SVS Securities - shut down?

masonic

RasputinB said:

Recently added to Ombudsman decisions (financial-ombudsman.org.uk)
DRN-3372724 - £500 D&I payment. ITI offered £75.

That's a surprisingly low-ball initial offer made by ITI, given the loan that needed to be made and subsequent strain following the bereavement.

eskbanker

RasputinB said:

Recently added to Ombudsman decisions (financial-ombudsman.org.uk)
DRN-3372724 - £500 D&I payment. ITI offered £75.

Perhaps worth noting (in the context of earlier discussion) that it's two separate figures that total £500 - as I read it, the £300 is for loss of access to shares in around August 2020, necessitating a (presumably verifiable) emergency family loan, and then there is a second chunk of £200 relating to post-September difficulties when trying to transfer away from ITI:

I’m persuaded that Mr M is entitled to further compensation owing to the incomplete transfer, delays and apparent misinformation about the Kirkland shares. In the circumstances, and on balance, I think another £200 compensation for distress and inconvenience caused is broadly fair and reasonable.

However, that interpretation could be flawed, in that the decision is particularly poorly laid out, with a lack of clear chronology of facts hampering easy understanding, and an early comment about "In early March 2020, I issued my provisional decision" making no sense to me, given that ITI hadn't even been appointed at that stage!  Perhaps just a simple typo for March 2021 but maybe symptomatic of a lack of attention to detail by this ombudsman, who also seems to reproduce hyperbolic statements from the complainant verbatim without challenge, e.g. "The transfer took forever".

It's also confusing that the ombudsman initially says "I agree with the investigator’s recommendation that ITI should pay Mr M £500 compensation for the overall distress and inconvenience caused" but then later appears to contradict this: "I appreciate Mr M will be thoroughly unhappy that I’ve reached a different conclusion to the investigator. Whilst I appreciate his frustration, I’m only going to ask ITI to pay £500 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused".  However, there is reference to "I’m unable to uphold the claim for financial loss compensation", which perhaps suggests that the investigator had proposed some recompense for financial loss (from inability to trade) but the ombudsman reversed this, so insisting on escalation to the ombudsman would appear to have backfired on the complainant, who was thus left with a smaller award than the one he'd rejected, i.e. ombudsman escalation isn't the one-way bet it's sometimes seen as.

Finally, interesting to see Mr M citing that "People have shared hundreds of pages of similar experiences online about ITI" (surely not!) but the ombudsman unsurprisingly dismissing this with "I also appreciate that people have most likely shared stories online of their experience of ITI, but that of itself doesn’t persuade me to change my decision. I’m only considering ITI’s actions in relation to Mr M"....

masonic

eskbanker said:

It's also confusing that the ombudsman initially says "I agree with the investigator’s recommendation that ITI should pay Mr M £500 compensation for the overall distress and inconvenience caused" but then later appears to contradict this: "I appreciate Mr M will be thoroughly unhappy that I’ve reached a different conclusion to the investigator. Whilst I appreciate his frustration, I’m only going to ask ITI to pay £500 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused".  However, there is reference to "I’m unable to uphold the claim for financial loss compensation", which perhaps suggests that the investigator had proposed some recompense for financial loss (from inability to trade) but the ombudsman reversed this, so insisting on escalation to the ombudsman would appear to have backfired on the complainant, who was thus left with a smaller award than the one he'd rejected, i.e. ombudsman escalation isn't the one-way bet it's sometimes seen as.

I did wonder if the Ombudsman had deliberately obfuscated the conclusions of the Investigator, substituting their own provisional findings for that of the Investigator's. Investigator must have upheld some quantum of compensation in relation to the inability to trade which has been overturned, but we'll never know what it was. It would have been highly unusual for FOS to make an award for financial loss that occurred as a result of an opportunity cost, where the customer did not show the intention to put right as soon as reasonably practical.

RasputinB

Some points regarding DRN-3372724.

