SVS Securities - shut down?

Jamesram

Sheris I am sorry but ITI do have a Complaints Procedure "If you are displeased with the level of service you are receiving from ITI and you wish to raise your concerns then in the first instance please contact our compliance department at compliance@iticapital.com who will communicate directly with you regarding the issues that you have raised as part of your complaint. Further details of ITI’s Complaints Procedure can be found at https://iticapital.com/assets/pdf/Complaints-Procedure.pdf"

Whether they follow it or not is another matter of course, but I agree with eskbanker's comments and not to risk giving ITI the excuse of being able to claim that their procedure was not followed by the complainant.

In particular I agree that the FCA rules appear to require the complainant to make clear that s/he "has suffered (or may suffer) financial loss, material distress or material inconvenience",  as opposed to for instance, mere irritation. Not a difficult hurdle for clients of ITI though.

But referring to your timescale- if you have not had any response in 8 weeks from the date of each complaint being made, then you are of course entitled to complain to the FOS.

EDIT- just read eskbanker's 5.16 pm post, which I have rather repeated-apologies. Interesting point about "summary" of a complaints procedure which is set out in full where? Just another ITI mystery.

Sheris

Many thanks for your advice, eskbanker and Jamesram, last complaint to ITI 13th Oct, many emails before going back to early August, with no replys, still unable to my ISA account or any monies when I login.
Maybe wrong but I was given very good advice to wait a see the final outcome, as that would be much stronger in court.     

Jamesram

Sheris said:

Many thanks for your advice, eskbanker and Jamesram, last complaint to ITI 13th Oct, many emails before going back to early August, with no replys, still unable to my ISA account or any monies when I login.
Maybe wrong but I was given very good advice to wait a see the final outcome, as that would be much stronger in court.     

Yes Sheris - thats what I have decided to do. I raised complaints and then started FOS claim, but my partner and I have decided that we will now wait until all matters are finalised and we have all stock, cash and divi cash out of ITI, and THEN put in very detailed and global Complaints to ITI setting out the whole sorry saga from beginning to end, followed no doubt by claims to FOS. This will in theory mean a slightly longer wait, but in the scale of things (we reckon up to 12 months for an FOS determination) its not so important, we feel..

RasputinB

eskbanker said:

don't just assume that any negative contact will be treated as a formal complaint....

That may be an important point. I read somewhere that once a stockbroker has more than five hundred complaints they must give the FCA detailed reports. It makes me wonder if there is a loophole where a stockbroker can offer settlement cash to someone who has expressed dissatisfaction so that it doesn't become a complaint, as defined in the FCA Handbook.
Or maybe there is a rule against offering hush money?

eskbanker

RasputinB said:

eskbanker said:

don't just assume that any negative contact will be treated as a formal complaint....

That may be an important point. I read somewhere that once a stockbroker has more than five hundred complaints they must give the FCA detailed reports. It makes me wonder if there is a loophole where a stockbroker can offer settlement cash to someone who has expressed dissatisfaction so that it doesn't become a complaint, as defined in the FCA Handbook.
Or maybe there is a rule against offering hush money?

As I understand it, all complaint data must be reported to the FCA but the significance of exceeding 500 (per six month reporting period) is that this entails more detail being provided, and also publication of the data, at https://www.fca.org.uk/data/complaints-data/firm-level (ITI obviously reported less than 500 complaints in the last period as they're not on this list - for some context, Barclays reported over a million!)

https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/DISP/1/10.html explains the reporting requirements but this is inevitably dependent on what the firm chooses to consider as a complaint - there will presumably be some sort of audit process available if a firm is believed to be under-reporting or manipulating the figures in some way.

johnburman

Jamesram I have one complaint in withthe FOS.....snails pace action.  and when all is settled will put in another fo rthe other account and my family will likewise put in complaints.  REMEMBER each accountholder should put in a separate FOS complaint. EACH has suffered a separate loss and EACH needs compensation.
Our transfers are almost complete execpt that one set of shares has gone "missing" [not transferred to new brokers] likewise some cash has not been transferred and of course no statements form ITI received at all.  

eskbanker

johnburman said:

Jamesram I have one complaint in withthe FOS.....snails pace action.  and when all is settled will put in another fo rthe other account and my family will likewise put in complaints.  REMEMBER each accountholder should put in a separate FOS complaint. EACH has suffered a separate loss and EACH needs compensation.

In terms of speed of action, https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/complaints-can-help/investments clarifies that "It currently takes around 7 months for us to allocate a complaint about investments to a case handler for review" and that's just to start the process rather than to finish it, so it shouldn't be seen as an effective way of expediting action.

Perhaps also worth recalling that FOS will take on complaints only if they're not adequately resolved by the firm concerned within the eight week window they're given for this, and if FOS start directing ITI to compensate customers then the expectation should be that ITI will have the sense (yes, I know....!) to offer benchmark amounts without the need for FOS escalation.  I know that the prevailing attitude of some on this thread is to see FOS escalation as some sort of weapon to inflict cost on ITI but the FOS case fee is only charged for cases accepted for investigation, which used to be about one in six.

sweeter_strudel

I just had ITI email me out of the blue.

No, curb your excitement. Nothing to do with transfers or dividends.

They were trying to pitch their advisory account management service to me.....

I thoroughly enjoyed writing the reply... Particularly the cc list.....

My2penneth

sweeter_strudel said:

I just had ITI email me out of the blue.

No, curb your excitement. Nothing to do with transfers or dividends.

They were trying to pitch their advisory account management service to me.....

I thoroughly enjoyed writing the reply... Particularly the cc list.....

ITI phone YOU...? What the deuce? Someone must have taught them to use a phone ! ( do a 1471 on the number, quick!)

sweeter_strudel

My2penneth said:

sweeter_strudel said:

I just had ITI email me out of the blue.

No, curb your excitement. Nothing to do with transfers or dividends.

They were trying to pitch their advisory account management service to me.....

I thoroughly enjoyed writing the reply... Particularly the cc list.....

ITI phone YOU...? What the deuce? Someone must have taught them to use a phone ! ( do a 1471 on the number, quick!)

2p, calm, calm, breath in, now out... And in again.

It was an email. 

I'd still be in shock unable to type if they'd managed to phone.

 My very polite but both barrels response even got a response back! An email in reply saying it was useful to hear of all the issues I'd been having and that Account Management would be able to sort them for me.

Must be a newbie employee.....