Barclays Stockbrokers move to Smart Investor?
Discussion
They should have sent you letters with your new customer number and pin number. You set up a memorable word when you first use these.
I've been using the site again today, my opinion currently is that it's terrible, properly dumbed down. 'Smart Investor' is a bit of an oxymoron I think, it's more like 'my first investment site', and looks clearly like it's aimed at people trying investing for the first time.
Try as I might, I can't find any detail on any company that I want to research, there's a fairly basic overview but that's about it. The old site was very comprehensive in this respect.
I've been using the site again today, my opinion currently is that it's terrible, properly dumbed down. 'Smart Investor' is a bit of an oxymoron I think, it's more like 'my first investment site', and looks clearly like it's aimed at people trying investing for the first time.
Try as I might, I can't find any detail on any company that I want to research, there's a fairly basic overview but that's about it. The old site was very comprehensive in this respect.
roughboy said:
I can't even login to their new site. It asks me for characters of a memorable word which I don't have. There is nowhere to set one up either. I have tried for two days to contact them and can't get through even though I was on hold for an hour.
There was nothing wrong with the old site...it worked, so why the hell did they change it?
There was nothing wrong with the old site...it worked, so why the hell did they change it?
Don't put up with this nonsense.
They are a FTSE 100 company with more than 325 years of history, so they cannot claim inexperience.
It is Chief Executive complaint time.
He probably knows nothing about this shambles, or how upset customers are becoming.
By the nature of equity ISAs, there are bound to be some wealthy people amongst the customers, probably just the people, which for business reasons, Barclays wants to keep happy.
If that does not resolve the problems, I hear newspapers, Twitter and Facebook are now powerful weapons, which make boards of directors very fearful.
I dare not even try to login to Barclays. I just hate ineptitude, and to make it worse, they have been the best ISA platform that I have ever used.
Years ago, the worst that I experienced was Fidelity. A total lashup, but at least they eventually realised that good admin was completely beyond them, and arranged for customers to move. They also had the good grace never to debit any fees, but that might just have been their lack of ability.
Edited by Jon39 on Thursday 31st August 12:07
This is what I sent the CEO.
Dear Mr Staley,
I am contacting you with regards to your company’s inept performance when it comes to answering the phone.
You decided it would be better to change your online stockbroking service, from a service that was working perfectly, to what you now call “Smart Investor”, and that this change would take place on the 28th of August; I can assure you there is nothing smart about it at all.
I tried to login on the 29th with the new customer number and password to access my account only to be informed by your systems that I also needed to insert two random characters from a memorable word. Your systems should, so I’ve read, prompt me to set up this word the first time I login to the new service, and guess what, they don’t; it doesn’t work.
I have tried for two days to speak to someone about this. On one occasion yesterday after getting through to someone I was cut off, but facing continual wait times of 40 minutes to speak to someone, I have given up.
I was informed by Facebook Messenger that your lines are open from 7:30am until 7pm. I rang at 6:15 this evening only to hear a message that you are closed, even though the recorded message told me that you are indeed open until 7pm.
I don’t know why I am surprised by your telephone customer service being as bad as it is. I am a mortgage broker and will avoid at all costs to place any business with Barclays/Woolwich unless it is a last resort. Because of your poor customer service, the same waiting times exist when trying to contact your broker helplines. Live chat is very rarely answered unless you are prepared to wait for at least 10 minutes; and sometimes they don’t connect at all.
You need to remember three things. 1) You make money out of stockbroking. 2) You make enormous sums from mortgages. 3) Without mortgage brokers and stock dealing you wouldn’t be as large a bank as you are. With these things in mind, why do you treat customers with such utter contempt.
I appreciate that firms are busy, but the current situation is ridiculous.
Perhaps you could get someone to call me to get this issue resolved so that I can access my account online.
Dear Mr Staley,
I am contacting you with regards to your company’s inept performance when it comes to answering the phone.
You decided it would be better to change your online stockbroking service, from a service that was working perfectly, to what you now call “Smart Investor”, and that this change would take place on the 28th of August; I can assure you there is nothing smart about it at all.
I tried to login on the 29th with the new customer number and password to access my account only to be informed by your systems that I also needed to insert two random characters from a memorable word. Your systems should, so I’ve read, prompt me to set up this word the first time I login to the new service, and guess what, they don’t; it doesn’t work.
