The Cashback for Bank or Investment Accounts Discussion Thread

bioboybill

Yes, it does seem to be strange how this works perfectly for 90% of us, but 10% get told you need to transfer to USD (and still don't get it). The CS seems to be hopeless. I'm willing to wait 10 days in the hope of getting the £500, but I'm expecting a loss now.

bioboybill

And I've lost a few quid to exchange rate movements since putting the money into USD.

bioboybill

Oh well. Looks like I'm getting shafted then. I have gone back into my account and checked all my answers on registration, and they were all correct, so no idea why it hasn't worked.

Nick_C

Same situation as @Altior

Finally got a call from eToro at 10:20 this morning (call was booked for 09:30).  Difficulty understanding agent who had a strong foreign accent.  Followed up with a KYC email.  I've now provided a video selfie, answered some irrelevant questions about "third parties", and uploaded bank statements from three different banks.

I think my problems arose because I funded eToro from NatWest using Open Banking, but tried to withdraw to Chase. 

Anyone else trying to game eToro - make sure you withdraw to the same account that you used to fund eToro initially. 

I am planning to invest for real in the new financial year, but I would not have anything more to do with eToro,  Their customer service is atrocious.

Altior

Nick_C said:

Same situation as @Altior

Finally got a call from eToro at 10:20 this morning (call was booked for 09:30).  Difficulty understanding agent who had a strong foreign accent.  Followed up with a KYC email.  I've now provided a video selfie, answered some irrelevant questions about "third parties", and uploaded bank statements from three different banks.

I think my problems arose because I funded eToro from NatWest using Open Banking, but tried to withdraw to Chase. 

Anyone else trying to game eToro - make sure you withdraw to the same account that you used to fund eToro initially. 

I am planning to invest for real in the new financial year, but I would not have anything more to do with eToro,  Their customer service is atrocious.

I used two bank accounts to fund in my name, BUT it wasn't why I didn't receive the bonus. I did try to withdraw back to the source account, respectively. 

There actually doesn't appear to be an evident reason why the bonus wasn't triggered for me. Both the possible culprits I came up with (using the GBP wallet to fund, and not using the button on the Home page) have been ruled out by other users doing those things and still receiving the bonus. 

But what I did do, when it didn't work the first time, I tried funding again from another one of my GBP bank accounts. So at one point I had £10K. It didn't work, so at that point I called time on the project and tried to withdraw back to the same accounts. The first one went through, the second one to take the eToro account back to £0 also went through, but the funds never arrived and the transaction was eventually reversed, so back to having £5K in eToro again.

So I believe the two things occurred independently. I didn't get the bonus [unknown reason] but because I tried different methods to get it to come through, that involved two bank accounts, I triggered a security block on the account. That part is understandable (whilst very annoying), but I suspect I will never get to the root cause of why the bonus didn't work for me in the first place. 

tg99

wmb194 said:

tg99 said:

For anyone who is planning on keeping the £5k in etoro for the 90 days in a money market fund, which one are you using? I can’t see QUID as being available on etoro so may do CSH2 though will need to check the spread during market hours to decide if worth it (especially as think etoro spreads might be a bit wider than on likes of II, HL, Fidelity etc based on a few shares I checked on Friday).

I'm using ERNS.L iShares GBP Ultrashort Bond UCITS ETF. The indicated price on eToro was way off but the actual price when executed was as per the live price I could see elsewhere.

To avoid fees, make sure you change the dropdown in the execution dialogue box to tell it to use your GBP wallet to make the purchase.

Thanks. As I think the ‘default’ eToro account is the USD account I wonder if the distribution payments from ERNS will be paid into that thus incurring fx fees or into the gbp wallet? There may be a setting where you can select which wallet for distributions to go into? 

clivep

eToro...

Just to echo the warning... don't try to withdraw funds to a different a/c to that used for funding. This will trigger an AML (Anti-Money Laundering) check and you'll have difficulty getting the money out.