1. From information in the public domain it is possible to identify Mr M’s transfer to ITI as containing 6xx shares in Kirkland Lake Gold CA49741E1007, xxx,000 shares in Petrel Resources IE0001340177 and 2xx in two holdings of Kenmare Recourses IE00BDC5DG00. ITI Capital’s Phoenix platform is administered by Interactive Brokers and they won’t accept shares that aren’t readily tradeable. I have looked to see if there would be problems with the above shares and all three can be transferred into Interactive Brokers. There are other shares in Mr M’s portfolio which wouldn’t be acceptable e.g. Altyn Plc and Trafalgar Property Group Plc. ITI would have needed to hold these in their problematical QORT account. In practice I think that, because of the way the shares were transferred over from SVS, just one holding that couldn’t go on the Phoenix platform meant that all had to stay on the QORT platform until the portfolio had been fully reconciled. This was because the holdings came over from SVS as groups of company shares rather than as client positions.

2. Many made complaints about wrong data showing on the ITI systems and therefore Mr M could have stressed that he couldn’t trade by phone because he didn’t know how many shares were actually in his account. In DRN9980171 the ombudsman said "I think [the stockbroker] has a duty to provide accurate records of the investments held.."

3. Despite Mr M having pointed out that “it was impossible to get through” this ombudsman stated that he was “satisfied that Mr M had an opportunity to deal over the telephone”. In decision DRN8853557 the ombudsman stated that “I accept it was possible to trade by phone but Mr D sought, from what I’ve read, to contact [the stockbroker] on numerous occasions and yet couldn’t get through. Given its widely-publicised problems with the Smart Investor roll-out this strongly suggests its customer support was completely inadequate during this time. So 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). (My underlining.)

4. I think that Mr M should have pointed out that due to systemic administration problems the FCA had restricted ITI from taking on new clients from December 2020 and that they were still restricted from taking on new clients.

5. The ombudsman said that “I’m satisfied that this [compensation] adequately reflects the time and effort put in by Mr M to try and resolve the issues, as well as the distress and inconvenience caused”. In my complaint the ombudsman refused to consider compensation for my time and effort despite my referring to the statement “You can charge for your time. Hidden in its compensation guidelines, it states it will award compensation for the time you've spent resolving your complaint.” which can be found here https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/fight-back-fos/ 

masonic

RasputinB said:

5. The ombudsman said that “I’m satisfied that this [compensation] adequately reflects the time and effort put in by Mr M to try and resolve the issues, as well as the distress and inconvenience caused”. In my complaint the ombudsman refused to consider compensation for my time and effort despite my referring to the statement “You can charge for your time. Hidden in its compensation guidelines, it states it will award compensation for the time you've spent resolving your complaint.” which can be found here https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/fight-back-fos/ 

Within that MSE guide, it expands on the point about claiming for time spent with: "However it won't usually award this as an hourly or daily rate. Instead it will take into account the overall impact the time spent has had on you."

This is all wrapped up in the compensation scales for non-financial losses, which have been cited here several times. You should communicate in your complaint the amount of time and effort you have needed to spend trying to sort out the issues, but you cannot attach an hourly rate, nor argue that, for example, two one hour phonecalls warrant double the compensation of a single one hour phonecall. Awarding an amount for non-financial loss, incorporating time/effort/distress/inconvenience as a whole, is normal. You would not be the first person to get a knee-jerk response refusing to consider an itemised list of charges for time over a complaint, and it can be quite difficult to walk it back once met with this objection. This has been seen elsewhere in relation to different companies.

johnburman

firstly well done for spotting the decision DRN-3372724

To me we can argue about the decision on the facts, and much comment on it is relevant but the point is that the award is £500, not the previously given miserly £300-or so

The position the claimant was in was bad - he had to borrow money, but still the award is £200 higher than the previous norm.  

Below is what was said.  all claimants should be looking to someware like this figure (but probably below it) solely for distress and inconvenience

That’s why in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused I still think ITI should pay Mr M £500 compensation. Despite what Mr M says, on balance, I think it’s broadly fair and reasonable. Whilst I appreciate it isn’t reasonable to expect a business that provides an online service to guarantee that the service will always be available, as it can be affected by matters outside of its control, in this instance I still don’t think ITI treated Mr M reasonably given its communication and length of delay.

eskbanker

RasputinB said:

3. Despite Mr M having pointed out that “it was impossible to get through” this ombudsman stated that he was “satisfied that Mr M had an opportunity to deal over the telephone”.

Obviously we only see a heavily summarised precis of the case in a decision, but the ombudsman may have had doubts about Mr M's credibility by virtue of his use of hyperbole, as highlighted earlier, which could have influenced his findings, i.e. if he exaggerated about other matters then claiming it was impossible (as opposed to, say, 'difficult') to get through may not have withstood objective scrutiny.

