Candid Money: User Reviews

Rating Key
Rating	Meaning
1		Awful
2		Poor
3		Ok
4		Good
5		Exceptional

Service: Pension (SIPP) Product: Vantage SIPP

Review by worriedguy submitted on 08 March 2017

Likes: Easy to navigate the HL website to track investments. This is clear and uncomplicated

Dislikes: None I can think of.

Service Rating:
Value Rating:
Overall Rating:
Recommended?

I transferred two private pension funds into a Sipp with HL last December(2016). The procedure was an easy one and relieved me, as I worried about complexity understanding their systems of buying and selling investments. This is proving simple to do with good clear record keeping and investment watching is very straight forward.
For me one of the bonuses has been their excellent telephone manner, patient and reassuring assistance .
A good place to start a SIPP.
Signed
Worriedguy

Service: Discount Broker Product: Vantage Fund Account

Review by hdeakin299 submitted on 29 April 2015

Likes: Good range of active funds and equity investments :Good informative website : Could fit well into the pantheon of platforms :Very prolific with fund information : Good range of collective investments available with discounts for active funds

Dislikes: Platform charges are not the cheapest :Value of discount sometimes hard to assess :

Service Rating:
Value Rating:
Overall Rating:
Recommended?

This review will focus on a possible role for active funds with higher charges than some other investment alternatives.My "ad hoc" collection of "bits and pieces" that I hold under the HL platform did OK last calendar year so I have no immediate plans to tidy it up . Conceptually it does need a tidy up but I don't want to tidy up and lose money so I am taking my time about any possible tidying.About 4 or 5 years ago I threw out a file I had on active funds as I felt they were too expensive . Since then the charging structures for platform investments has changed . And the cost distinctions between active funds and the rest is not quite as clear as it once was.But if I wanted to reintroduce active funds back into my portfolio what are the relevant criteria to use to select the ones to use?

1)Geography : recently I have seen financial articles that indicate that active funds do better (as against passives) in some continents (Europe for instance) : so geography plays a part.

2) Charges : Nowadays I have no idea as to how I am doing in relation to the half of one percent maximum charge target/goal I once used to cover both platform and investment charges : with this target in mind anything "overall" (both platform and investment) that charged less than half of one per cent was good and anything over this was bad . I suspect charges have gone up since those days so I have had to relax a bit in this regard and be a bit more flexible.But still I would like average charges across the board to come in around this figure and I expect this will be a constraint on the way I use so called smart trackers because most of these will come in above this figure when both platform and investment charges are added together.

3) Uniqueness and non replicability

So this gives me 3 criteria to use? The idea is to use these to make a sieve or "STRAIN" ! . This "strain" idea was originally to be a kind of "cheesecloth" strainer which sieved out and strained any active funds that charged more than the equivalent ETFs and Investment trusts and the idea was to end up with "a kind of " "essence of active" high performers which justified their higher charges by excellent performance and by always exceeding the returns of any nearly equivalent ETFs and Investment trusts : the drawback to this approach was that it "boiled down to" "taking a punt" on what was likely to excel. The main aim of the "sieve" was to find any investments that were not available elsewhere (active funds have an advantage here as there are loads of them) and if there was any doubt to "waive through" any that had very reasonable charges. I was a hard subject to implement but I decided that I would at least think about it ,and if eventually I implemented it , it would probably be the HL platform that I used .

But a least 2 things got in the way of this approach . Firstly my existing "bits and pieces" that I had with the HL platform did OK so there was little incentive for me to change things . And secondly it was quite hard to get this "sieve" working properly as the information just did not seem to be at hand. But recently the financial press coverage has been kind and I am beginning to get a better idea of what "essence of active" should look like.Maybe by next year , and in time for next years ISA allowance , I will be ready to make my move but it could take longer!

Ali Hussain in last weeks Sunday Times gave me a few ideas in an article called "Long term investors should look for the small wonders" . So over the next year or so I will be gathering up ideas along these lines. I am in no hurry as this approach can be implemented gradually .And , of course , I have to allow myself plenty of time for this : so I know I can "take the strain" !

Service: Pension (SIPP) Product: Vantage SIPP

Review by hp9investments submitted on 15 February 2015

Likes: £200 cap in holding shares and ETFs

Dislikes: Expensive to hold funds

Service Rating:
Value Rating:
Overall Rating:
Recommended?

If you have more than £40k in your SIPP, HL is very competive to hold shares and ETFs because of the £200 annual fee cap. However, the opposite is true if you hold open funds or unit trusts.

Service: Discount Broker Product: Vantage Fund Account

Review by hamlet submitted on 03 June 2014

Likes: Plenty of useful info. on site & in lit.

Dislikes: Become too big for its boots & bad for the customer !

Service Rating:
Value Rating:
Overall Rating:
Recommended?

I've used HL for 14+ years & slowly switched all family investments into their hands for online convenience but boy do I now regret it !
They have become slower & slower in dealing with transactions that are not a simple buy/sell instruction to the point that now instructions given online are not acknowledged but, if you are lucky, acted on after phone calls & secure message enquiries.On the phone I was told it is not their policy to acknowledge instructions & if I wanted to take it any further to write to complain.
When they failed to tell me of the progress of ISA transfers from another broker to them I had to phone again after a month had passed to be told it was the fault of the other broker & I should be patient for another month ! 2 weeks later I checked with the broker who currently had the ISA & was told they had sent all the necessary info to HL 6wks earlier but had heard nothing back from them.
I wrote a formal letter of complaint to their Senior Clients Service Manager as advised on their website & literature where they boast "Most emails answered within 4 hours, most letters within 24 hours".Three weeks & one further phone call later, I am still waiting for any kind of response !
Despite this abysmal service I face a penalty transfer fee of £25 per stock if I want to escape them & move to a more responsible broker !
Once they have got their claws into you all they are interested in is selling you more stock.
BEWARE !

