their incompetence had a quantifiable financial effect - if they caused demonstrable delay by asking for information they already had and this delay directly cost you money then personally I think you have a strong case for seeking compensation based on what you've posted.

Should you choose not to stick with them, then switching is simple now that the Current Account Switching Service is in place, and as you say, there are some good interest-paying accounts out there, also some with incentives for switching....

mgdavid

Have you ever bought shares before?
Why were you buying shares via a bank?
Was this a requirement of the employer, i.e. a special process for employees to buy the employer's shares?
Do you know the breakdown of the extra £6k demanded, was this due to exchange rates (per your thread title) or to share price fluctuations?

Samsonite1

Thanks - we did not go through with it due to this last minute bit of information (extra £6k to pay), so we did not lose the money, just the investment and our time.

Samsonite1

mgdavid wrote: »

why were you buying shares via a bank?
was this a requirement of the employer, i.e. a special process for employees to buy the employer's shares?
do you know the breakdown of the extra £6k demanded, was this due to exchange rates (per your thread title) or to share price fluctuations?

Hi thanks for the response. Yes this was a special process of transferring money to a USD account, hence purely being an exchange rate issue.

Voyager2002

I certainly think that you should pursue your bank for compensation. I used to bank with Citi, who could handle this kind of transaction in a few tenths of a second!

I would not use a high street bank to move money to another country...

Since your bank has proved itself to be unreliable in this instance, you know that it could let you down in future if you ask for help with anything unusual. So I suggest that you look at what other banks have to offer (although none of them are particularly good). If you have been with the same bank for years then you will almost certainly get a better deal elsewhere.

Samsonite1

Voyager2002 wrote: »

I certainly think that you should pursue your bank for compensation. I used to bank with Citi, who could handle this kind of transaction in a few tenths of a second!

I would not use a high street bank to move money to another country...

Since your bank has proved itself to be unreliable in this instance, you know that it could let you down in future if you ask for help with anything unusual. So I suggest that you look at what other banks have to offer (although none of them are particularly good). If you have been with the same bank for years then you will almost certainly get a better deal elsewhere.

Thanks - I feel the same - confidence is lost and as it was a staff issue, the same staff are unlikely to improve dramatically next time (in my opinion).

Apparently this was not an international transfer as such - it was a UK bank account denoted in USD - not sure how this affects things but it was set up that way to make things "easier" for UK employees...

mgdavid

The investment opportunity would seem to be unproven, i.e. it is a gamble on the future. The shares could be half their value or even worthless in a few years' time. Difficult to claim for an unrealised gain. Worth a go though, you should get something for the wasted time.
I trust that now you are a bit more knowledgable you will use a currency broker next time you want to buy foreign currency and send it somewhere.

Samsonite1

mgdavid wrote: »

The investment opportunity would seem to be unproven, i.e. it is a gamble on the future. The shares could be half their value or even worthless in a few years' time. Difficult to claim for an unrealised gain. Worth a go though, you should get something for the wasted time.
I trust that now you are a bit more knowledgable you will use a currency broker next time you want to buy foreign currency and send it somewhere.

Well not exactly on both counts! The investment is pretty sound, investing in your own company that has exceeded targets for the past 3 years and has another 3 year plan which has been made more ambitious 1 year in due to continually exceeding expectations.

Regarding foreign currency - it was short notice with a message along the lines of "you can purchase extra shares in the next week - just transfer a load of money into this UK account which is in USD". That was about it. It was not a case of buying foreign currency as such, but of moving money from one UK account to another (which happened to be in USD). I am sure we could have planned it better somehow, but there was not much time to look into other options other than transferring the money - there were no charges involved, we just got screwed by the Pound dropping on the day.

PeacefulWaters

Samsonite1 wrote: »

Well not exactly on both counts! The investment is pretty sound, investing in your own company that has exceeded targets for the past 3 years and has another 3 year plan which has been made more ambitious 1 year in due to continually exceeding expectations.

While you have good grounds to complain about poor administration, don't use this paragraph to support your case. Because it's airy fairy claptrap.

Samsonite1

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

While you have good grounds to complain about poor administration, don't use this paragraph to support your case. Because it's airy fairy claptrap.

I would not use that, I was just explaining to the poster why it was worth doing.