I have tried for two days to speak to someone about this. On one occasion yesterday after getting through to someone I was cut off, but facing continual wait times of 40 minutes to speak to someone, I have given up.
I was informed by Facebook Messenger that your lines are open from 7:30am until 7pm. I rang at 6:15 this evening only to hear a message that you are closed, even though the recorded message told me that you are indeed open until 7pm.
I don’t know why I am surprised by your telephone customer service being as bad as it is. I am a mortgage broker and will avoid at all costs to place any business with Barclays/Woolwich unless it is a last resort. Because of your poor customer service, the same waiting times exist when trying to contact your broker helplines. Live chat is very rarely answered unless you are prepared to wait for at least 10 minutes; and sometimes they don’t connect at all.
You need to remember three things. 1) You make money out of stockbroking. 2) You make enormous sums from mortgages. 3) Without mortgage brokers and stock dealing you wouldn’t be as large a bank as you are. With these things in mind, why do you treat customers with such utter contempt.
I appreciate that firms are busy, but the current situation is ridiculous.
Perhaps you could get someone to call me to get this issue resolved so that I can access my account online.
fido said:
Not that impressed so far. I can't even find the company I want to buy shares in!
I used to be able to click on any stock I held and look at the RNS feed for it and the last trades.Has that now gone?
The new system seems very cumbersome. Not geared towards fast easy trading.
I had a dealing limit on my old account so I could deal without depositing funds first. That's also now gone.
All pretty poor.
Yes its grim isn't it. Like many I have heard of reading the posts I have slowly built up to a 6 figure sum that I have played with over the last 8 years learning as I go. Its all been with Barclays which whilst the site wasn't super intuitive, it all made sense, was fast and was all focussed on the job at hand and didn't have the tedious cross selling rubbish I don't want such as sun-dappled pictures of smiling mixed race grannies contemplating their pensions and patronising vignettes about how we are all best saving for a rainy day. it had easy to read fonts, didn't constantly throw me out so I had to log in again - and again - and again and didn't keep serving blank pages that mean I have to hit the back browser button and - guess what ARRGGHHH log in again.
It's hopeless.
I gather its going to take 10 weeks to transfer out so I am simply going to leave my ISA there which I don't adjust anyway and I'll simply bed and Hargreaves Landsdown my shares which is a right bore, but I feel completely unable to trade currently - thank goodness provident financial happened when it did and not now.
HL just seems the biggest hence my choice - if anyone has a recommendation for an alternative that has that vital "ten most bought and sold trades today" functionality. Please post it here.
It makes me so angry as this is such a needless act of Hari Kiri and takes loyal victims with it
Cobalteer said:
It's hopeless.
I gather its going to take 10 weeks to transfer out so I am simply going to leave my ISA there which I don't adjust anyway and I'll simply bed and Hargreaves Landsdown my shares which is a right bore, but I feel completely unable to trade currently - thank goodness provident financial happened when it did and not now.
HL just seems the biggest hence my choice - if anyone has a recommendation for an alternative that has that vital "ten most bought and sold trades today" functionality. Please post it here.
It makes me so angry as this is such a needless act of Hari Kiri and takes loyal victims with it
I gather its going to take 10 weeks to transfer out so I am simply going to leave my ISA there which I don't adjust anyway and I'll simply bed and Hargreaves Landsdown my shares which is a right bore, but I feel completely unable to trade currently - thank goodness provident financial happened when it did and not now.
HL just seems the biggest hence my choice - if anyone has a recommendation for an alternative that has that vital "ten most bought and sold trades today" functionality. Please post it here.
It makes me so angry as this is such a needless act of Hari Kiri and takes loyal victims with it
Agree.
It is interesting now that we now have access to forums, that I can make a decision to move my business (been with them since the 1980s when they bought Charles Schwab, system and customers), even without experiencing the pain of trying to login, or attempting to telephone them (which I would not bother doing anyway).
Yes HL looks a possibility, and it appears that they have an annual fee cap at £45.
I often use their website for figures etc., and find it works very well.
Would be interested though in any comments from any HL self select equity ISA customers, just in case there might be some unknowns.
'ten most bought and sold trades today' functionality.
Intriguing - you make me wonder whether you might be a 'one of the herd', or a 'contrarian'. I tend to be the latter, but only during market crashes.
Edited by Jon39 on Thursday 31st August 17:55
I too have been with them since the Fidelity and Schwab days.