Service: Pension (SIPP) Product: Vantage SIPP

Review by yashvir submitted on 16 February 2014

Likes: good web site although next to useless research tools

Dislikes: extremely expensive not worth a look

Service Rating:
Value Rating:
Overall Rating:
Recommended?

Service: Stockbroker Product: Vantage Share Account

Review by doodles123 submitted on 22 November 2013

Likes: compared to previous brokers used cannot think of any good points

Dislikes: Difficult to follow their page layout .

Service Rating:
Value Rating:
Overall Rating:
Recommended?

I am annoyed today because I bought into AGM at 470 and it came up as filled at 475 this morning . I have just logged on mid afternoon and run through my open trades to find it now states that I bought in at 488. I know about mid price but it previously stated 475. Is this honest or what? Looking for another broker now.

Service: Discount Broker Product: Vantage Fund Account

Review by romansing submitted on 20 September 2013

Likes: Slightly cheaper than other brokers

Dislikes: Poor website and repeatedly fail to execute orders

Service Rating:
Value Rating:
Overall Rating:
Recommended?

I have used many websites in the past but the one Hargreaves Lansdown have is bizzarely strange to navigate.
I have had two failed orders in two weeks costing about £2500 in loses. The first they explained away and I cant proof. But the second happened today and they again tried to fob me off stating the limit price was only momentarily reached. Luckily I saw the daily FTSE cart for the stock and it had again exceeded the limit price by quite a margin and for over an hour with very large market size. When I confronted them with this they backtracked and admitted there was a mistake.
I'm still out of pocket until it is rectified. Worse still, they may try to ignore the loss. I cant trust them anymore and will be looking at a better broker even if costing me a little more.

Service: Discount Broker Product: Vantage Fund Account

Review by milo55 submitted on 30 April 2013

Likes: customer service , vantage is easy to use online, fund research and investment times excellent, overall one of the best financial companies i have dealt with

Dislikes: not the cheapest , but well worth-it for the truly excellent customer service

Service Rating:
Value Rating:
Overall Rating:
Recommended?

Service: Discount Broker Product: Vantage Fund Account

Review by Uffin submitted on 27 March 2013

Likes: Informative website, efficiently run with plenty of fund information. Good telephone reply service.

Dislikes: Fees may now on the high side compared with more recent fund platforms.

Service Rating:
Value Rating:
Overall Rating:
Recommended?

Service: Pension (SIPP) Product: Vantage SIPP

Review by mickz submitted on 20 September 2011

Likes: Good selection of funds, efficient admin, good website and fund information

Dislikes: Doesn't rebate trail commission

Service Rating:
Value Rating:
Overall Rating:
Recommended?

Just moved my SIPP from H-L to another broker that does rebate some of the Trail commission.

I liked everything else about H-L, They've been efficient in their admin and their website is informative and easy to use. I've been put off by the dealing charges and annual fee for shares, so have kept just to Funds. If they ever rebate commission then I'll be happy to move my SIPP back to them

Service: Discount Broker Product: Vantage Fund Account

Review by Mickey submitted on 08 April 2011

Likes: Customer service is exceptional, phone calls answered quickly by knowledgeable and friendly staff. Speed of transactions is first class, website is the best I've seen in its class.

Dislikes: Cost of Share and IT transactions too high.

Service Rating:
Value Rating:
Overall Rating:
Recommended?

The best online broker I ever had was American Express Sharepeople, what a shame they exited the market as until I found Hargreaves Lansdown the others were a pretty poor bunch that all lacked something, either it was slow transactions, poor comms or shallow selection of funds. Since moving to H-L we haven't had a problem, excellent service.

Their website is the best I've seen for a fund supermarket, transactions are smoothly executed in double-quick time and you can always see where your holdings and cash are, new cash deposited is available immediately for investing.

Costs are very low, we usually pay no initial fee plus get some trail commission rebated. The only issues I have are (i) the share dealing fees are too high for an execution only service and holds me back from IT's. Having said that, H-L is primarily about funds so I can understand why they concentrate on keeping those costs lower. (ii) Troy Trojan is only available in the 'I' class rather than the cheaper 'O' class.

There is no charge for ISA's which is great, that is unless you wish to hold Shares or IT's then your ISA charge shoots up to 0.5% per year with a max charge of £200, that's still £200 more than needs to be paid at other online brokers though.

I often look at other providers but have found no justification in moving from H-L, if they do reduce their transaction costs and ISA fees for IT's then I'd be happier but comparing them to the market I have to give them 5 stars overall.

Their marketing bumph is just that but at least it does keep you up to date with new funds etc, I take it for what it is and ignore their Wealth 150 which is just another sales pitch - I mean come on guys, how can you put so many new launches straight into the Wealth 150 and how can you keep so many dud funds in there, example - anyone holding SVM Global for as long as the Wealth 150 recommended has lost a lot of money. Yep, take the marketing stuff for just that and you'll find that it's easy to ignore.

So, H-L remain my first choice for online fund dealings and hopefully their high standards will continue to bring increased competition and higher standards from others.

Service: Discount Broker Product: Vantage Fund Account

Review by serendipity submitted on 16 April 2010

Likes: Good discounts and lots of helpful information

Dislikes: Too salesy at times for my liking

Service Rating:
Value Rating:
Overall Rating:
Recommended?

I've been with Hargreaves Lansdown for a few years now and on the whole I'm very happy. Their service is efficient and discounts good compared to others. My only reservation is that their information and research have been increasing salesy lately, I hope this isn't a trend that will continue.

Reviews for Hargreaves Lansdown