Missing share dividends

Catcat2

My aunt has shares in Sun Life Financial of Canada.  In 2019 I contacted Link Group to register a power of attorney, which I was told had happened but they failed to copy all pages of the PoA and so it was not logged against my aunts account.  At the same time I asked if dividends could be paid by bacs and was told that they had to be paid by cheque.
Last year I noticed that my aunt had not have any dividends for best par two two years.  Apparently dividends are now paid by bacs - the telephone operator told me that if they did not get a response from the investor (my aunt with dementia) then they paid the dividends to whatever account was on record.  I discovered that 18 months of dividends have been paid to a bank account which is not my aunt's bank account and Link seem unwilling to address this problem. I have phoned multiple times, written and emailed a complaint, but had no response.  My aunt needs this money to pay for care home fees, and I believe the missing amount is in the region of £1.5K - so worth pursuing.

My question is - given that this is Canadian company and missing share dividends - will the Financial Ombudsman be able to help?

masonic

Are these shares in certificate form, so the payment is coming directly from the company with Link as the registrar, or is it an electronic holding through a nominee?

If the former, then your only recourse would be through the Canadian legal system. If the latter, presumably they are FCA authorised and subject to the Financial Ombudsman Service, as managing investments for UK consumers is a regulated activity. Unless this arrangement was set up while she was not resident in the UK.

Edit: this looks encouraging: https://ww2.linkgroup.eu/share-deal/companies/sun-life-of-canada/

Leading to https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=001b000000MfGcLAAV

Is this what your aunt was using?

fwor

Catcat2 said:

I discovered that 18 months of dividends have been paid to a bank account which is not my aunt's bank account.

Was this bank account ever valid? How did it come to be no longer valid, and were they informed when that happened?