Forced Plus upgrade (not actually forced) [Resolved]

Same here. I started my investing journey with FREEtrade and I even recommend it to friends. Given my current circumstances I cannot invest as much as I liked. In my situation Ā£9,99 is just too much. Luckily none of my stocks have been affected as I sold my position long time ago. However who is to say that in the future my stocks wonā€™t be affected? Is it worth for me to continue investing here or is it better to start buying socks somewhere else? Will it all eventually move to Plus?

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Freetrade will use the following to decide which stocks are GIA or Plus:

I personally think thatā€™s pretty fair considering they need to generate revenue

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I donā€™t think anyone objects to certain stocks/features being behind the paywall, itā€™s certainly a reasonable monetisation strategy.

But the problem is stocks moving from free to paid, especially stocks that were launched before Plus was officially announced. It sets a bad precedent, whatā€™s to say that in six months, FT wonā€™t move FTSE 100 stocks behind Plus?

I completely get that the solution to continue investing in those stocks/ETFs is ā€˜just buy Plusā€™, but the cost of that may well wipe out growth, especially in smaller portfolios.

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must say i feel this is a bit bait and switch. The freetrade journey has been one of small buys here and there for me, and by chance i have 4 shares on the soon to be plus list. Total kick in the teeth to log on this morning right after i transferred in a large amount of money from iweb and see this!

Not sure if the plus features do enough for an investor like me to justify Ā£120 a year.

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Thatā€™s fair enough. I agree that the offering of plus (as currently stands) isnā€™t enough for me to justify Ā£120 either. But with the stories of competitors using oversea accounts, loaning out your shares & (actually) bait and switching users from shares to CFDs, the fact Freetrade has clearly explained how they plan on generating revenue makes me more confident using them to invest in and hold my portfolio.

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A similar thing happened with BCPT when it turned into a REIT. Before it changed to a REIT you could buy/sell in an ISA. Then BCPT changed to a REIT and you could only buy/sell if you had existing holdings in BCPT. More recently itā€™s changed again so you can only sell BCPT holdings in an ISA.

I would have thought it makes send to let existing investors buy/sell given Freetrade already has to do extra work to get the 20% credit on REIT dividends, which is the reason why REITs are not included in an ISA ( see this answer: UK REITs in ISAs šŸ‡¬šŸ‡§ - #15 by Gemhappe ).

Anyway, thatā€™s a very long way to say Iā€™d prefer if investors could buy/sell on open positions that were opened before Plus launched ( to avoid anyone signing up for a month buying one share in a bunch of Plus only stocks and gaming the system ).

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Oh - ive invested in freetrade through several rounds so more than confident in them! Think in my case it is pretty rotten luck. Though was really hoping to keep adding to Bacanora through 2021.

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Freetrade Stocks moving to Plus.pdf (74.0 KB)

Made a PDF of affected stocks in case anyone needs it.

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Thanks for the PDF. Jubilee Metals and Seeing Machines are 2 stocks i wonā€™t be able to top up anymore. Will open account with another app and wonā€™t be buying any new stocks on Freetrade again, trust is something i value and FT has lost that.

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A fair amount of shares I hold are in that list, damn! Does anyone know if many of these are free to hold/trade on eToro / Trading212? Maybe Iā€™ll jump ship for those stocks

Why donā€™t you just check yourself?

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They are free to hold on Freetrade. Thereā€™s no holding fee

Surprising, I never thought of that.

I wondered if others had a similar issue and had already looked and/or has any comments about ideas to move across to eToro or T212.

You could have looked twice in the time to write these two messages

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And peoples opinions on changing from Freetrade would come from where? Clearly, youā€™re not answering my question so letā€™s not waste each others time further.

I have three on the list. Iā€™ve no intention of selling them to move them (no reason to do so), as for buying them on other platforms.

For two of them there are already potential equivalents that arenā€™t in plus I could use. Not decided if I will use them.

For the third, maybeā€¦ Iā€™ve reduced my positions on other platforms to reduce risk from those platforms. I may use them for small positions in the future, I donā€™t know. Probably not

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I couldnā€™t agree more.

Real Big shame that these stocks are moving behind a pay wall. Just had a message and a big portion of my stocks are going behind the pay wall. Will likely have to open another account as I donā€™t think I can justify Ā£10 a month

Obviously understand future stocks being behind pay wall but real shame they didnā€™t make the commitment to keep all currently free stocks free

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Iā€™m wondering whoā€™s actually cheaper? The only one I know of Iā€™m pretty much permanently put off by with their handling of their persistent infrastructure issues. Everyone else seems to have a fee somewhere be it an isa fee or trade fee

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Mine too. I had a brief look before but now a further look and Iā€™ve got 4 positions on the list which I was going to add more to. Iā€™ve always found a few stocks that Iā€™d like arenā€™t on Freetrade and thought ā€˜ah well itā€™s freeā€™ but moving to a paid for service for the same experience, thatā€™s a different story. Iā€™m going to purchase these on a more comprehensive broker now as their fees arenā€™t as bad when comparing to the plus subscription cost.