Tried to go all in on an ISA. Ended up closing the ISA šŸ˜”

Wait, we can now transfer the normal account to the ISA? I thought to ā€œtransferā€ our portfolio from one to the other just meant weā€™d literally have to just sell all of our existing stock and then re-buy it within the ISA account.

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No, itā€™s likely you will still need to sell stock in the basic account before rebuying it in the ISA. But to transfer cash from the basic to the ISA should be trivial.

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Yes you still need to sell your stock, I am currently selling my refer a friend stock to transfer over to my ISA, I sold the stock 2 days ago the money still isnā€™t settled to withdraw yet. Iā€™m not in a rush so I donā€™t mind but I can see how it would be frustrating. A little patience never hurt anyone though :grin:

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Ohh, so thatā€™s what Peter meant. My bad, thought there was now a process of transferring your portfolio (thatā€™d be nice :joy:).

Iā€™m kind of surprised in that case about the security thing. I could understand needing to carry out extra security checks if you were to withdraw a lot of money in one go etc. But what would someone gain from just transferring someone elseā€™s stock from what pot to another on the same platform? Make them suffer by now having to pay a Ā£3 month fee?

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iirc if you sell a referral share you have to wait 30 days to get the money, but assumed that only applied to withdrawing the cash.

But you need to withdraw it to transfer it to ISA :see_no_evil::joy::sob: I did not know it was 30 days I would of just left it there lol it was only 4 quid but thought better have everything in the ISA

On this, just to note that this is the same everywhere. Iā€™ve transferred a S&S ISA twice now (not to Freetrade) and it takes about a month.

In fact Iā€™m about seven days in I think and Iā€™m still waiting for my current ISA holder to acknowledge theyā€™ve received a request. And this is the fast method (no paper forms)

Hi Peter,

Weā€™re really sorry that this has been your experience with our Customer Operations team.

First and foremost, we pride ourselves on the quality of our customer support and weā€™re really sorry that in this case, we didnā€™t live up to your expectations!

Weā€™ll absolutely make sure your feedback is reflected in our ongoing training of our team to also make sure we deliver a consistently great customer experience.

As a side note, cash moves are taking a bit longer than usual at the moment due to the number of requests being processed.

We plan to offer this as a self-serve feature in-app in the future, but right now itā€™s a manual process and does take some time to carry out! :frowning: An alternative would be to withdraw the cash and deposit it into your other account, though we appreciate thatā€™s a bit of work for our beloved customers, too.

The request for your DOB as an additional security measure is simply a quick extra check in the instance that someone was able to gain access to your phone and Freetrade app.

It might seem unlikely and over the top but we take customer security very seriously and consider it important to have this measure in place when a cash transaction is requested.

In terms of typing out the actual cash amount, we ask customers to do this because of the impact that transferring cash in and out of their ISA has on their annual ISA allowance. We agree itā€™s not perfect - we take your feedback on board and weā€™ll look to implement a fun interaction in the app that achieves the same and avoids all that typing from you.

Again, it may seem like overkill but we want to ensure that we are carrying out the customerā€™s exact wishes and taking extra steps to eliminate any errors.

Please drop me a DM if you are open to talk some more, as weā€™re keen to improve this customer experience in the future, and weā€™d love to give you some limited edition swag to make up for your experience!

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What is this ā€œend of processā€? Is it not 1 day selling shares then the next day buying them again? (Excluding the ones that fail to buy)

For some comparison, this is the same elsewhere. Though they have a ISA transfer form/process you can fill out. You still need to tell them how much you are transfering. This is partly from what i can tell so that they can accuratly reflect that in your account while the transfer is underway, and partly to reflect ISA allowance I presume. Though they asked for how much of my ISA allowance I had used up as well, which is more accurate and something i would imagine Freetrade would ask for if they keep track of your ISA usage in the app.

Partially unrelated, but wile the dob may/maynot be security theather. When you ask for confirmation of address (i made a topic on it) that is security theather, and not somthing thats documented that you ask for. Worth a look.

In my experience, it was one day to sell, wait for cash to settle / clear, request movement of funds, then wait for 5 days for Freetrade to transfer between accounts.

Just for clarity, I didnā€™t get to transferring my ISA. Sorry if it wasnā€™t clear but everything Iā€™ve spoken about has been my experience of moving from the standard account to the ISA. Nothing outside of Freetrade.

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Ah I apologies, I read your post wrong then. In that case then, i empathise, it sounds like its one of those freetrade things like sending support messages when you get a dividend, just no technological system in place yet to make the process smoother.

I like that you italicised yet.

Indeed, thatā€™s the operating keyword. For dividends specifically, we just implemented them in the Activity feed and you also get an email with your dividend info. Thatā€™s just the start of course, the development is ongoing, and feedback such as that from @Peter is extremely valuable. Real people use the app, having real experiences with it.

I apologise for the experience, too, and rest assured we strive for much higher standards. Thanks for keeping us on point, Peter.

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I can only imagine theres a very large list on a wall of all the home comfort features waiting to be done or in the works. :smiley:

Thanks @Viktor and @MeghanB26 for taking the time to reply - itā€™s great that we can have this dialogue and I end up feeling more positive about Freetrade from it!

These things are really difficult to get right - and my intention was to help you to really (really) shine. I love using FT so want you to live long and prosper. Not to mention looking forward to a healthy exit in the future - I am an investor after all!

Iā€™ll drop you a DM in a bit! :blush:

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@Peter Thanks, Peter! We really appreciate your kind words, and weā€™ll keep an eye out on that DM. :slight_smile::+1:

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Yes! :slight_smile: Itā€™s basically and inifinite list, so itā€™s more about how to prioritise it, to be honest.

We intend to build an app fit to get a million people into investing. We are lucky to get feedback and be part of discussions such as this one - all of this helps us improve and refine said priorities.

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It took weeks and weeks for my pension to go from 1 provider to HL. I had loads of letters checking and asking for this and that, it was a poor experience. As for security as an accountant dealing with HMRC all the time it has to be like that. Criminals can get hold of all kinds of data, hack phones and so on. Iā€™d be delighted to see the second layer of security myself. HL introduced a user name password and pin a couple of years ago up from just user and password. Yeah itā€™s a pain but thatā€™s the 21st century.

Rules of customer service

  1. The customer is always right.
  2. If the customer is wrong, see rule no.1

How can Freetrade improve this? More communication? Usually thatā€™s most of the issue.
I hope you stay Peter. Itā€™s a startup and itā€™s not perfect. :smiley:

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Letā€™s have some perspective here - I was offering feedback, not slamming the door behind me!

(Also it had nothing to do with an external provider :wink:)

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