RasputinB said:

4. I think that Mr M should have pointed out that due to systemic administration problems the FCA had restricted ITI from taking on new clients from December 2020 and that they were still restricted from taking on new clients.

Perhaps he did, but when the ombudsman was dismissing Mr M's citing of online tales shared by others, I think his message was to stick to the facts of the case, rather than getting involved in broader issues.  Mr M seemingly stated "The problem came not from it having an out of date email, but not having anyone to answer the phone", which is just supposition - not necessarily unreasonable supposition but not strictly factual (to Mr M's knowledge).  The ombudsman highlights this ("I note it’s suggested that ITI’s resources were much stretched. Based on what ITI says, it seems the issues with Mr M’s account, in the main, arose out of technical issues") so it seems to me that the message is generally to stick to relevant facts.

RasputinB said:

5. The ombudsman said that “I’m satisfied that this [compensation] adequately reflects the time and effort put in by Mr M to try and resolve the issues, as well as the distress and inconvenience caused”. In my complaint the ombudsman refused to consider compensation for my time and effort despite my referring to the statement “You can charge for your time. Hidden in its compensation guidelines, it states it will award compensation for the time you've spent resolving your complaint.” which can be found here https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/fight-back-fos/ 

Both of the above comments come into play on this one, i.e. credibility and sticking to facts!  As masonic points out, quoting an MSE article rather than FOS's own guidelines seems pointless and potentially actually counterproductive - note that MSE link to a superseded FOS page but their current stance (not hidden!) seems fairly clear:

When we look at inconvenience and a customer's lost time, we may ask for evidence of how much time the customer spent sorting things out. We'd consider, for example, any lost wages (for instance, if they had to take a day off unpaid as a result of a business's error) when calculating the financial losses. But when deciding compensation for the inconvenience of unnecessary time spent in resolving an issue, we wouldn't use someone's hourly rate. We don't make awards based on units of time, and everyone's time is equally precious regardless of what a customer earns. Instead we decide fair compensation by looking at the overall impact the business's mistake had on the customer. 

How did you present and structure your claim?

eskbanker

johnburman said:

firstly well done for spotting the decision DRN-3372724

To me we can argue about the decision on the facts, and much comment on it is relevant but the point is that the award is £500, not the previously given miserly £300-or so

The position the claimant was in was bad - he had to borrow money, but still the award is £200 higher than the previous norm.  

Below is what was said.  all claimants should be looking to someware like this figure (but probably below it) solely for distress and inconvenience

That’s why in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused I still think ITI should pay Mr M £500 compensation. Despite what Mr M says, on balance, I think it’s broadly fair and reasonable. Whilst I appreciate it isn’t reasonable to expect a business that provides an online service to guarantee that the service will always be available, as it can be affected by matters outside of its control, in this instance I still don’t think ITI treated Mr M reasonably given its communication and length of delay.

I knew that you'd home in on the total number and ignore its composition (i.e. the 'normal' £300 and then an additional £200, potentially for separate issues, albeit poorly presented) and context when perceiving it as a precedent for 'all claimants' as a target figure! 🙄

johnburman

No. It's the principle that matters. The FOS accept that in certain cases comp of five hundred pounds can be awarded. That's the point. People need to be aware of thisand claim it. CLAIM IT. 

masonic

johnburman said:

No. It's the principle that matters. The FOS accept that in certain cases comp of five hundred pounds can be awarded. That's the point. People need to be aware of thisand claim it. CLAIM IT. 

This has been discussed over and over again. It depends on the circumstances.

In one of the most serious cases FOS has adjudicated, compensation of £8000 has been awarded, see https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decisions-case-studies/case-studies/couple-complains-after-their-insurer-took-too-long-to-repair-damages-caused-by-a-leak-in-their-kitchen

That doesn't mean every FOS complaint made thereafter should demand the same sum to be paid out. The more severe the impact, the more will be awarded. The DRN above involved an inter-family loan that caused considerable distress after the lender passed away and the borrower had to deal with his widow. That isn't a situation that is going to be comparable to the vast majority of other claimants. So they should not CLAIM IT, they should outline the impact their own issues have had on themselves and ask for an award based upon that. The scale, and associated severity bands are published here. You aren't going to get beyond the 'up to £300' band without some similarly harsh consequences faced by this complainant.