I'll also give the new site chance to grow on me before taking transfer action but so far I haven't been able to find any of the data that I used to use regularly on the old site.
I agree that it seems to be a site targeted at the novice investor rather than a regular sophisticated investor.
Speed is important with trading.
Last week prior to the switch they removed all trading limits.
I spotted a purchase I wanted to make. Rather than carrying out a deal in a few seconds and then have the funds collected by direct debit on settlement day automatically I had to go through a procedure that took 30 which included a call from my debit card to verify the deposit transaction. By the time I bought the price had moved.
Two days later I spotted a similar purchase. Again deposited the funds but when I came to trade I was told that a price could not be offered for the value I wanted to invest. So, I abandoned the trade and requested a withdrawal of the deposit that I'd just made. However it says that I can't withdraw funds until they clear which is 7 days after the deposit. The transfer then takes a further 3 days.
So, if I pay money in by debit card it then takes 10 days to get it back.
Maybe the dealing limit was a unique feature of Barclays stockbrokers and maybe I won't find anything similar elsewhere but it was a very useful facility to offer valued customers.
I'll also give the new site chance to grow on me before taking transfer action but so far I haven't been able to find any of the data that I used to use regularly on the old site.
I agree that it seems to be a site targeted at the novice investor rather than a regular sophisticated investor.
Speed is important with trading.
Last week prior to the switch they removed all trading limits.
I spotted a purchase I wanted to make. Rather than carrying out a deal in a few seconds and then have the funds collected by direct debit on settlement day automatically I had to go through a procedure that took 30 which included a call from my debit card to verify the deposit transaction. By the time I bought the price had moved.
Two days later I spotted a similar purchase. Again deposited the funds but when I came to trade I was told that a price could not be offered for the value I wanted to invest. So, I abandoned the trade and requested a withdrawal of the deposit that I'd just made. However it says that I can't withdraw funds until they clear which is 7 days after the deposit. The transfer then takes a further 3 days.
So, if I pay money in by debit card it then takes 10 days to get it back.
Maybe the dealing limit was a unique feature of Barclays stockbrokers and maybe I won't find anything similar elsewhere but it was a very useful facility to offer valued customers.
Glad I came across this, I am furious with the way the cut-over has been managed and will be moving two significantly sized portfolios away from them because of this.
I cant log in. I have not been able to log in since the cut-over. I have all my details but it claims I have been set-up with a memorable word. I have never had any other Barclays products. Even Barclays staff dont know how to get around this. They are having a think about it and will get back to me. Which is fantastic on a frequent trader service.
The phone lines are jammed, the Barclays Stockbrokers staff overwhelmed, it is a farce.
Goodbye Barclays Smartinvestor, hello Share Centre.
I cant log in. I have not been able to log in since the cut-over. I have all my details but it claims I have been set-up with a memorable word. I have never had any other Barclays products. Even Barclays staff dont know how to get around this. They are having a think about it and will get back to me. Which is fantastic on a frequent trader service.
The phone lines are jammed, the Barclays Stockbrokers staff overwhelmed, it is a farce.
Goodbye Barclays Smartinvestor, hello Share Centre.
env said:
Glad I came across this, I am furious with the way the cut-over has been managed and will be moving two significantly sized portfolios away from them because of this.
I cant log in. I have not been able to log in since the cut-over. I have all my details but it claims I have been set-up with a memorable word. I have never had any other Barclays products. Even Barclays staff dont know how to get around this. They are having a think about it and will get back to me. Which is fantastic on a frequent trader service.
The phone lines are jammed, the Barclays Stockbrokers staff overwhelmed, it is a farce.
Goodbye Barclays Smartinvestor, hello Share Centre.
The big problem is that given the current chaos I dare not initiate a transfer to another provider. It would be an accident waiting to happen! They must be overwhelmed with transfer requests.I cant log in. I have not been able to log in since the cut-over. I have all my details but it claims I have been set-up with a memorable word. I have never had any other Barclays products. Even Barclays staff dont know how to get around this. They are having a think about it and will get back to me. Which is fantastic on a frequent trader service.
The phone lines are jammed, the Barclays Stockbrokers staff overwhelmed, it is a farce.
Goodbye Barclays Smartinvestor, hello Share Centre.
Ha ha!
I've just tried to make a withdrawal of cash direct to my linked bank account.
Got a bit green tick saying "Withdrawal Complete" together with a red error message saying "You need to be logged in to perform this transaction".
