Barclays Stockbrokers move to Smart Investor?

[wilwak]

I think if they issued an apology to customers it would help.

Had I received an apologetic response to my complaint with a promise to improve things then I would have been quite understanding and forgiving.

I tried to use chat and secure messaging yesterday. Both failed.

On a plus note, after 12 working days, I ve just received the proceeds of the tender offer. A relief! It was settled on 29th September and I receive payment on 17th October. :-/

[wilwak]

The other crazy thing is that my wife has had to give her debit card to me following the change.

I used to have access to all her accounts via my login. That is no longer possible.

So, I have to use her debit card to log in and manage her accounts.

I now have to constantly have with me our two debit cards and the chip reader gadget.

My wife no longer has a Barclays debit card to carry. Laughable!

[wilwak]

It’s now a couple of months further on.......

Barclays Smart Investor remains a big step backward from the old Barclays Stockbrokers site but I’m getting used to it and the gremlins seem to have been sorted out. It’s nowhere near as easy and quick to use as the old site and doesn’t have the resources that the old one did. I also really miss having a dealing facility. It’s a real pain having to deposit funds before trading only to find that the price has moved or I can’t buy the quantity that I wanted to. I then have to wait a week to withdraw the same funds.

I decided to try some of the other online Stockbrokers so opened accounts...

IWeb. Very quick and easy to use. Wider spreads than Barclays and doesn’t trade in VCTs so no good for me.

HL. No slicker than Barclays and wider spreads.

A J Bell. No better than Barclays and wider spreads.

I G Index Dealing. Easy to use but crazy wide spreads. Also dividends take the longest to arrive. When asked they said they have to wait for the info from their broker. I thought they were a broker?

So, in conclusion, whilst it’s not a patch on the old platform, I’m staying with Barclays.

I think they’ve changed from being a proper stockbroker to being simply a basic online budget dealing facility. With the old system if I tried to place a large trade I had a call from a real person within minutes trying to negotiate it. They really were slick brokers. Not any more. Just a machine.

[wilwak]

env said:

I ended up moving to Charles Stanley direct - good service and much like the old stockbrokers one... really set up for equity holders. Customer service is exceptional, much better than Barclays Glasgow centre even.

The transfer out of Barclays has not been smooth - check your dividend payments and holdings in non vanilla things - mine were wrong and this has delayed the transfer. Barclays has moved to and underlying fund platform and for me it is still not working the way I need it to.

Moving my family and wife's account once they have settled down and transfer times are back to "normal"

Thanks for the tip. I’ll take a look at Charles Stanley Direct.

All very frustrating indeed.

I dread commencing a transfer. I agree that it’s best left until things calm down!

Edited by wilwak on Sunday 31st December 16:19

[wilwak]

Ok. So I decided that IG Index Broking wasn’t for me. Wide Spreads and very slow dividend receipts. Their spread betting is excellent but not so keen on the dealing.

On 4th January I initiated a stock transfer from IG to my main account at Barclays Smart Investor.

Initiated online in my Barclays account and mailed in the signed authorisation form same day first class.

One week later I get an email asking me to please mail in the form. I phoned them and they said it hadn’t been received. Could I send again? I did.

It’s now nearly a week later and they still haven’t received the form so I’ve sent another today. The third.

Blimey! Is it Royal Mail or Barclays?

The second one I sent tracked and signed for but Royal Mail are having technical problems so the tracking just shows a ‘system error’.

I was beginning to think that Barclays had put the worst behind them. Maybe not.

When I phoned up customer services the adviser seemed quite astonished that I was transferring ‘in’! It was as if he’d never dealt with an ‘in’ before.

So, hoping attempt three may actually get the transfer moving! I’m not holding my breath.

[wilwak]

It’s now a week since Barclays would have received my third attempt at sending in the documents. Still showing as ‘Documents incomplete’.

I reckon they must have a huge pile of mail that they haven’t got through yet.

The annoying thing is that two weeks after initiating the transfer they sent me a letter to remind me to send in the signed forms!

Yes, I found the IG share dealing a bit poor. After waiting for two weeks to receive a dividend to arrive I messaged them and they said that dividends will only show when ‘their broker’ paid them! I thought they were a broker. The spreads were far wider than Barclays. No doubt because they operate through a broker and both need a margin on deals.

Back to Barclays.... I have about 50 holdings and I dread transferring out. They’re making a botch of two simple one stock transfers in. I’m stuck with them. Not good.

Maybe transferring in to old fashioned paper share certificates is the best option!

[wilwak]

It’s now six weeks since I initiated transfers of my holdings from IG Index and AJ Bell to Barclays. Still waiting.

I opened dealing accounts with AJ Bell and IG to try them and purchased one batch of shares in each in the same stock.

After finding wide bid offer spreads and slow accounting for dividends I decided they were no better than Barclays so initiated transfers back to Barclays for simplicity.

Both A J Bell and IG received transfer requests from Barclays over three weeks ago but the share remain in their accounts. Are all these brokers as slow??

I’ve since opened a Charles Stanley dealing account on the suggestion of this forum and it looks good. Feels like a real broker. Promising.

Regarding Barclays..... I was shocked that dividends now seem to have started being accounted for on the day they are paid! Amazing. A significant improvement over the old days. So, I do have some faith that Barclays are working hard to sort things out and improve.

It may be a case of Better the Devil you know.

The worrying thing is these people are looking after our investments. How can it take more than six weeks to transfer a single share holding between brokers electronically? Unbelievable.

I wonder who will win this transfer race? IG or AJ Bell? Same share and same size holding. Six weeks in and no winner yet.

Much longer and I’ll have to take the bid offer hit and simply sell up and move the money instead. Very frustrating.