Christopher believed delays in transferring his account stopped him from selling and reinvesting shares, resulting in a significant financial loss.
What happened
Christopher’s share dealing company wrote to him to tell him his accounts would be transferred to its new share dealing platform. It said that customers could transfer to another provider if they preferred, but that share transfers might take up to 12 weeks.
Christopher decided to transfer to a new provider. But instead, the accounts were transferred to the new platform. There was a delay of over five months.
Christopher complained, saying he’d had a plan to sell some shares and buy some others later in the year, around the dividend date. This was over 12 weeks away, so he’d expected the transfer to be complete before then. It wasn’t and the share prices had moved, so he said he’d lost out on over £30,000.
The share dealing company apologised for the delay and offered Christopher £150 for the inconvenience. Unhappy with this response, Christopher brought his complaint to us.
What we said
We looked at the facts. We asked Christopher for any evidence to support what he said were his plans for the shares, but he couldn’t.
We agreed that the transfer had taken too long. But we didn’t think the share dealing company was responsible for Christopher’s loss because he hadn’t told it about his plans. And, although he couldn’t deal online while the transfer was underway, he could have dealt over the phone.
We didn’t think it was fair to hold the business responsible for Christopher’s loss, but we thought it should pay him more for the inconvenience.
So, we partially upheld Christopher’s complaint and asked the bank to pay Christopher £300, instead of £150, for the distress and inconvenience it caused him.