Free Trial!
Today’s Best Stocks To Trade! Click Here
--B.M.
ANSWER: Bradford & Bingley denies receiving your wife's transfer request last August, even though you have told me the form was in the same envelope as your own. Since then you have been sent from pillar to post, even after your wife completed a duplicate transfer request last December.
Finally, she told Bradford & Bingley to forget the whole thing, but staff carried on asking Alliance & Leicester for her savings until they got them.
Bradford & Bingley now has your Isa, so at least its tax-exempt status has been preserved. You can now switch back to Alliance & Leicester.
Bradford & Bingley told me: "If we could go back and change how this was handled, we would."
You will be getting GBP80 as compensation.
Q: I have a portfolio of shares sold to me by GHW Stockbrokers, who are now called Wills & Co.
I bought the majority of the shares from a salesman who was quite strong about their potential, even though he sometimes pushed me over my investment limit.
When checking the value of my portfolio recently I was told that he had left the firm. I pressed for a valuation of my shares and was given vague and not very convincing answers that basically meant they were virtually worthless.
Four holdings were worth nothing at all, even though it was not that long since I had bought them. Obviously I am horrified by this news. I know shares can be risky, but I was relying on advice from Wills & Co.
--D.R.B.
A: You have given me a list of your shares showing that you made nine investments in small, high-risk companies for a total of just over GBP13,000. One rose in value and you made a profit of about GBP1,000. The other eight have been dreadful.
None of this comes as any surprise -- last November I published four separate letters from Financial Mail readers who were also clients of Wills & Co. They also bought shares on the basis of very encouraging advice, but then saw those shares crash and burn.
In fact, I have now received about 50 complaints in total, largely about how Wills talked up the prospects for high-risk shares and sold them to investors who wanted low or medium-risk stocks.
In many cases, Wills itself, or a connected firm, actually owned the shares it was selling. It had bought them on the cheap, added a huge mark-up and them dumped them on trusting customers.
An investigation by the Financial Services Authority ended with Wills being fined GBP49,000. A report drawn up by Georgina Philippou, one of the FSA's top Enforcement Division officials, spotlighted a sample of 17 deals and concluded: "In all of the 17 transactions reviewed, Wills & Co did not pay due regard to its customers" information-needs as it communicated largely cursory risk information, which did not give due prominence to the higher risks of the securities."
Without warning its customers, Wills charged up to 66 per cent more than the firm paid for the shares. And on top of this, it misled them about charges and let its salesmen do what they liked to clinch a deal.
I asked Wills about the shares it sold to you and it admitted that "these stocks were not suitable."
The result is that Wills has now refunded you GBP10,480, plus 5.50 per cent interest backdated to the time of each investment.
Wills tried hard to convince me it no longer operates in the same way as when you were a client. That's good news, but I would be more convinced if the firm reviewed all its past sales to customers like you without waiting for me to intervene. It seems its reputation is still worth less to it than the profits it made from its mis-selling.
Q: I bought a new flat from Barratt Homes with completion on June 30, 2006. No attempt was made by the company to collect ground rent and I heard nothing until last November when demands arrived from a company called Simarc claiming I owed back rent from October 2005.
I disputed this, but then paid up because the demands were intimidating and I was frightened of them sending in bailiffs.
I believe I have overpaid by GBP323, but Barratt Homes ignore my letters and do not return calls.
--P.W.
A: Barratt Homes sold the right to the ground rents to a company called Freehold Portfolios GR Limited, whose sister company Simarc collects the cash. But there were two things wrong with the demands you received.
For a start, you bought your flat on June 30, 2006. Before that date it was still being built and was the responsibility of Barratt Homes. In addition, when you bought the flat you paid Barratt Homes a sum to cover the six months of maintenance charges and ground rent, clearing you of all liabilities up to January
I asked Barratt Homes to look into this, and the housebuilder quickly confirmed that there were no arrears. According to the company it sold Freehold Properties a number of ground rents and yours seems to have been mixed up with a different address. Simarc has agreed and you now have a complete refund.
Q: I bought a Norwich Union endowment policy in 1986 from, I thought, the Halifax. However, 20 years later I discovered that it had actually been sold to me by a third party and not by Halifax itself. I have even gone back to the premises in Knutsford, Cheshire, where I bought the policy and the Halifax sign is still there.
--Mrs. A.J.G.
A: The policy you took out is likely to show a shortfall, but Norwich Union says it is not responsible because you bought it through an independent adviser in Knutsford.
However, you believed Halifax was the adviser. After all, you walked into what you thought was a Halifax branch and you were advised to have an endowment mortgage supported by a Norwich Union policy.
Halifax has given you the name of an advice firm called J E Webb, which was an agent for by a third party and not by Halifax itself. I have even gone back to the premises in Knutsford, Cheshire, where I bought the policy and the Halifax sign is still there.
Halifax, just like the firm that occupies its premises today.
It was not a Halifax branch, though, and as your 1986 policy pre-dates the official compensation scheme, I am afraid there is nowhere else left to turn.
THE UPDATE FILE: Big-name insurers are shying away from Vehicle Seller UK Limited, the east London company I wrote about last week. The firm contacts people who advertise their car for sale and charges them GBP99 on the promise of introducing them to buyers, but complainants say that no buyers ever appear.
Vehicle Seller boss Kieran Cassidy's previous company, Vehiclematch, was wound up after the Government's Companies Investigation Branch found it had lied to customers. Vehicle Seller claims on its website that it is affiliated to household-name insurance companies including Budget, Churchill, Privilege and Halifax.
Esure, which manages Halifax Car Insurance, told me: "We will be de-affiliating them." While Churchill and Privilege said: "We are in the process of trying to get our brands removed from their website as soon as possible."
Only Budget has stuck it out, saying it would "review the agreement if there were any concerns."
To see more of the Financial Mail on Sunday, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.financialmail.co.uk. Copyright (c) 2008, Financial Mail on Sunday, London Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
More News:
Market Updates |
Stock Alerts |
All Trading News |
Stock Index
About TradingMarkets | Contact | Advertise | Careers | Link to Us | Site Map | Help | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy | Return Policy | Testimonials | Feedback
