Clueless rival broker doesn't know which LSE stocks are stamp duty exempt

[James101]

One of Freetrade’s rivals does not appear to understand which LSE listed stocks are stamp duty exempt and which ones should be charged SD. I don’t know how long this has been going on for but I had the same circular argument with them about IAG shares a few years ago. Customer service is totally clueless and gives blank stares.

I noticed a couple of other stocks they were incorrectly charging stamp duty on last week (including one instrument I was trading), and notified the broker. They said:

“If you were incorrectly charged the Stamp duty, we will act accordingly and will update you via email as soon as there is a reply.”

As no money was ever refunded I sent an email reminder yesterday. This morning I received the response:

They literally have no idea what they are doing. Does anyone know how I can report this to the FCA?

[finki]

Not sure how exactly you report them but interesting to know why they didn’t pick up any errors during the cash reconciliation they are mandated to produce daily. Any cash break (ie your stamp) needs to be rectified immediately under Fca rules. If this story is true it’s a customer service failure but also a failure of client cash rules. If this is true this is a breach they need to report.

I’m curious to see how this turns out

Good luck

[anon810895]

Whistleblowing

Should be able to do it via here.

[the_czar]

Post on their forum and raise the issue as there might be others facing the same problem.

[Yas]

If you’ve raised a complaint and they have “closed” it with this reply, you can raise it with the financial ombudsman.

Also, whistleblowing is a good option if they are actually doing this intentionally to keep the tax for their profits. If they have actually paid this tax to the government, they will have a large remediation programme to claim back the tax and reapply it to all their impacted clients accounts.

[Dave (Dave Smith)]

Are you sure Plus500 should be exempt? They are main Market now, not AIM?

[James101]

It is a foreign incorporated company, just like IAG. It should be exempt. Other brokers know this

[Dave (Dave Smith)]

OK fair enough, just checking

[finki]

Suffering with Trading212s ‘robot like’ customer service now myself

They seem to struggle executing trades of stocks with thin liquidity that operate on the LSEs SETSqx segment.

My initial orders I saw going into the order book and execute when the auction process kicked it and the book ‘uncrossed’ (hence Q X - quotes and crosses)

When trying to sell … D’oh… no order ever hits the order book, the pending order sits in the app all day

Customer services - Standard ‘batting away’ response.

Point out their issue - Standard ‘it’s not our fault, sometimes AIM stocks do this’

Tested a few SETSqx stocks on FreeTrade - straight through. Purchase and sales.

[anon810895]

@finki

Suffering with Trading212s ‘robot like’ customer service now myself

Yeah I’ve had this when I asked to close my account. Ended up with this rather funny exchange. I wouldn’t go for robotic but certainly random.