There was once upon a time when Britain had a reputation for diplomacy and pragmatism, but I guess that died with the generation before the boomers who are in charge of things now. This seems like a slow surrender, a bizarre interpretation of Taking Back Control. While I didn’t agree with Brexiters, I could see there were values there – but oh how easily they are tossed aside. The FT has a point that Brexit is a cargo cult for gentlemen of a certain age.
Hardly any of today’s Tories actually remember Britain’s golden age of ruling India and winning the second world war. Even the party’s ageing members are merely the children of the Dunkirk generation. Economically, they have been the luckiest cohort in British history. But they and many other Tory MPs feel the shame of late birth. They disdain the UK’s tame, vegetarian, low-stakes, Brussels-based, post-imperial incarnation, which in 70 years offered nothing more glorious than the Falklands war. Now they have their own heroic project: Brexit.
A collective incompetence seems to have afflicted the British body politic. Usually before going somewhere it pays to work out what the preferred destination is, whereas at the moment we are stuck with an ‘anywhere but here’ narrative. The parallels are more with the Psychology of Military Incompetence
arrogant underestimation of the enemy, the inability to learn from experience, resistance to new technologies or new tactics, and an aversion to reconnaissance and intelligence.
Although there’s much to be said for the drunk’s adage that to go there you wouldn’t start from here, it’s possible to envisage a successful Brexit, either in terms of the economy and some sovereignty or in terms of sovereignty and repelling immigration. Sadly at the moment we seem to be headed for a general clusterfuck that will cheer nobody at all. Drafting a view in government of what a successful Brexit looks like would be a damn good start. At the moment I am reminded of Chuck Colson’s poster
If you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow
and at the moment the sack-holder isn’t anywhere near London by the looks of it. Get a grip and get a clue, guys.
A few years ago something bad happened to the ISA platform III that I was with. Presumably they were taken over by some hedgies yelling at them to sweat the assets. They came to the conclusion they weren’t making enough money off the punters after the Retail Distribution Review pissed on their fireworks hiding platfom fees as OEIC class variants, so they jacked up their fees wildly. So I cleared off taking my shares with me to TD Direct, who have served me well over the last five years. But now the big bad wolf is back, since III, realising they still weren’t making any money, decided to come along and buy TD Direct, and impose their ugly inactivity – punishing fee structure on them. They call it simple, clear and fair, well, it’s simple enough and it’s too bloody much. Not much has changed since my 2012 summary of their attitude
Here is a message from the CEO describing just how we are going to obfuscate our previously simple offering to you. We will obscure things by bundling some services, charging more for others and complicating the process of comparing our charges with other ISA providers. Of course we are going to make out that we are doing you a favour, but basically we want you to trade a lot more often so as we get more money. Geddit? No, well, what we will do is charge you for two trades a quarter, constraining what you can do, and enticing you to churn more. Oh and we’ll wrap it all up in fluffyness of how we believe in the stuff we’ve been forced to do. Unfortunately, Mr Ermine, you weren’t using any of the funds that we were stealing some of the proceeds from every year, because you identified them as a ripoff. So you get to take the shaft, this time, buster. That OK with you? Because if not you know what you can do but it’ll cost ya. Bwahahahahahaha
Pretty much rinse, repeat – I was happy with TDs costs – basically now’t if you do now’t[ref]ETFs and shares – I got right out of funds in TD when they started charged platform fees to hold them[/ref], and £12.50 per trade. As opposed to £90 p.a. with III, which is reduced if you trade often enough. ‘Cos that’s where money is to be made for III, on the turn, they want to nail you in transaction fees or in annual fees.
End of October I requested a transfer to iWeb, and TD Direct acknowledged this by email on the 1st November.
We’re sorry to hear that you’re looking to move the assets you hold with us today but we’ll work closely with IWEB to ensure your transfer is completed as quickly as possible. If you change your mind and decide you’d prefer to stay with TD Direct Investing, please let us know and we’ll look after this for you.
