Pension blocked - dispute iDealing/EPML/Suffolk Life

[harrystophanous]

feste - congratulations again - I must say I'm glad you're on my side not the opposition ;¬)
My own case is not quite so successful. I spent much of the day doing the rounds, without meaningful progress. Nobody seems to know what the position is with regard to my account, although positive steps are that 1) my Standard account has been closed and the balance transferred to my bank account and 2) funds have been transferred from my EPML cash balance to the Suffolk account. I have no way of reconciling the amounts moved, although they all seem more or less what I would expect.
Apparently a further letter is on its way from Suffolk, requesting confirmation of intentions, and a screen print of the iDealing/EPML portfolio. As if! I haven't seen my account for over two weeks now. Bye-bye the juicy open offer I've been unable to take up. Fortunately I can recreate the portfolio from my own spreadsheet, although it doesn't have quite the credibility of a print of the original.
The liquidator was more open with you than with me, but the conclusion is the same - the FCA are taking an interest, however modest, in this affair, and I am thus slightly comforted that it will not continue indefinitely.
If my bleatings here contributed anything to your material for the FCA, please don't worry about anonymity - while I've no wish to put details on a public board, I would have no hesitation about making my identity known and providing further information offline should it help to progress the case.

iank - I think the FCA can force the two companies to work together - I imagine that's a condition of their licence - but shotgun marriages are unlikely to be the happiest and I don't suppose it would ever work well for the unfortunate dependents such as you and me.
I've stopped worrying about the transfer charges - I don't like them, and would have wished not to pay them, but if a few hundred pounds will allow me to sleep at night, that's a price I'm prepared to pay. I think one's attitude to the iDealing behaviour depends a lot on how far under or over your investments are from the FSCS limit. In my case, well over, and I'm correspondingly nervous.
Regarding rematerialisation. I was also unfamiliar with the term, but as I understand it, it refers only to the conversion of stock from a CREST database entry into a paper certificate, and vice versa. It does not involve liquidating or purchasing the stock, which is a separate matter. I've never wished to rematerialise a stock - who needs paper? - so have no idea whether charges for this are normal or acceptable, but at least it only involves delay and loss of control meanwhile, not direct dealing charges or share price change risks.
If you decide to stay with iDealing I wish you luck, I decided to switch on the basis that Suffolk has behaved well and iDealing has behaved badly.
harry

[Bigtom]

Hello Feste
Years ago I know but how did you get on with Financial Ombudsman. I have been chasing FO for over a year and received a negative reply today but am taking it further as I feel a lot of people have missed the point. We did not ask Suffolk Life to take over EPM but they did (warts and all) and for them to take a year to transfer out is a disgrace. During the period all my stop losses were cancelled and I was restricted in my trading resulting in over £36,000 losses where stop losses would have kicked in

Tom Henrick

[feste]

Hi Tom,

Sorry for the delay in reply, caused in part by LF's recent outage.

First, I'm sorry to hear about your experience with Suffolk Life. My own experience with them was that they were extremely helpful in resolving a problem that didn't seem to be of their making ie there were apparently documentary deficiencies in the liquidator sale process.
I was helped in my case by the happy coincidence that my MP was Nicky Morgan, who headed the Treasury Select Committee and engaged Treasury and DWP on my behalf, as well as encouraging me in my (already underway) approaches to FCA and Financial Ombudsman. I can't speak to any arm-twisting there might have been behind the scenes, I was given to understand that the complaint of 'Client detriment' was what prompted iDealing's eventual 'blink'.
I should say that - despite my own satisfaction with the way SL handled a situation that I understand was not of their making - I DID shortly after transfer out to another management co (HL), where all facets of custody, management, trustee role and admin are handled within the same group....so at least if there is a future 'misunderstanding', it has to be handled on the spot and the unfortunate client can't be fobbed off or left between two stools.

Hope this helps in some way - and good luck with resolution of your own situation.
ATB