"The last straw"

I have been a Selftrade customer for over 12 years, and whilst the website and service was never excellent, it was always acceptable and caused few real problems.

The last year has been abismal. My wife and I both have separate Selftrade accounts with dealing accounts and investement ISAs. The 'new' website is absolutely appalling and very very rarely works properly. About 70% of the time I am unable to transact and buy / sell the shares that I want to and the website gives me an error. For the past 4-6 weeks however, I have been unable to trade AT ALL on either account as my account is 'locked for trading'. Having called Customer Services this morning (not for the first time I hasten to add) they informed me that it isn't really locked, but that this is just a website error that they are 'working on as a priority' - however this 6 week outage would suggest that their priorities are slightly different to mine! Yet, they are still billing me for a quarterly platform fee!

This is the last straw and I need to leave Selftrade to find a new broker as I can't take any more. Leaving them sounds like a terrible process as well, given some of the reviews on this site!

"It takes days just to transfer money into your account"

It takes many days just for them to acknowledge that a transfer of funds has been made fron my bank account to theirs...it apparently takes their banking/ cash team several days to check it's the same bank account they have registered with them!
Unbelievably slow,bureaucratic and inefficient! !!

"Bad to worse"

Bad to worse - having endured the new website fiasco and put up with the dreadfully slow loading speed when trading, I now find I cannot trade OEICs online. According to staff ot is a known problem, and elsewere on this site it is indicated that it's been occuring for days. Previously I have Selftrade sell all my shares due to a transfer cock-up, and despite recieveing some monetary compensation I have now totally lost faith in this dismal online platform. The one star is for low costs of trading - otherwise it would be a zero stars from me. Equinity, who own Selftrade, provide pension services for the armed forces, so.you'd think they'd get it right!

Got the response below... considering it was one of their own agents who told me there was a continuing problem 2 days ago, I find this response somewhat mensdacious.

"Many different complaints"

Many different complaints with this service. Had to pay £ 380 to leave it after they increased their fees! They sold one of my shares with no authorisation from me. Often can not open the secure messages. No useful market information supplied. Do not give you daily percentage changes on individual holdings. Very poor platform indeed - do not sign up!

"Unable to sell unit trust"

The system did not allow me to place a sell order for a unit trust because the number of units had decimal places (?!).
Customer services failed to ring me back with a solution as promised on 2 days last week. Today I have eventually had my order to sell placed. This is just not an acceptable level of service.
My family have had accounts with Selftrade for 17 years and have been on the verge of moving twice in the past but stuck with them. However, this is the last straw: I find the lack of service and poor functionality worrying, so I am in the process of transferring now.

"'consolidated tax certificate' ..."

They've posted a link to this years 'consolidated tax certificate' into my secure inbox (01.06) but the link doesn't work!
Calling them they say they know and are working on it, but not to worry because a hard copy should be posted.. they don't know when.....
....Idiots

"I used the new website a couple of…"

I used the new website a couple of times today, and it works fine for me. Nice and clear in google chrome, large fonts, and quick response. Prices are cheapest too which is why I’ve stuck with Selftrade. Purple colour is a bit odd but no drama ?

"Should be offering free transfers of accounts"

Very poor website and from 1st July 2018 they are introducing a hefty quarterly custody fee and a postage fee. A lot of messages and also the lists of ones shares are not printer friendly. Due to these new charges customers should be offered free transfers of ones accounts and not just £25 towards it. Selftrade are also always very slow in issuing annual consolidated tax certificates. This results in me having to delay filling in my tax return.

"This is by far and away the worst …"

This is by far and away the worst platform I have ever used/seen. The platform is dreadfully slow - they even have 'spinning' wheels (that spin a lot)...
There's too much scrolling and too much white space. Clearly whoever (allegedly) designed this platform has never been near a trading/investment platform. In fact I'd be very surprised if this wasn't a first project. I honestly think the Selftrade platform was written for when we had dial up, it's that bad. Myself, and many others, have complained from day one how terrible the site is but to no avail. Many fellow investors have now left. I have set up with a rival (H.L) who have a terrific platform.
What really irritates me, is the fact they ask for feedback then totally ignore any. What sort of imbecile designs a trading platform that logs you out after 15 minutes of inactivity???!!! You spend much of your trading day logging in!!! Still this they deem satisfactory and have repeatedly ignored my request. I'm running down my investments, liquidating, then getting the hell out! Equiniti should hang their heads in shame how they treat their customers. If you are a shareholder then you really need to question management here. I have been with this company for 25 years, executing 10000s of trades. They've ruined a really good platform for no apparent reason - well we all know what really goes on in the world of business but that's another story. As head of this outfit, shame on you Guy Wakeley.

PS Don't reply below with your copy and paste rubbish. Heard enough of it. My advice steer well clear of this platform, there are lots more out there that are cheaper and far better.

"Beware of sharp practice and new fees on existing accounts"

Good platform with access to a large amount of funds, research etc., but unacceptable approach to introducing new fees. We have two Child Trust Funds / Junior ISAs and Selftrade have now introduced an annual fee for the first time. At the same time they are not willing to waive the fees charged for transferring the account to other providers, which are not insignificant. Very sharp practice and totally unacceptable