BT shares lost

akkers

My father bought the minimum shares in the plublic offering of BT shares back in early 80s. Since then he has held onto them and shares have been split into O2 and BT and new share certificates issued over the years. He has been receiving dividends until 2 years ago. Then suddenly the dividends stopped arriving.


We wrote to the registrat Quiniti; they said they could not find our shares. Unfortunately we could not find the share certificate; I think my father, being very old, may have misplaced it or thrown it away by mistake.


We have written to the registrar several times, sometimes with evidence (old paperwork) but they keep sending back the same standard letter that they have no record and need further details. It seems they have robots to deal with letters.


We are at a loss as to what we can do other than go to the police; but then we do not have a recent share certificate to prove ownership.

Browntoa

If equiniti say they have no current record for him then they have been sold

Equiniti (Lloyd's) have always been the registrar

akkers

That means theft, IMO. Surely, Equiniti should come clean and supply the details of the sale or transfer rather than sending us standard meaningless letters.
What options do we have?

xylophone

You say that your father was receiving dividends up until 2016.

Were the dividends payable by cheque/warrant? Do you have the counterfoils?

Or were they paid into his bank? Do you have the reference?

If the shares were sold, there should be some evidence of the sale - have you checked his bank account?

eskbanker

akkers wrote: »

That means theft, IMO. Surely, Equiniti should come clean and supply the details of the sale or transfer rather than sending us standard meaningless letters.
What options do we have?

Your previous post said that they were asking for further details - what were they asking for and have you been able to provide them yet?

Browntoa

They will only deal directly with your father , is he signing the letters or are you.

Data protection etc means they will not supply you with any information

thrifty_pete

If they were sold in 2016 probably a lucky choice - they have almost halved in value since then, painful to watch.

akkers

I have been writing the letters on his behalf (signed by him). We have supplied some old references but we do not have any recent info. The dividends cheques he used to get went to the bank.
We have pretty much given up with the registrar as they are just not reading our letters, it seems. Where do we go? Who can we complain to?

Dox

akkers wrote: »

My father bought the minimum shares in the plublic offering of BT shares back in early 80s. Since then he has held onto them and shares have been split into O2 and BT and new share certificates issued over the years. He has been receiving dividends until 2 years ago. Then suddenly the dividends stopped arriving.


We wrote to the registrat Quiniti; they said they could not find our shares. Unfortunately we could not find the share certificate; I think my father, being very old, may have misplaced it or thrown it away by mistake.


We have written to the registrar several times, sometimes with evidence (old paperwork) but they keep sending back the same standard letter that they have no record and need further details. It seems they have robots to deal with letters.


We are at a loss as to what we can do other than go to the police; but then we do not have a recent share certificate to prove ownership.

Why would the police be interested? If your father has lost the share certificate, that's hardly a criminal issue.

Have you supplied the further information requested, or are you unable to do so because you can't find the share certificate?

Give their helpline a call or tweet them: https://equiniti.com/uk/contact-us/shareholder-enquiries/

Reed_Richards

O2 were bought-out by Telefonica. I think this happened in 2006 and shareholders were paid £2 per share. So you only have the BT shares to look for. Perhaps you already knew this, but I was not certain from reading the original post.

eskbanker

akkers wrote: »

We have pretty much given up with the registrar as they are just not reading our letters, it seems. Where do we go? Who can we complain to?

There's nowhere else to go other than persisting with the registrar but perhaps it would be worth submitting a formal Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act to obtain full details of everything they have recorded against your father's name. If they accept (from the old reference info) that he did indeed hold BT shares but contend that he no longer does then there must be a record of a disposal somewhere along the line....