Inaccurate Information From Investment Management Company - My Rights?

Mr.Saver

I had a general investment account (therefore, taxable) with a "robo investor" provider to earn the sign-up bonus, and I closed my account after I received the bonus.

Now after the 2019-20 tax year ended, I received a consolidated tax certificate from them for the tax year, but clearly it is wrong. (Technical details at the end of this post) Because of that, I then looked into the statements and contract notes, and found out they are also inaccurate. I contacted the customer support, but they are helpless. They kept saying the information I have are up to date, but whenever I confront with them about a specific transaction, they'd say it did not take place. But then why is it in my statements or contract notes? They didn't even try to explain that. They just keep saying the documents I have are up to date, and they cannot provide me with anything else that I don't already have.

Now I'm puzzled by three pieces of inconsistent and inaccurate information, and the customer support can't provide me any definitive document or information.

What are my legal rights being a former customer of an investment management company? Do I have the right to ask them provide me the accurate and correct tax certificate, statements and contract notes? How do I get those information if all the customer support can do is keep telling me "these are the only one's available to ourselves to provide you"?

Below are the technical details.

A screenshot of the tax certificate:


In the tax certificate, the HSBC UK Gilt Index Fund's interest income is being categorised as dividends, this clearly doesn't look right, so I checked the HSBC fund's prospectus, and here's a screenshot of it:

This confirms that the tax certificate is definitely wrong.

In addition to the above error, I've also noticed a cash dividend on my statements is absent from the tax certificate. I couldn't figure out which fund did the dividend come from, because it is not shown on the tax certificate nor the statements. I don't even know if it was dividend or interest, domestic or foreign. Those are the required information for filing in Self-Assessment.

Fosterdog

This would be better on the savings and investments board, pm a board guide and ask for it to be moved.

davidmcn

Given the amounts (apparently) involved, is this worth worrying about? HMRC aren't going to care about pennies here or there.

eskbanker

You do realise those posted documents relate to the 2018/19 tax year, not the one that's just ended?

dunstonh

What are my legal rights being a former customer of an investment management company?

What do you mean by legal rights?   

What are you trying to achieve?

Do I have the right to ask them provide me the accurate and correct tax certificate, statements and contract notes?

Yes, they should be accurate.  However,  this is not something that is putting you out of pocket.  

This amount is 5p.   It hasnt been taxed and unless you have dividends elsewhere, you have not exceed the dividend allowance. 

Those are the required information for filing in Self-Assessment.

The figures are too small to be recorded by HMRC by themselves.

Plus, you are not being taxed on them whether it is shown as interest or dividends.
And, you do not have to use the figures supplied on a consolidated tax voucher.    You know its wrong.  You know what it should be. You dont need a piece of paper to tell you that.  Nor does HMRC.

bowlhead99

As it is, you have been shown less than a pound of dividends and less than a pound of interest, each of which round down to zero dividends and zero interest for the purposes of your tax return. If all of the OEIC dividend income were treated as interest, you would still have less than a pound of interest, which would still round down to zero interest, so your tax return would be unchanged.  I can't see anyone in their customer service department being bothered to discuss an error of zero with a former customer. How much of their time and your time do you want to waste here? Your return for the 2018/19 tax year that would use those values from the screenshot should have already been filed by 31 January 2020.

but whenever I confront with them about a specific transaction, they'd say it did not take place. But then why is it in my statements or contract notes? 
They didn't even try to explain that. They just keep saying the documents I have are up to date, and they cannot provide me with anything else that I don't already have

From our perspective as fellow forum users who haven't seen the documents, it's quite difficult to imagine how they can say the documents are up to date and accurate, and then on the other hand say the transactions shown in the documents didn't happen. Are they just trying to say the annual statement and final consolidated certificate supersedes the contract notes / tax vouchers you received along the way? That doesn't seem like it's the end of the world, as long as they are saying which one is correct.

Still, if the amounts of income or gain involved here are immaterial, there is little point wasting any of your time trying to nail down what are your rights and assert them. How much is the cash dividend you say you received, and are you sure it's income rather than merely equalisation or some capital being returned to your holding account? If it is only a few pounds like all the other amounts you've shown us, and there is no foreign tax that you are practically going to be able to reclaim, just err on the side of caution and presume it's domestic income of whatever category would cause you to pay the most tax on it . It might all be covered by your dividend allowance or personal savings allowance anyway, given the somewhat paltry size of your investments

Mr.Saver

eskbanker said:

You do realise those posted documents relate to the 2018/19 tax year, not the one that's just ended?

Right, I took screenshot of the wrong one while I was comparing tons of PDF files. However, that doesn't change the fact that they wrongly categorized the interest as dividends.

Mr.Saver

@bowlhead99 I know those are only pennies, and HMRC doesn't care. But if they are doing this to me, they must be also doing this to other customers, because those statements and tax certificates are clearly automatically generated by their system. I'm lucky and only had a little invested and have got all my money plus the bonus back, but other people may have much larger sum invested. What do they do if they get those inaccurate information? The company obviously should fix this, but they aren't fixing it, because the customer service doesn't even admit they have a problem.

For those who are curious, the emails between me and their customer service is attached below.


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societys_child

Oh, dear . .

TemporaryUsernameMay2020

What rights do you have? Who do you think you are, the Provisional FCA?

Thrugelmir

First world problem.........