Should we be worried about our investment?

jem16

pinky13 wrote: »

Firstly, thank you to all who have replied with helpful information.

Judging by the replies to this thread, we do not have a very good deal afterall with our IFA. The question then is, what to do next. Do we instist that they transfer us to one of the cheaper Funds Supermarkets seeing as we are not in the big league - moneywise

If you can contact them, which you seem to be having difficulty with, there is no harm in asking.

and can we make a complaint to any kind of watchdog regarding this?

I doubt any complaint would be upheld. There does not seem to have been anything wrong with their advice and their charges would have been documented to you.

Would it be worth trying to renegotiate the IFA fee if we decide to stick with them?

Again you can only ask. Perhaps if you tell them you intend moving your business away they might renegotiate.

If we decide to go no further with these specific IFA, how do we go about finding a good IFA who isn't going to do the same?

Speak to a few IFAs and find out what their charges are. Avoid the large salesforces (often using 0870 and 0845 numbers) and try to find a smaller firm where you can deal directly with the owner/partner. Use https://www.unbiased.co.uk to find an IFA although you may need to look closely as they seem to be making entries for those who pay bigger and those who don't smaller. It may be the smaller entries you actually want to look at.

We both feel very let down as the IFA was recommended by a good friend who we trust. However, it must be said that said friend has a lot more to invest and is perhaps receiving better treatment due to being a big fish moneywise.

That could be the case.

Is there anywhere where we can seek reviews of IFA's or anything like that?

I'm not aware of anything like that. Usually recommendations can be best but you can't always rely on that as what suits one person may not suit another.

It is important, though, to find a good IFA whom you can trust and who will make your investment work for you. You need a servicing IFA who will look after your investment and not just set it up and never look at it so you need to ask if rebalancing will be done yearly.

Charges are not as important as a good IFA and it would be money well spent if are getting good advice and service.

dunstonh

Transact is not bad advice so you cannot complain about that. However, charges are something you could potentially complain about if they were not disclosed to you. The fact they are more than alternatives doesnt really matter. Tesco may be cheaper than Marks and Spencer etc etc but it doesnt make it wrong. In reality, the product you have is top of the range and is priced as such for you. Plus the adviser has been a bit on the greedy side. If you are not using the features and options of this product then you can get the same investment options for cheaper.

A new IFA could reappoint your transact account to their agency and either amend the charging structure or re-register the holdings with a fund supermarket. (re-reg is normally free of charge). Whether you use a new IFA or use the exisitng one will depend on the conversation you have with them.

pinky13_2

Thanks dunstonh and jem16.

Our main complaint is, like you say, that we cannot get hold of them. I sent them an email asking them to confirm the exact fees a while ago but they have not got back to me. Last time they said it had gone into their junk mail folder. It just doesn't seem very professional. They seem very stretched, have no website and their office arrangements are very simplistic, with no admin person, they do it all themselves, hence I wonder if they have time to even manage our portfolio when they are busy typing letters to clients etc. They are personally very nice people but the whole outfit just seems really ramshackle.

We feel like we are stuck in a bit of a catch-22 situation as we need to know the exact breakdown of things like fees, percentage paid to Transact, whether the sum they give us includes the Transact fee, but when we write to them or call (if we can get hold of them) they just say eventually that they will get back to us with an answer but it either takes months or our precise question is never answered satisfactory. How can we argue their terms/fees if we don't know them exactly (their contract is all in financial jargon and has a very confusing fees section which makes their fees level unclear, hence why we don't know exactly how much our fees actually are :rolleyes:.

They have also sent us someone else's portoflio value by mistake (it didn't have the clients name on it but had their portfolio amount).

dunstonh

They seem very stretched, have no website and their office arrangements are very simplistic, with no admin person, they do it all themselves, hence I wonder if they have time to even manage our portfolio when they are busy typing letters to clients etc. They are personally very nice people but the whole outfit just seems really ramshackle.

Part of what you wrote there applies to most IFA firms out there. IFAs are typically small businesses, often run from home with one or two advisers. Its often referred to as a cottage industry. The larger ones tend to be run more like salesforces and that brings a whole load of different issues.

The problem is that the more professional you run it the more the costs go up. Office and PA costs you £20-25k a year for a simple set up. Who is going to pay that? That doesnt excuse ignoring you but dont look at the lack of website or office as a negative (btw websites bring their own set of problems and costs).

Your problem isnt so much the set up of the firm but the fact they are not keeping in contact and fullfilling their requirements to you. Simple thing is to appoint a new IFA.

jem16

pinky13 wrote: »

Thanks dunstonh and jem16.

Our main complaint is, like you say, that we cannot get hold of them. I sent them an email asking them to confirm the exact fees a while ago but they have not got back to me. Last time they said it had gone into their junk mail folder. It just doesn't seem very professional. They seem very stretched, have no website and their office arrangements are very simplistic, with no admin person, they do it all themselves, hence I wonder if they have time to even manage our portfolio when they are busy typing letters to clients etc. They are personally very nice people but the whole outfit just seems really ramshackle.

As Dunstonh says the smaller firms are usually set up like this and there should be no problem.

The larger firms are usually run like a salesforce with high staff turnover and the likelihood that you never see or speak to the same adviser twice. These are usually the ones looking to have high initial charges and never look at your investment again.

I'd rather go with the small firm where I know I will speak to the same person each time and build up a relationship with that person.

We feel like we are stuck in a bit of a catch-22 situation as we need to know the exact breakdown of things like fees, percentage paid to Transact, whether the sum they give us includes the Transact fee, but when we write to them or call (if we can get hold of them) they just say eventually that they will get back to us with an answer but it either takes months or our precise question is never answered satisfactory.

This is the part I would find unsatisfactory and the reason why you may be better off changing your IFA.