SVS Securities - shut down?

eskbanker

Sheris said:

eskbanker said:

helencary said:

One share that I held in my trading account has not been transferred due to my new stockbroker not accepting it so I guess I will have an extra loss to take. 

Why is that an extra loss, i.e. what's stopping you from selling it at ITI (other than admin hassle of course) or transferring it to a broker who does support it?

Not even able to see my account, how the hell can you sell a share, !!!!!! sake

No need for that tone, it's not as if my suggestion was anything to do with your own situation, it was intended for the poster to whom I was responding....

johnburman

Sheris no way. ITI are liable for losses from either the 11 June OR 23rd July until the transfer to new brokers is made. So the FSCS loss is not in contention. What figures have been discussed so far for this? 

johnburman

Oh and is it from 11 June OR 23rd July 2020 ITI are liable (and why). I suspect it's only from 23rd July being the date from when in the Distribution Plan clients could have access to their accounts. 

sweeter_strudel

Had a closer look at my compensation offer correspondence. They sent Excel listings of my ISA sand trading accounts. There seems to be dividend credits in one. And there is no sign of the additional shares I bought via ITI via the phone.

The dividends arrived very recently (several weeks overdue) and were moved to my new ISA provider automatically at the end of last week.

One step forwards, two back. Since I am still in limbo with transfers I'm going to refuse the compensation offer and point out only when EVERYTHING is resolved to my satisfaction, compensation should be discussed.

Josl

Case Study posted by RasputinB (25 October at 7:45PM) shows clearly what to expect with our dealing with FOS on transfer delays. 12 weeks may not even be considered a delay and broker transferring will claim dealing desk was always available as FOS only compensated £300 for inconvenience against a claim of £30,000. Some of the investors however, will have additional grievances such as not being able to view holdings in their portfolios or having dealt these holdings with ITI only to reset the clock on the transfer process all over again etc.

RasputinB

eskbanker said:

helencary said:

One share that I held in my trading account has not been transferred due to my new stockbroker not accepting it so I guess I will have an extra loss to take. 

Why is that an extra loss, i.e. what's stopping you from selling it at ITI (other than admin hassle of course) or transferring it to a broker who does support it?

Posters should be careful about giving information on their personal situation. We don't know who reads these pages and we don't know why people are posting here.

I'd like to offer a generic problem that could result in loss -

SVS client buys shares in a gold mine company for £10,000.

It turns out that the gold mine isn't much more than a hole in the ground and the value of the shares plummet.

If the client sold then only £1,000 would be realised resulting in £9,000 capital loss. As the client is unable to offset that loss against gains in the current tax year he / she decides to postpone action.

Eventually those shares turn up at ITI Capital. Now they are not tradeable and the client can't sell them. He / she now has substantial gains in the tax year and if able to sell those shares at the £100 that could be obtained would be able to crytalise a loss of some £9,900 pounds which would save about £2,800 in capital gains tax. (apologies if the figures are wrong, I am only giving an example).

The gold mine company says it is hopeful that they will find some gold somewhere and will continue business but the shares will become unlisted. One day HMRC may declare the shares as having nil value and then losses will be crystallised.

What happens meanwhile?

I'd argue that if these shares are stuck with ITI then ITI must look after them until they are declared as NIL value or they become tradeable again. If this doesn't happen and the client is forced into losing the value (i.e. the £10,000 tax loss) then ITI must compensate.

I've seen that in some circumstances the FOS Ombudsman has ruled that the stockbroker must arrange for share certificates to be provided for an unlisted company.

RasputinB

Josl said:

Case Study posted by RasputinB (25 October at 7:45PM) shows clearly what to expect with our dealing with FOS on transfer delays. 12 weeks may not even be considered a delay and broker transferring will claim dealing desk was always available as FOS only compensated £300 for inconvenience against a claim of £30,000. Some of the investors however, will have additional grievances such as not being able to view holdings in their portfolios or having dealt these holdings with ITI only to reset the clock on the transfer process all over again etc.

Yes "broker transferring will claim dealing desk was always available". But in Final Decision DRN8853557 the FOS Ombudsan stated that "Mr D either wouldn’t have been able to make any transactions, or would understandably have assumed this was the case (even if there was, in practice, a dedicated line for share dealing)".

Wording in a claim for compensation could be crucial!

Jamesram

RasputinB said:

johnburman said:

Well RasputinB  I am keen to get out of ITI once and for all on a full and final basis.  But for a sum that represents the trauma and worry they ave caused me.  I could wait for the FOS to make a determination but 9if the ££ is right why should I?  Question is what is the right sum? 

