SVS Securities - shut down?

My2penneth

Well, yes, that's a case of 2 +2 not equalling 4? From the sound of it, it does seem bizarre.

AnotherJoe

Robster88 wrote: »

It was possible to do it immediately however, through SVS, to avoid the risk of the share price changing. They charged a percentage fee for this however (which of course most places do). They now (or when they existed) said they charged 2% for this.

My point is that 2% on two transactions is still 2%. They said it would be 4%, which they'd discount to 3%. Surely that's incorrect?

Not if what they meant was, they would charge you 2% to sell, 2% to buy so that is 4% of the total, eg £100 sell = £2, £100 buy £2, = £4, = 4% of your £100.
They would do it as one transaction for £3.

johnburman

And I did the same on the Thursday. A small dividend payment out to my bank. On the SVSXO site it showed the cash balance as '0.00,' but the money never arrived in my bank account. Shades of ICESAVE 10 years ago.

You say it will all come out in the wash, but shows that the SVSXO website did *not*reflect the true client's position...which has a wider implication for everyone than a few quid not reaching the bank and being 'stuck' in SVS, does it not?

My2penneth

If money has not been "received" then it will be still in the SVS ring-fenced account pooled account. When you made a withdrawal it will have been given a transaction number and that number is tied to your account.
IF the money doesn't get re-credited to you, it will be traceable. Just make a note of the day and the time (as close as possible) when you made the transfer so it will help in tracking it down.

It's a good job we transact in our accounts by using computer as there are systems in place to track every penny movement. In days of olde, it would rely on a scribe to make a note in the ledgers.

These issues are why things are going to take time to resolve.

I'm still waiting to hear the reason why the curtains were pulled down.

Robster88

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Not if what they meant was, they would charge you 2% to sell, 2% to buy so that is 4% of the total, eg £100 sell = £2, £100 buy £2, = £4, = 4% of your £100.
They would do it as one transaction for £3.

That would have explained it, however they explained it at the time as that they charge 1% to sell and 1% to buy. As there were two transactions, (one for each of my parents) it would be 4% in total. They said they were going to simplifying it so it was 0% to the buy and 2% on the sell in future.

I only found this out originally because SVS told me, and then I confirmed it with my father. I was wanting to transfer shares into an ISA, and understood that this could be done cheaply (the £7.95 per holding cost of buy and sell, plus the stamp duty). SVS told me it would cost 2% if I wanted to avoid having to wait the 3 days between the buying and selling (which is fine, I just wasn't aware that was the case).

I queried this, as (incorrectly) thought that my father had done an immediate sell/buy back through SVS much more cheaply. I was surprised when, without any permission from my father, or any proof that I was my actually my father's son (not that that would have mattered) they looked up his account, and told me what his recent transactions were, and what percentage he was charged for them (which was 3%).

I would have thought confidentiality would have prevented them from doing that..

juliamarsh

masonic wrote: »

I had a similar experience, just a couple of calls, both times I said I wasn't interested and after the second call I asked them not to contact me for marketing purposes again, after which the calls stopped.

My2penneth wrote: »

As for hard selling...they phoned me twice in 3 years to "see what they could offer me".....I said , sorry I only invest in FTSE companies or ITs..I'm not interested in AIM". That was that, no more calls.

Like Robster88's case, they telephoned me regularly over the course of several years and sounded knowledgeable and convincing but I said no each time. Then, to my eternal regret, one day I succumbed......

Robster88

juliamarsh wrote: »

Like Robster88's case, they telephoned me regularly over the course of several years and sounded knowledgeable and convincing but I said no each time. Then, to my eternal regret, one day I succumbed......

Yes - they were genuinely phoning me multiple times a week for several months.

When I didn't pick up, they would leave urgent sounding messages that made me think it was some news about the shares that I already had, so (to begin with) I would always phone back to find out it was just some 'amazing' investment opportunity they wanted me to sign up to.

I always said no, I wasn't interested. Eventually I wrote them an email stating that I only wanted to be informed if the news concerned my existing shares - and did not want to be told about anything else. To their credit, this did stop future phone calls, and so I just should have done it earlier.

user1168934

Just saw this thread, what is the update on SVS now? What is going to happen to the shares and the money? Are you guys able to access them now or do we all have to wait till someone else takes over?


I am new to all this ... panicking now!!!

Robster88

user1168934 wrote: »

Just saw this thread, what is the update on SVS now? What is going to happen to the shares and the money? Are you guys able to access them now or do we all have to wait till someone else takes over?


I am new to all this ... panicking now!!!

Nothing is accessible at the moment.

Have to wait for everything to go through the wash (so to speak). Will take over 8 weeks (I think they have a deadline of the 27th of Sept to inform the 13,500 clients). Won't be until sometime after that that anything is accessible again. It's a case of wait and see as to what exactly is happening to the shares and cash.

My2penneth

Accounts are frozen. They will be for several months. The next update will be end of September 19.

Previous posts discuss the likely outcomes with reasoning.

The posts are ( imho) honest opinions and worth spending 15 mins reading through.

The posts cover timescales, protection of peoples money, previous cases when a broker goes into administration, handling of dividends, possible transfer of shares to another platform, peoples experience with SVS ( good and bad).