My experience with Charles Stanley Direct - AVOID!

brg190_pete

Long time lurker but infrequent poster.  I want to let people know of my experience with Charles Stanley Direct (CSD).  I was tempted by their cash back offer, but never again!

I attempted to transfer a SIPP to CSD.  My initial transfer request was made on 31 July, in the end I gave up and cancelled the process in mid-October.  In that 2 ½ month period, the first month was wasted with no request being made to the source provider, and the next 6 weeks by repeated promises and failures to send certain due diligence information that the source provider insisted on receiving before transferring funds. 

I spoke and messaged CSD on numerous occasions, but they seemed powerless to actually do anything.  All they could do was pass on messages to Embark Pensions (EBS), who are the administrator and responsible for doing the transfer.  The problem is that my only contact was with CSD, not with EBS, so I could not chase them directly.

I complained to CSD on 5 October.  They delayed their response until 28 November (they wrote that they are experiencing a higher than usual volume of complaints – I wonder why!).  Their response was simply to deflect all blame to EBS.  They wrote “the delays in the progress of your transfer, including failing to send due diligence information….were the fault of EBS”.

I can see there are many negative reviews about EBS elsewhere on the internet.  I have no idea of the quality of service of CSD, as I never got that far, but I would strongly suggest avoiding using them while EBS acts as their administrator.

My SIPP was sat as cash during this process.  The fund in which I intended to invest went up by more than 10% in this period, so this frustrating and pointless saga came at considerable cost to me.  

After I cancelled, I switched to another provider, and the cash was transferred to them in a couple of weeks, showing the process can work efficiently, but not with CSD!

Futuristic

It may well be EBS fault but thats none of your business and you are dealing with CSD so they shouldn't have just been deflecting the blame.

I've just did in specie sipp transfer from HL to CSD and had no issues, both stocks and cash transferred in <1 month and secure messages were responded to within 1-2 days so unfortunate to hear on your experience 

granta

If an option, it's good to do an in specie transfer so you don't lose out on market movements.

My only experience of CSD was for ISA transfers. I've gained a nice lump of cashback and will soon be transferring out now that the tie-in period is nearly over. Each transfer in was quite quick but we will see what happens transferring out!

I was thinking of moving some SIPPs over to make use of round 2 of cashback.

Any complaint re: service should be addressed by CSD not their back office supplier. I've had other providers mention third party providers but they have always taken responsibility for sorting out any issues or a formal complaint.