Paranoid about scams

Skibunny40

Hi there

I'm selling some SSE shares and having gone through the SSE site, the place to sell them seems to be Link Asset Services / Link Market Services and I need to send them the original certificate and a CREST form which appears to transfer ownership to them?
I'm pretty sure I'm being paranoid, but how do I know that this company are genuine and I'm not just giving them my shares and they'll take the money and disappear??? Sorry if this is a stupid question!

Malthusian

Skibunny40 wrote: »

Hi there

I'm selling some SSE shares and having gone through the SSE site, the place to sell them seems to be Link Asset Services / Link Market Services and I need to send them the original certificate and a CREST form which appears to transfer ownership to them?

You wanted to sell the shares, non? If you want to sell the shares then you have to transfer ownership to whoever buys them, which is Link.

I'm pretty sure I'm being paranoid, but how do I know that this company are genuine and I'm not just giving them my shares and they'll take the money and disappear???

Check them on the FCA Register.

If someone at Link did take your money and disappear, Link (which is a big Australian multinational) would have to make good your loss, and if they were unable to do so and went bust you would be protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Skibunny40

*Blush* - I hadn't thought of it in terms of them actually "buying" the shares and paying me for them, more than they were a middle-man but that makes perfect sense, thank you! Thanks for the FCA register link too, I feel much calmer now!

dividendhero

If you're really paranoid....or just curious/geeky - check the digital certificate to ensure you're really on the SSE website

If it's issued by Global Sign, expires on 18/10/2020

and has a fingerprint of 8285448bf6412e2fd03c934169485b5efe6f0f0a

You're on the bona fide SSE website :j

If not...you've been had :money:

Skibunny40

One more question then, please - should I insure the certificate when posting it? I'll send it "signed for" but should there be insurance as well?

dividendhero

Skibunny40 wrote: »

One more question then, please - should I insure the certificate when posting it? I'll send it "signed for" but should there be insurance as well?

I just send 'em registered post. A missing share cert has little value to a tea leaf and you can get a replacement for around £50

bowlhead99

Skibunny40 wrote: »

One more question then, please - should I insure the certificate when posting it? I'll send it "signed for" but should there be insurance as well?

I agree with dividendhero but will explain a bit more.

The short answer is that there's no point insuring it really, as the certificate doesn't have a market value of its own. It is just a printed piece of paper which says that when the certificate was issued, the person named on the piece of paper was shown on the register of shareholders of the company as owning that particular holding of shares, and being entitled to dividends and voting rights etc.

Being recorded on the register of shareholders and having all those shareholder rights is valuable, and someone will pay you ~£11 a share to take your place as a SSE shareholder. But if the mail goes missing, you are still on the register of shareholders. The piece of paper in itself, which is simply a printed record that you were once on the register, is not something for which an insurance company would pay you out thousands of pounds if royal mail lost it.

It is undeniably a hassle if the piece of paper goes missing:

If it does, it will increase the cost of selling your shares because if you no longer have a share certificate to hand, Link or any other broker would be sceptical. They would say, "hmmm, how do we know that the reason you don't have your certificate to hand isn't because you lost it, but instead because you already gave it to someone yesterday as part of selling those shares for you on the stock market, or maybe you have sent them off to the registrar under separate cover to transfer them to your brother, who will sell them tomorrow....

...In order for us to trust you that there's no nefarious activity going on, with you trying to sell the same shares twice over, you must pay us an indemnity of x% of the market value of the shares. This allows us to insure ourselves against you screwing us over when you ask us to sell this many shares on your behalf without even having the share certificate as evidence that you're the owner."

As a result of that sort of thing, the certificate has a value to you, because you won't need to fork out for an indemnity when trying to sell the shares as long as you have your certificate. As the owner, the certificate is really useful.

However, the shares in a London stock exchange listed company are not actually "bearer" shares where the person who holds the certificates at a point in time is the owner. The actual owner of the shares is the person named on the company's register. So if the certificate goes missing, you don't lose your ownership, you just get some hassle. And if losing the certificate in the post doesn't cause you to lose your valuable ownership position - only causes a bit of hassle - the postman's insurance won't pay out. So, don't pay £££ to the postman for insurance.

Skibunny40

Thanks to everyone for all your help and reassurance - I feel much more confident now.