Moving is a big step
We know that moving your assets is a big decision and we want to make sure you know what to expect during the time it takes IWEB and ourselves to complete this for you. Please take the time to read through the points below so you know what’s involved. We won’t charge you for moving your assets to another provider but it’s worth checking to see whether IWEB will charge transfer or exit fees if you decide to move your assets again in the future.
Things to consider
• Some providers will only accept cash transfers in pound sterling (£). If IWEB will only accept pound sterling (£) you’ll need to convert any cash you hold with us in other currencies before we can move your cash. Foreign Exchange (FX) rates will apply to all currency conversions you carry out.
• Transferring assets can take up to 6 weeks, sometimes longer, depending on the complexity of the investments being transferred but we’ll work closely with IWEB to make sure this happens as quickly as possible.
Since then they have done diddly squat, to the extent that IWeb sent another letter saying they hadn’t heard from TD Direct on the 24th. Which pretty much confirms my initial feelings about III from five years ago – shysters. From this thread on MSE I’m not the only one to be taking the shaft here.
The RDR has been a bastard from my point of view – I was mainly a shares/ETF sort of guy and was quite happy to pay my way in buy/selling costs and for the massed ranks to pay for their free fund buying/selling via the various kickbacks on funds/OEICS. The information was out there that you were being ripped off annually in charges, and if you couldn’t be bothered to learn about it then I figure it’s fair enough. Whereas the shares proposition was always that you pay for activity. Not churning your portfolio was the win there. In other words don’t do this:
bunch of contract notes from two years of my dotcom days
Then the RDR came along and said it isn’t fair that the sheeple are being gouged, so we now have this problem of platforms being incentivised to make their punters churn their portfolios to generate some transaction fees, and changing their fee structure to try and catch people out. It’s a little bit like the way regulation of the power market means you have to shift supplier every few years, because all the best prices are aimed at new customers. The FCA come along all self-congratulatory and say that early signs are that the RDR is working, well it sure as hell ain’t working for me. I was quite happy for the fund buyers to pay their hidden platform charges, after all if you don’t want to pay annually then shares and ETFs are your friend 😉
You see the background radiation of the old system in the new charging structures. Platforms made their money on fund kickbacks, so they didn’t charge for buying or holding funds. They didn’t make money on shares, so they charged transaction fees on shares. Now that they don’t make money on fund kickbacks, they charge annual fees just for having funds, and just because they can, they extend this ripoff and charge annual fees for shares. The likes of Hargeaves Lansdown at least have a little bit of shame about that, inasmuch as they cap their annual fees on holding shares at £45, while fees are unlimited on funds until you reach £2 million assets under management. HL would actually be half the price of iii for my ISA, as their charges on shares and ETFs top out at assets of £10,000 under management, but £45 is still too much to charge for inactivity. The one greatest lesson I learned in investing is the power of sitting on my backside. Time in the market is your friend. I don’t want to be paying for it.
UPDATE 27 Nov 18:00
III have acknowledged the poke about the transfer and say
Dear [griping mustelid]
Thank you for your secure message in respect to transferring your ISA account to Iweb.
We have received the transfer form – transfer reference nnnnnn and we are due to send a statement of your account to Iweb. Due to a spike of activity in the transfer team, transfers are taken longer than normal to process but I will make them aware you have been in touch so they can expedite this for you.
I can assure you that as we can see you have already requested a transfer out, you will not be expected to pay the fee. If your account is still open in January just email us again at this time and we will waive or refund it.
Should you have any further enquiries, please do not hesitate to get in touch again. Our response time to secure message is usually 1 working day, although in times of high volumes we may take up to 5 working days.
to this
There was once upon a time when Britain had a reputation for diplomacy and pragmatism, but I guess that died with the generation before the boomers who are in charge of things now. This seems like a slow surrender, a bizarre interpretation of Taking Back Control. While I didn’t agree with Brexiters, I could see there were values there – but oh how easily they are tossed aside. The FT has a point that Brexit is a cargo cult for gentlemen of a certain age.
Simple Living In Somerset 