Virgin Money Stocks and Shares ISA error

PIPISTRELLE

Has anyone else had an issue with incorrect fund valuations with Virgin Money?

Somewhere between Fri 2/3/18 and Mon 5/3/18 (after yet another bout of weekend website 'maintenance') the online valuation of my ISA fund dropped by £500, when a simple calculation based on publicly available fund prices and units held actually equals a £20 drop. In terms of the relevant market movements, such a catastrophic drop makes no sense either. I have raised this by phone and online contact form, but I have to apparently wait for a week to get a written response.

I would urge anyone with a Virgin Money ISA to check their current and historical (well, at least Friday 2/3/18) valuation, and do the same calculations as I have above. I can't believe I am the only person to have been affected by this.

Looking into this further, it seems as if the problem may be that Virgin Money have been overvaluing my fund for some time, since in my memory there has never ever been such an inexplicable fall (or rise) in over a year.

dunstonh

What fund are you invested in?

I can't believe I am the only person to have been affected by this.

To be honest, it is unlikely you have been affected by anything. Its more likely that you are either looking at different pricing points. Especially if the website down during a period where the pricing of the units changed. And perhaps a lack of understanding of the risk of the funds and the expected volatility that will occur.

I don't know if Virgin's online site is live pricing. I suspect it isnt and just updates once a day. So, given your dates, it does suggest it was down for at least once pricing update.

Looking into this further, it seems as if the problem may be that Virgin Money have been overvaluing my fund for some time, since in my memory there has never ever been such an inexplicable fall (or rise) in over a year.

This is where knowing what fund you are talking about is needed.

I just used FE to display all Virgin funds and all but two fell a little during those dates. However, nothing there unexpected and nowhere near the scale of the drops earlier in the years. And EVERY fund they offered has suffered bigger declines at various points in their history.

Certainly, nothing that can be described as a catastrophic drop. All of them fell during those days you mentioned, as expected. Ranging from -0.7% to -1.55%. A very small level of drop when you consider that over the last month you would have seen bigger. 4 of their funds are down over 12 months. Worst one is 2.52%

PIPISTRELLE

Thanks for responding, dunstonh.

I of course totally understand market volatility, etc., etc. Unsurprisingly, that was Virgin Money's first response, until I managed to convince them of my financial literacy (which I owe to a previous career managing multi-million pound budgets for a local authority).

I use the daily close-of-business historical fund prices, which are cast in stone and have nothing to do with website outages, etc.

Between the days in question, the 'Global' and 'Overseas' funds fell by .004, while the 'FTSE All-Share' rose by .006. Entirely in accordance with actual market movements. Given the units I hold in those funds, it is a very simple calculation (three multiplications and two additions) to arrive at what should have been an actual drop of about £20.

As you say, the movements in fund prices between those two dates are as nothing to what has gone before (since the FTSE 100, for instance, plummeted from its most recent all-time high), and yet the drop in value of £500 is several times more than any previous daily movement in either direction.

My issue is not that I have lost money ... I haven't. My issue is (having gone back in great detail over history) that previous valuations have been incorrect, and that somewhere along the way a compensating error crept in. In any event, it makes a nonsense of my rigorous financial monitoring and recording. Furthermore, it makes it impossible to accurately monitor performance (until today, I would have said that Virgin Money was my star performer, having recently delivered me a nice £1000 profit-take). The worst outcome is, though, that I can no longer have confidence in their online accounting.

Anyway, perhaps I will get a sensible answer in due course, so I know how far to go back in adjusting my historical data. Since I am about to retire and take my final pension (which explains my meticulous planning/monitoring over the last couple of years) I simply need to know how well I am doing month on month.

Anyway, thanks again for responding, and if any of the above comes across as petulant it is not directed at you, but Virgin Money. This is not the first time I have had to complain to them. Previous issues including disappearing messages, failure to pay a bonus on time, inability to switch funds online give me concern regarding their technical competence.

eskbanker

PIPISTRELLE wrote: »

This is not the first time I have had to complain to them. Previous issues including disappearing messages, failure to pay a bonus on time, inability to switch funds online give me concern regarding their technical competence.

....which does beg the question: why have you stayed with them rather than going somewhere better and/or cheaper?

PIPISTRELLE

eskbanker wrote: »

....which does beg the question: why have you stayed with them rather than going somewhere better and/or cheaper?

Yes, they are, on paper, expensive, but, as I said above, regardless of that they have produced a good return to date. Obviously I may now seriously consider switching.

dunstonh

Virgin are one of the worst providers out there. Tiny fund range that is expensive and ineffective. You really can do much better with very little effort.

PIPISTRELLE

dunstonh wrote: »

Virgin are one of the worst providers out there. Tiny fund range that is expensive and ineffective. You really can do much better with very little effort.

Well, thanks for coming back again. Of course, my Virgin ISA is only one egg in a wide and diverse basket. At the time I signed up to it (my first foray into S&S ISAs) I had other investments which required a great deal of hands-on management. I was fully aware of their relatively high fee for passive funds, but it had the virtue of simplicity, and I only projected an average 4%PA growth over 5 years. I just needed somewhere to park some money while I researched what to do with the rest (or where to transfer this one to, if need be). I then went on to try out several other providers, some of which performed well enough for me to keep them, some of them not. At the heel of the hunt, Virgin outperformed my expectations (although I could have done better elsewhere), largely because, as they say, a monkey with some darts could have picked winners last year. It's true to say, also, that I benefited from pound cost averaging, and a few judiciously timed fund switches.

On the whole, though, I have come to the conclusion that innovative finance is far more profitable, and far less volatile, even with the much-vaunted risks, so I doubt any of my new ISA allowance will be going to S&S as I had previously planned. Especially since the Brexit effect has yet to kick in. If Trump making a characteristically ill-informed and wreckless tweet can affect my wealth by several hundred pounds, I dread to think of what will happen when the UK and EU fail to square the circle(s), as I'm now fairly sure they will.

Alexland

PIPISTRELLE wrote: »

On the whole, though, I have come to the conclusion that innovative finance is far more profitable, and far less volatile, even with the much-vaunted risks, so I doubt any of my new ISA allowance will be going to S&S as I had previously planned. Especially since the Brexit effect has yet to kick in. If Trump making a characteristically ill-informed and wreckless tweet can affect my wealth by several hundred pounds, I dread to think of what will happen when the UK and EU fail to square the circle(s), as I'm now fairly sure they will.

In the event Brexit causes the UK to become a third world country then you would have been better investing in a global S&S ISA as the majority of your investments would have been outside the UK so increased substantially on the back of the sterling devaluation.

Those trumpy tweets don't affect you wealth if you stay invested - the market price is just what other people are trading at. As long as you are in it for the long term it shouldn't make a material difference. If anything he is providing opportunities to buy a bit lower on occasion.

Alex.

PIPISTRELLE

Credit where credit is due.

I had a very pleasant call from Virgin today, admitting that I was right and that they were investigating further.