Of course I was logged in!
You think they'd have tested things maybe?
I'm seriously worried about having my investments with them.
I've been taking screen shots!!
I'm wondering whether to put some of my long term holdings in to share certificates again!!
I've just tried to make a withdrawal of cash direct to my linked bank account.
Got a bit green tick saying "Withdrawal Complete" together with a red error message saying "You need to be logged in to perform this transaction".
Of course I was logged in!
You think they'd have tested things maybe?
I'm seriously worried about having my investments with them.
I've been taking screen shots!!
I'm wondering whether to put some of my long term holdings in to share certificates again!!
wilwak said:
Ha ha!
I've just tried to make a withdrawal of cash direct to my linked bank account.
Got a bit green tick saying "Withdrawal Complete" together with a red error message saying "You need to be logged in to perform this transaction".
Of course I was logged in!
You think they'd have tested things maybe?
I'm seriously worried about having my investments with them.
I've been taking screen shots!!
I'm wondering whether to put some of my long term holdings in to share certificates again!!
The site seems to have problems with IE11 I got similar but it worked in Chrome, for a banksite not to work with IE 11 is p*ss poor.I've just tried to make a withdrawal of cash direct to my linked bank account.
Got a bit green tick saying "Withdrawal Complete" together with a red error message saying "You need to be logged in to perform this transaction".
Of course I was logged in!
You think they'd have tested things maybe?
I'm seriously worried about having my investments with them.
I've been taking screen shots!!
I'm wondering whether to put some of my long term holdings in to share certificates again!!
PostHeads123 said:
wilwak said:
Ha ha!
I've just tried to make a withdrawal of cash direct to my linked bank account.
Got a bit green tick saying "Withdrawal Complete" together with a red error message saying "You need to be logged in to perform this transaction".
Of course I was logged in!
You think they'd have tested things maybe?
I'm seriously worried about having my investments with them.
I've been taking screen shots!!
I'm wondering whether to put some of my long term holdings in to share certificates again!!
The site seems to have problems with IE11 I got similar but it worked in Chrome, for a banksite not to work with IE 11 is p*ss poor.I've just tried to make a withdrawal of cash direct to my linked bank account.
Got a bit green tick saying "Withdrawal Complete" together with a red error message saying "You need to be logged in to perform this transaction".
Of course I was logged in!
You think they'd have tested things maybe?
I'm seriously worried about having my investments with them.
I've been taking screen shots!!
I'm wondering whether to put some of my long term holdings in to share certificates again!!
OK so just typed a long message in the secure message system to report the problems ....
You guessed it....
" 6 - Sorry, we're having difficulties with your request. Please call us on 0345 600 2323 (from outside the UK, +44 247 684 2063) and quote error code 6. Lines are open 24 hours a day, every day. To maintain a quality service, we may monitor or record phone calls. Call charges
800040 - Please select your email address. "
An error message!
Call waiting time 60 minutes +
You guessed it....
" 6 - Sorry, we're having difficulties with your request. Please call us on 0345 600 2323 (from outside the UK, +44 247 684 2063) and quote error code 6. Lines are open 24 hours a day, every day. To maintain a quality service, we may monitor or record phone calls. Call charges
800040 - Please select your email address. "
An error message!
Call waiting time 60 minutes +
I have noticed that PH is not the only forum discussing the inept and shambolic action by Barclays.
Could not see any reference to it in the weekend business newspapers, but give it time.
There was all that guff sent to us by post, but we do not really know the true reason for them implementing these changes. If it was what those letters said, and the technical changes have been as unsuccessful as has been experienced by so many (presumably all) of their customers, then all they have to do is reverse the changes. We all agree that up to the 28th August, they had an excellent IT system, excellent admin and very good telephone assistance.
Presumably, by continuing to infruriate their customers, there us more to this behind the scenes, than we have been told.
Having anticipated the all too common IT muckup and having read about your dreadful experiences, I have not even tried to login.
However, if I needed to do a transaction, then I would be hopping mad.
One PHer has shown us the letter sent to the Barclays CEO, so now that he us aware, I wonder if any action is taking place.
Wonder if he knows what happened to Hoover, after they tried to ride out their own customer lashup ? Not a happy ending.
How long might it take, for us to find out if our investments are safe, or even be able to undertake a simple transaction ?
Edited by Jon39 on Monday 4th September 15:41
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