I thought it might be useful to share some recent experience with Freetradeās customer service team.
I opened an ISA a few months ago and I stopped funding my regular account in favour of that.
When FT announced charges, I made the decision to go all in on the ISA. Iād move my holding on my regular account first, then look to do a full ISA switch in the new year.
Things didnāt quite go to plan and I ended up closing my ISA out of frustration. There were lots of little issues that just didnāt feel right but they boiled down to three things:
The amount of time and sheer hassle in moving funds. I understand that FT is new - and that in any event Iād probably still need to do some stuff myself - but the sell down, wait for funds to clear then wait another x days for what should simply be a quick movement of funds between accounts seemed too much.
The security theatre around this. When trying to move money, I was asked to confirm my date of birth and the exact amount I wanted to move. I confirmed my DOB (which is now in the chat history so anyone with access to the app can now see it) and asked if they could just move all the funds. I was told that due to security I had to type out the exact amount. I donāt understand how either of these steps actually improve security.
Finally, there was felt like a lack of empathy and, well, service. At the end, when i offered some (fairly neutrally) phrased feedback on the security, I felt like I was dismissed. When I mentioned that the time taken to move the money (after it had cleared) seemed like a long time, I was told āstandard industry proceduresā etc. Excellent service would be something like āweāre so sorry it takes so long and would love to make it shorterā or something.
Anyway, this isnāt intended as a complaint, just as feedback. Iām an investor, but Ā£3/month revenue that Freetrade could have easily had from me has been passed over due to some fairly basic issues, really. So Iām sharing this in the hope of making things better!
By posting this on here, what are you hoping to achieve? Freetrade are a new company, theyāre learning and trying to develop new and streamlined processes, theyāve only just began actually charging you for your ISA for instance. Why couldnāt you just complain directly to them and give them the feedback that way. Infact you could even have emailed the CEO directly and probably got a reply, thatās how open and transparent a company they are.
Itās interesting to hear how other people are finding the experiece of using Freetrade. It will also allow other people to chip in with their own experiences. This will help everyone see if thereās a one off or a pattern, and hopefully also improve the use that Freetrade can make from the feedback.
For what itās worth, @Peter, I havenāt opened an ISA yet myself, but I have experienced what you call āthe lack of empathyā myself, when I comment about something I wasnāt happy with and thought could be improved. All I got was āweāll pass it onā, not a word of āsorryā. To be fair, in my case another member of staff did later apologise to me, but it does sound like the front line of contact needs better scripts. (Or perhaps Iāve been spoiled by getting used to Monzo levels of empathy?)
Iām sorry if Iāve upset anyone here, that wasnāt my intention. Iām a big supporter of Freetrade and really want them to succeed - I think that talking about some of the challenges is important and leads to better outcomes. But if the consensus of the Community is that itās better not to discuss these things, thatās okay too.
To be honest, towards the end of the process I just got a bit exasperated and asked them to stop everything and to close the ISA. I never actually had the money moved across. I also never transferred my Nutmeg ISA in the end (doing it internally within Freetrade seemed painful enough, do I wasnāt ready for that).
Iāve decided, I think, to see how the ISA product matures and then come back next year, maybe. Iāll stick with Nutmeg for now (my probably bad maths has my portfolio roughly at the tipping point where FT is about the same cost/month).
Perhaps @Gemhappe or someone can comment on the ISA transfer process better, but from what Iāve heard itās very manual and process heavy. There arenāt any nice standard switching APIs and streamlined processes like with current account switching. Itās really as easy or difficult as the incumbent ISA provider makes it (and they dont have much incentive to make it easy).
Of course , Iām a Freetrade apologist, but I think a lot of this probably isnāt actually FTās fault. I totally agree they should have made that clear and apologised themselves if its true.
Ah ok, transfer from regular to ISA. Yeah, that seems like something FT should have full control over and should aim to make it very quick and painless. It should be very easy for someone to switch to a paid part of the product. Hopefully theyāre listening.
I donāt understand people having a go at companies for asking too many security questions or being too strict on security. In most cases theyāre literally just following the law and itās outside of their control.
Anyway, @Peter, surely youād want stringent checks when it comes to something like this?
Spot on Cameron. Asking to confirm an amount in Ā£ or type a date of birth to help verify something wouldāve taken a lot less time and effort than a rant on here.
Agree. While I am sure that Peter has a point, the security part is not up to debate. When banking with HSBC, every conversation with any of their services involves telling them my DOB, even if you go to the clerk to make account changes.
Thatās not security. Thatās security theatre. Youāve already gone through security to get into the app. Not to mention you could view the date of birth by just looking at other messages.
@Pedro1 itās feedback. I can tell youāre a fan of Freetrade, as am I, but donāt let it blind you to actual issues.
Iām not sure I personally take Peters post as a rant. The security point is probably a case of the way some people have more history with banks asking for these details over chat than others where this wouldnāt have been widespread even just 3 years ago in my experience.
The whole first post seems to me to come across as exactly how I view freetrade and this community on the whole. Open for constructive discussion and willing to listen to issues others may have had to resolve then and or increase the understanding of them in the first place?
