Reward if an Idea is implemented

I think it would be a brilliant idea if an idea from a member of the community was implemented that the member received a reward ie a free share or free month on plus

Donā€™t forget to vote on your own idea. I think this is a great idea. Maybe even a custom badge for the community ā€œBright Idea :bulb:ā€ too.

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The reward is implementation

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If any of these ideas were ever implemented itā€™d definitely be a reward in and of itself. Weā€™ve been waiting for over a year for basic things and thereā€™s seemingly never any improvements to the app, the only changes are to add more nag screens about free shares or agreeing to new terms or other pointless stuff.

Itā€™s not a toxic attitude just because itā€™s something you donā€™t agree with.

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A better challenge would be to reverse this and ask you what genuinely useful features have been voted on here and then implemented? Personally, I canā€™t think of a single feature thatā€™s been changed in the app in the last year, although theyā€™re obviously doing something to it, because periodically basic functionality stops working and then after another hastily released version itā€™s back as it was before.

Most of the features Iā€™ve voted on are to do with having the basic functionality of data export so that I can do my tax return at the end of the year. People have been clamouring for this for years before I joined, just over a year ago. The current status is that you STILL have to beg someone to do it over online chat, wait several days, and then you get basically an unsorted mess of a CSV thatā€™s then ā€œprintedā€ to a PDF file making it even harder to process, and the lines are all jumbled and not correlated to one another (specifically the share purchase and FX costs are on different lines and only the date can be used to correlate them, which is a disaster if you do more than one trade per day). This is just one example, but the fact that Freetrade is the ONLY financial product Iā€™ve ever used that canā€™t even give you a basic transaction list and despite being ā€œworking on itā€ for several years thereā€™s still nothing, honestly thereā€™s no point holding your breath for anything in here.

Anyway, hereā€™s some of the most recent ones Iā€™ve voted on, although I largely stopped bothering reading and voting on stuff in this section of the forum because itā€™s clear doing so makes absolutely no difference.

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I agree, great idea.

I worked for a retailer for 10 years then moved to another, over my 2 years there i had fed back lots of ideas that they implemented saving the company millions. What did I get? Not even a thank you

Moral of the story, donā€™t give up your ideas for free make sure you get something out of it, too

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Just to clear up a misnomer that is often repeated. Just because an idea thread was started XX years ago doesnā€™t mean that Freetrade have been sitting around doing nothing, theyā€™ve shipped a fair amount in that time.

If you were to catch the senior management in a moment of candour Iā€™m sure they tell you they would have hoped to ship more. Building stuff is hard - especially when youā€™re in a regulated environment, working through a pandemic, doubling your staff every X months & onboarding thousands of people a day.

On your tax point, you know this is a weak point in your chosen broker but I assume other features make it the best choice for you - other wise you wouldnā€™t be using them. What donā€™t you log as you go on a spreadsheet, plenty of us do this regardless.

The point @Mattywallace was highlighting (if I can be so bold as to speak for them) is the tone in the community has become far more negative recently and while youā€™re comment wasnā€™t especially bad itā€™s an example of a negative trend.

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In fairness they have just rolled out a desktop version and managed to sort out the nationality declaration so that we can get shares like Rolls Royce.

I think your main issue here is with your statement for tax, I understand your point but I can imagine the work that would need to go into this to roll it out. You have to make a trade off between the app functionality and getting the free trading. I know which I would prefer and a simple spreadsheet would tide you over until the team get the statement side sorted, which I know they will. We all just need to have a bit of patience. Itā€™s impossible to hire staff at the moment and then the team you do have are often isolating, lots of pressure for any new business in the current climate.

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Just to clarify my comment was light hearted. Its not a dig at FT as they have been making minor improvements which I value. Good to hear they have more on the way soon.

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I agree with you @ralf. You are fully entitled to your opinions. If people donā€™t like them that is their problem. So long as your opinions fit within the community guidelines all is good.

IMHO it is bizarre if anyone asks me to cut a business some slack. I am the customer. The business is here to serve me. If the business canā€™t, wonā€™t or is simply incapable I know what to do. Like many others I donā€™t have just one broker.

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100% agree. 100%. Too many un constructive negative posts damages the the good work and interesting options people share.

Maybe Iā€™m different but this community is only partly about the company, itā€™s also about a myriad of other investing topics. The whole community is quieter, less friendly & less useful after the T&C thread, I hope people will come back. Iā€™ve seen large community just die off after an event like this.

