Thanks for your concern Eden, itās fine as it wasnāt a lot of money and I wanted to catch up with my SIPP elsewhere. I know it is a waiting game, in all honesty I was out of market already because those funds were sitting there getting eroded by inflation. Iām glad that I did because I probably would have been still waiting.
Having the same issue with transferring a SIPP. The conversation flow went from me transferring out to the customer service rep asking me about a transfer in. Days with no replies and conflicting information makes the whole thing hugely frustrating. Requested the Transfer out a few weeks ago now and zero progress has been made. Yet again waiting days for a reply, as are II to get this moving.
8th March - Submitted a request to new provider to transfer ISA out of Freetrade
22nd March - First contact from Freetrade
Now itās 8-10 weeks since initiating the process and still waiting.
Made numerous attempts to get an update but am being passed from one member of staff to another - like everyone else here understand this isnāt an overnight process but Iām getting no updates and have no idea how much longer it is going to take.
Freetrade is still advertising 6 weeks for stock transfers, despite clearly being understaffed or uninterested in transfers out.
I requested my ISA tranfer on Feb 15th to Interactive Brokers as a in-specie transferā¦They still havenāt completed the transfer and made zero progress yet.
After all my complaining . My posts being deleted by FT because they want to hide how bad they are
I was informed my transfer would be completed by the end of last week ā¦
It hasnāt
Iām very worried seeing people requesting transfer outs 3 months ago and still not having any progress made. Iām a month in and Freetrade has refused to respond to the email i sent back telling them i want to transfer in cash despite sending several emails.
The in-app help will only tell me iām on a list of transfer outs and unfortunately they have so many people leaving that they have a big backlog to get through. Iām an investor in freetreade but lost faith as they havenāt developed the web app at all after its beta release. Seeing people not being able to transfer out for 3 months is making me think somethingās happening behind the scenes.
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Obviously, reading such stuff worries me too seeing that Iāve requested my transfer and the money still hasnāt left my Freetrade ISA account. However, Iām still only on day 22 I think it is. On 1st June, Iāll contact Alex as heās kindly offered to follow up and hopefully it will be resolved at that point.
If not, then Iāll make an official complaint, which is very important to do as only following that can you turn to the Financial Services Ombudsman and even then only 8 weeks later. If it reaches that point, I will be asking for compensation. Both for unnecessary ISA monthly fees paid and also lost investment opportunities.
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Well I submitted my request on 3 April (the date my new provider submitted their request on my behalf). So thatās around 40+ days - way over what I would expect a cash transfer (no in specie) to take and over what the financial ombudsman recommends).
Even just some updates from Freetrade and an admission that things are slower due to demand would help somewhat. Iāve had no contact and theyāve not contacted my new provider either.
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18th of March for me and still nothing.
Why are FT holding our investments against our will
There is something seriously not ok with this company.
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Iām going to do an analysis today as to how the money will perform if I withdraw it and put it in a GIA- equivalent. It may be that, if itās not likely to reach the Ā£1,000 dividend allowance I might be better doing that and then adding it to next yearās ISA allowance. The amount of stress and worry this is causing probably isnāt good either!
This is my concern too. Iāve just done my analysis and worked out that I will lose at least Ā£100 if I cannot get the money by the ex-date for my ETFs in June, this is on top of continuing to pay for the ISA subscription. I will make well below even the Ā£500 dividend allowance for next year, never mind the Ā£100 for this year so Iām going to think for the rest of this morning but it looks like withdrawing the money and re-investing in a non-ISA investment equivalent is the best option now. All it means is Iāll have more to add to an ISA next year.
Hi everyone,
I wanted to post here to give a bit more context around transfers (both in and out) right now and the steps weāre taking to resolve them.
Iām in charge of our customer operations teams, including transfers.
Weāve seen a surge in transfer activity recently and have a sizeable number of cases in progress - both transfers in and out.
The team is working hard to progress cases but currently weāre undeniably not where we want to be.
We know this impacts you and weāre sorry.
In terms of the steps that we are taking to address this issue, we are:
Increasing resource to the team internally
Hiring new team members
Changing our internal processes to make the transfer process more efficient
Investigating how we can automate parts of the process
These initiatives are all underway, but the benefit of them will take a little while to be felt by our customers and our team.
In particular I know that our communication during the transfer process has been poor. I appreciate how frustrating it can be to feel as though you are being kept in the dark, and that we are not helping you or ourselves by not giving you visibility of progress which is being made behind the scenes. This is something that will be changed as a priority.
Transferring between plans by its nature involves multiple parties, so we are not in control of the timescale of the overall process. We hold our hands up that we are not able to progress all cases as quickly as we aim to at the moment, however other providers are also experiencing extended turnaround times.
Once again Iām sorry for the current situation. I understand your frustration. Please bear with us and we will sort this out for you and the many other people wanting to transfer from/to Freetrade.
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Iām afraid this comes too little too late for me. Iāve withdrawn the money and hope to receive it within the 3-5 days that FreeTrade promises. Iāve written to both my new provider and to FreeTrade asking them to cancel the ISA transfer and for FreeTrade to close my ISA with immediate effect.
Having done the analysis this morning, Iāve realised that there is no real advantage to me retaining the tax-free wrapper with a relatively small sum of money, much as it āwould have been niceā and that it will do me more financial harm to have it sitting there and missing out on dividends and time in the market.
I also want the process over with as Iām fed up with stressing over it!
Good luck to everyone else whose sums of money are higher and for whom this wouldnāt work as a solution.
It may be a good idea to stop charging people who are transferring out a monthly fee while your unable to transfer peoples isaās out. My money has been sitting in cash for the last month and seeing people on here saying that have been waiting for over 3 months is incredibly unsettling.
Iām having to send freetrade a complaint in order to start the process off with ombudsman just because i donāt want to be waiting months and months to access my funds. Being charged a monthly fee on top feels like iām being charged to be kept hostage and just adds an extra sting.
I fee llike moneysavingexpert.com should have some kind of warning on their advertisement of freetrade acknowledging people not being able to transfer out.
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Also it may cut down some wasted work and time if Freetrade stops asking me via email if Iād like to proceed with the transfer.
Me initiating the transfer the first time should be enough. Weeks go by and then Iām being asked again if I want to go ahead and why Iām transferring.
I donāt want to have to keep repeating myself or explaining why.
We refund any subscription fees that are incurred after youāve requested a transfer. If youāve been charged youāll get this back.
Best
Alex
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Thanks for this response. I appreciate the time the company has made to respond to those of us who have become worried and frustrated at the speed of the transfer process.
Could you confirm that our investments arenāt sitting around in cash for too long? Ideally the funds should only be sold down into cash just prior to transfer to the external provider. As others have said in this thread, it isnāt ideal for our investments to be out of the market and sat in cash for too long - especially for those of us who have invested a significant amount.
Thanks.
Why would they sell your funds to do the transfer ?
I donāt think thatās how it works.