Data breach at Hargreaves Lansdown???

Byallmeans

Is anyone else aware that HLs online isa withdrawal facility has been unavailable since last week?
I've spent over 3 hours on the phone since Monday and the 'customer service' ineptitude trumps anything I've suffered with the well known repeat offenders we know and love.
Even though the fault is with their it dept (300 award winning,highly motivated and skilled professionals according to their blog) only that dept can make a bacs transfer....... But even their own colleagues have been unable to contact them (in the same building!!) since last week.
Nobody is the least concerned about withholding my money, nor that their platform is broken, suspect there is something more sinister going on here.
Let's pray it's not a data breach they're trying to cover up, although all the indications point to thst
I haven't tried to contact them today, but the platform still says online withdrawals are currently unavailable.
I have not had responses to the 3 emails and the registering of an official complaint I made yesterday.
In a similar vein, online sipp withdrawals have been unavailable since March 2017.
Every month means a call usually of 40 minutes or so to set one up. I did this month's a week ago. So far there is no acknowledgement it will be actioned.

Is anyone else experiencing this woeful level of service.?

dunstonh

Nobody is the least concerned about withholding my money, nor that their platform is broken, suspect there is something more sinister going on here.

Sinister or maybe MiFID coding requirements have created an unexpected error and they are looking to fix it.

Aviva platform is going down for withdrawals for over a week later this month.

Half the platforms out there have software issues/quirks at some point (or even constantly).

Let's pray it's not a data breach they're trying to cover up, although all the indications point to thst

Really? And what evidence do you have to make such an allegation?

HappyHarry

Given the detail on another thread, one suspects it's Mifid II at play.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5777048

OldMusicGuy

Byallmeans wrote: »

Is anyone else experiencing this woeful level of service.?

No, I was speaking with them about drawdown options last week and as always (in my experience) their customer service was excellent. But I don't hold any ISAs with them. It might be best to retitle your thread as it is somewhat misleading. As a large SIPP holder it caused me concern to see this thread, maybe you could retitle it "Anyone else experiencing issues with HL ISA withdrawals?"

AnotherJoe

Not good but why did you jump to a data breach, sounds like a massive and unwarranted leap in logic when something do with MIFID II directly or indirectly is surely more likely?

Byallmeans

Well, evidence is hard to come by when the perp is floundering and has gone into lock-out, taking clients money with it
They could have sorted this out temporarily with a bank transfer, but they ( uk's 70th largest company) say they aren't able to do that at the moment.
Draw your own conclusions.

Peter314

I transferred a SIPP from HL to Alliance Trust Savings towards the end of last year.

Previous transfers in to HL from Fidelity and Standard Life had been implemented swiftly and easily, using online features on HL's website. The transfer out was less easy. Not possible to do online.

Alliance Trust sent a bunch of forms to fill in and return to them, after which it went quiet. A call to AT brought confirmation that they had had all they needed and had sent the necessary forms to HL.

Calling HL I was told that they still needed a form signed by me, which they proposed to send by post. After some discussion, they agreed to send it by email instead, and in the meantime, AT re-sent certified copies to HL.

I'm not sure who was at fault here, but it cost me a few extra weeks out of the market as I had liquidated my holdings when sending the original forms to AT. I naively assumed that the transfer out would be as quick as previous transfers in, and that transferring cash would further speed things up.


Can't fault the telephone support from either HL or AT though...

Byallmeans

Nothing to do with FCA rules.
This concerns a company's IT department of 300 people shutting down its platform and going into lockdown; not even communicating with their colleagues in the same building since last Friday.
Apparently it's not company policy that the IT dept speaks to the public.
Most astonishing thing in this fiasco is that an IT dept is the dept that manually processes bank transfers. Still trying to get my head round that one. Unless I'm being deliberately misled of course?

redux

I just logged in to my account.

Unlike the allegation in the OP, there is no warning that online withdrawals are unavailable.

They say that online withdrawals are by Faster Payments, unlike the OP's remark about BACS transfers.

I went to pretend I would make a withdrawal, the uninvested change from some dividend reinvestments. I have to nominate a bank account, and their security process involves sending a confirmation code by post. So I didn't bother. But again there are no warnings of any problems.

http://www.hl.co.uk/help#fund-and-share-account/fund-and-share-account/managing-your-vantage-fund-and-share-account/how-do-i-withdraw-money-from-the-vantage-fund-and-share-account

neirajones

This is their twitter reply:
twitter[dot]com/HLInvest/status/953661687894339584
(sorry I can't post direct URLs as a new user...)

Asghar

Byallmeans wrote: »

Nobody is the least concerned about withholding my money, nor that their platform is broken, suspect there is something more sinister going on here.
Let's pray it's not a data breach they're trying to cover up, although all the indications point to thst

What a pathetic and blatant sensationalist post.

Why don't you forward your indications and other evidence to someone like the Financial Times then if you think it's so serious?