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As a newbie some of the things you refer to in the community chats are still a bit over my head. Whilst I appreciate that many of you are very experienced investors, try to remember that not all of us are and some of the jargon and terminology takes a bit to get used to, itā€™s a learning journey for us and if giving feedback try to be positive, some of the comments Iā€™ve read would have put me off asking questions or contributing if it was not for the positive feedback.

I always wanted to buy shares but thought Iā€™d need to invest thousands, then I discovered Freetrade via money saving expert, it is ideal for me because I can buy a couple here and there when Iā€™ve a spare few Ā£ā€™s, therefore I can build up my portfolio slowly as I learn more about the world of shares and investing.

I filled in the most recent survey from Freetrade and had a very positive response and any other time Iā€™ve had to contact them they have been really quick to respond, so far Iā€™ve had a good experience. Just eagerly awaiting my first dividends

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If you just use the GIA and donā€™t have plus, itā€™s essentially complaining about service which is free. If you compare this to the costs you pay with other brokers, itā€™s a huge amount of money for anyone who regularly buys and sells. Any manager will tell you how difficult it is to run a business at the moment, recruitment is a nightmare and other businesses which Freetrade will be outsourcing things to will also be impacted, so it has a knock on effect.

You donā€™t necessarily need to cut them some slack but having an understanding about the difficulties all businesses are experiencing at the moment, highlights why they might be delayed with some of the other requests. Customer service at even large companies is appalling at the moment. We have a while to go before we are back to pre-pandemic levels of service I think.

I also welcome healthy debate, no issue at all, but agree with Neil, things have taken a negative turn in here and there is less discussion.

@NeilB tbf the T&C thing is only part of it. But the management of the company is responsible for what happened. In any case it is not the only thing they messed up with. For example, Comms around the last crowdfunding ā€¦ Going directly against what they claim they stood for.

The community has always gone up and down. Whether the T&C thing is the trigger for the ā€˜downā€™ ā€¦ I doubt it. I for example stopped reading those T&C posts. And many other posts are imo very low quality. But I donā€™t need to comment on those posts. If a topic doesnā€™t interest me I donā€™t see the need to engage with it. As you know I have helped where I could. Afterwards I reduced ā€¦ the same sorts of topics again and again.

I have years of leading technical teams and I know what can be achieved by very small teams. Having lead a major Greenfield project, in one of the worldā€™s biggest fund management companies across countries during the pandemic, I can guess what problems Freetrade has had but donā€™t really want to go there. In the end the customer perspective is all that matters. The rest seriously is irrelevant. Some customers will be happy and others wonā€™t. I suspect the difference in the two correlates highly with the companies business niche.

I want to say that you are an example of someone who has been community driven. And probably without your ā€˜startersā€™ this place would have been duller over the past few months. Thanks for your zeal.

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This will always be the case and some customers are easier to please - I speak for myself here! :grin:

I am a mostly happy customer of Freetrade. When the desktop app is rolled out, I will be a very happy customer.

In the future, Iā€™d like to know what Freetrade will offer for SIPP drawdown.

And thatā€™s it really, everything else will just be nice to have.

The app has already exceeded my expectations.

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Very good point. This was very disappointing.

Weā€™re lucky to have your insight on many topics, I donā€™t think youā€™ve written anything that Iā€™ve not read.

Thatā€™s very kind, thank you. I guess I might have a minority view which is that the community has comes above the company, I have to temper this view to avoid sounding like a super fan at times.

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Agree totally! I am very pro FT and often in the past been accused of being blindly faithful on this forum and I found the lack of an answer to a simple but very important question I asked several times very frustrating as I still have no idea of the situation. Similar, was the last crowdfunding round and I still do not know if I must pay CC a % when I eventually sell my shares. :frowning:

I found the polarisation of the T&C thread unbearable from both sides. If someone doesnā€™t like the subject then donā€™t open it as many never got legitimate questions answered. I found this very depressing having just parted with a large amount of money into the crowdfunding round.

You are right about @NeilB as he has carried the forum during a shaky period :slight_smile: FT should pay him to run it full time and keep us all in order! :rofl:

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In fairness they have just rolled out a desktop version

Have they? so where is it?

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Being tested at the moment but going to be available for plus members soon I understand.

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