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/businesses/resolving-complaint/understanding-compensation

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decisions-case-studies/case-studies/customer-claims-account-transfer-delays-cause-30000-loss

Thanks for that Case Study. There are a lot of Ombusman Decisions avaliable on the FOS site. I am particularly interested in Ref: DRN8002198 If you go to  https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decisions-case-studies/ombudsman-decisions and enter Delay- then Tick Investments-Upheld-Relevance you will get a PDF of the whole decision. Its a 2017 case concerning a delay in an ISA transfer of just a few weeks.  The value of the ISA was a little over £15K. The full complaint is lengthy , but there is a helpful precis at the start so I set this out.
"Mrs F’s complaint is about a delay in transferring her stocks and shares Individual Savings
Account (ISA) between Bank of Scotland Plc (BOS), trading as Birmingham Midshires, and
her new ISA provider. She says the delay resulted in a financial loss:-
Mrs F complained, to both providers, about the delayed transfer process. She also referred
her complaints to this service – the case against the new ISA provider has been addressed
separately.
BOS said no mistakes were made, on its part, to cause the delay. However, it offered to pay
Mrs F an amount to cover any loss of interest between 2 June 2016 (when the ISA matured)
and 11 July 2016 (when it transferred the ISA). It also offered Mrs F £150 for “the time [she
had] spent and frustration caused”.
One of our investigators considered the complaint and upheld it. She said £150 was a fair
amount to compensate Mrs F for the trouble and upset she had been caused. She
considered options for redress and concluded by supporting BOS’ proposal to pay interest
lost between 2 June and 11 July. Mrs F disagreed with this proposal. She said it did not
address the opportunity, she had been deprived of, to use her ISA funds to make
investments around the time of the national referendum. But for the delayed transfer, that
had been her plan.
I issued a provisional decision on 20 January 2017 (copy below) and I took a different view
on redress. I said redress for Mrs F should be based on the lost opportunity she referred to. I
was satisfied with evidence that showed she was active in making investments and, on
balance, I accepted that she had a plan to make investments around the time of the national
referendum. I concluded that redress should match the performance of her portfolio, using
the portfolio as a benchmark between 2 June 2016 (when the transfer should have been
completed) and 13 July 2016 (when the transfer was completed).
Both parties were invited to comment on my provisional decision and both parties replied to

confirm their agreement with it"

Points of Note

1 The relatively short period of 5/6 weeks in issue - this still produced  £150 for "trouble and upset" Is that then a base "minimum" award one could expect if you can show "trouble and upset"?

2 The fact that the Ombudsman was prepared to look at "lost investment opportunity" and provide redress for lost income, as a matter of "proven probability" (my expression).

3. The parties agreed this decision- that works two ways I suppose. You could argue that BOS thought it a fair approach and did not challenge it, adding weight to the decision. Alternatively, BOS did not challenge it, so who knows what would have happened if they had. Not surprisingly I prefer the first argument.

4. The value of the investment - £15,000. Some ex-SVS clients will have less in issue, but many will have far more.

This is only preliminary research on my part- there may be other cases, and I expect there may be a lot of discussions.

But I hope this Decision indicates that ITI Capital have a potentially big problem with FOS claims, and that people, if they are in principle prepared for the hassle of a prolongued FOS claim of course, should consider whether they would be selling  themselves too  short with ITI's proposals for early settlement being made at the moment. And of course there is the old adage in negotiations- never accept the first sum offered.

I have also considered whether to put a figure on the amount I or my partner would accept, as some posters have suggested might be done. But I do not think that that is a very good idea for anyone to do- this is an open forum. Anyone can join in using any name. So for people to talk about acceptable figures in particular cases (as opposed to what ITI has offered, which is always interesting), is not advisable IMHO. Anyway, people's circumstances are infinitely varied, so precedents other than broad indications, or acceptable minimums, probably do not help  a great deal.

RasputinB

Resolver is a useful tool for keeping track of complaint correspondence. ITI Capital hasn't yet been added to their system.

I suggest that people request it here - https://support.resolver.co.uk/hc/en-us/requests/new

This is only a suggestion to ensure that ITI Capital is added.

I think it is far too early for most of us to accept compensation or to make official complaints requesting compensation.

[Edited] The great advantage of Resolver is that it keeps all the to and fro communication in one place and when it is time to escalate to the FOS it produces a pdf file with all contained. The FOS know the format and they get all the pertinent information in one go.

My2penneth

I sent an email to ITI this morning. In return I received a standard reply but I noted that the email now had a CRM number - CRM20xxxx. It is about time ITI did this as their previous responses to customer clients were not traceable so they would have no idea as to which customer complaints were still outstanding. 

(I was surprised that they didn't have this in place already....I bet ITI Capital never had to deal with complaints until we nasty, troublesome customers came along - Maybe Philip Eva has introduced it?).