On Friday, I used open banking to pay in from NatWest (1st time doing this but wanted to speed up the deposit). I withdrew to the Bank of Scotland which I had already set up as the payee (COP verified). A few hours later the money appeared back in the eToro a/c.

I then had a text from NatWest to call their fraud dept. urgently. I went through the routine of confirming I knew what I was doing. They confirmed it had been a AML check from eToro and they would be letting eToro know the funds were OK.

I then set up my NatWest a/c as a payee and later tried sending funds, only to get an error message saying to try later.  I've tried again numerous times over the weekend to no avail. So it would appear that eToro have not updated my a/c with the AML result from NatWest.

I've decided to leave the funds in eToro for 90 days. As no interest is paid on GBP balances, I thought of investing it all in the ERNS ETF. I've been trying all morning to try to discover how to use my GBP balance and do the trade in GBP to avoid foreign exchange fees, but the option to use GBP is not there. I've tried downloading the app but then get the same result. I've seen a YouTube video on how it should work but I don't get the option to change from $ to GBP.

I'm currently thinking it's because my funds are still frozen and not available for investing.

Altior

clivep said:

I'm currently thinking it's because my funds are still frozen and not available for investing.

Yes I added a snippet to a post of mine this morning:

Update email:
Please note that until we receive this information, access to certain features of your GBP account (aka eToro Money account) will be temporarily limited, and your eToro investment account will be limited, so that deposits, withdrawals, and opening new positions will not be available.

'limbo' sounds about right!

wmb194

tg99 said:

wmb194 said:

tg99 said:

For anyone who is planning on keeping the £5k in etoro for the 90 days in a money market fund, which one are you using? I can’t see QUID as being available on etoro so may do CSH2 though will need to check the spread during market hours to decide if worth it (especially as think etoro spreads might be a bit wider than on likes of II, HL, Fidelity etc based on a few shares I checked on Friday).

I'm using ERNS.L iShares GBP Ultrashort Bond UCITS ETF. The indicated price on eToro was way off but the actual price when executed was as per the live price I could see elsewhere.

To avoid fees, make sure you change the dropdown in the execution dialogue box to tell it to use your GBP wallet to make the purchase.

Thanks. As I think the ‘default’ eToro account is the USD account I wonder if the distribution payments from ERNS will be paid into that thus incurring fx fees or into the gbp wallet? There may be a setting where you can select which wallet for distributions to go into? 

Good question; yes. it looks like it. I cannot find any settings to tell it to direct dividends/interest to the GBP wallet.

ERNS.L is due to make its next distribution on c.26/06/26 so it shouldn't be a problem, either we'll be long gone or there'll be plenty of time to sell in advance of the ex-dividend date, c.11/06/26. An advantage of ERNS is that there's usually no ERI to worry about either.

"When you buy a non-US stock using your USD account, or receive non-USD dividends, the CFD FX rate is used for the conversion. This rate includes eToro’s spread fee for the relevant currency pair."

https://help.etoro.com/s/article/does-etoro-charge-conversion-fees

Nick_C

JP Morgan Investing (formerly Nutmeg) currently have an offer for new customers only on Top Cashback.  

Invest £5,000 or more, or make an initial investment of at least £500 and set up a monthly Direct Debit of £100 or more for at least 2 months.  Cashback = £75.

Also, once you have signed up with JPM, you can get a £100 Amazon giftcard for referring a friend.  (They occasionally double up the value of their referral offers.)

(I opened a Nutmeg S&S ISA for an Avios offer about 3 months ago, and got a £200 (enhanced referral bonus) for referring my partner.  I like the app, and JPM are easy to deal with.)

Alternatively, you can get 10,000 Avios for a £500 investment  if you go directly with JPM.  (10k Avios is worth more than £75 if you collect Avios anyway and know what you are doing.)   https://www.personalinvesting.jpmorgan.com/avios  If you don't value Avios, you can convert 10000 Avios to 10000 Nectar points, worth £50 in Sainsbury's/Argos.