Sharewatch problems/confusion

great to see. i would like to use the service asap.

How/Where are the shares held?
 
I ve dealt over the phone with sharewatch and share certs a few times. I 've had occasion to phone Scotland once or twice because my cheque was a bit late coming (over a week to 10 days later than expected I think looking back ) . The reason given was that the buyer had delayed paying them which didnt really seem like a valid reason to me at the time because surely my deal was with sharewatch and not with any third party buyer?
I sold Irish Life and Perm at around 22/23 around December/January and the buyer might have felt a little bit sick when they went down to 18/19 almost the next day.
But over all Im very happy with sharewatch and am not here to slam them at all and in fairness I thought the staff were courteous and pleasant and the whole process of selling was quite easy and not a rip off.


Like the previous poster, I'd also like to know how are shares held if I buy ones which dont have share certs such as an ISEQ etf ? In this case do I need to open an account ?
 
sign said:
The reason given was that the buyer had delayed paying them which didnt really seem like a valid reason to me at the time because surely my deal was with sharewatch and not with any third party buyer?
Click to expand...

Just to clarify a point here - when you are dealing with a stockbroker he/she is working as an agent for you not as the other side of a transaction (in some cases if a broker is dealing on his own book he will be the other side of a transaction but there are separate exchange rules around this). If there was a late settlement, as you seem to be implying, then there should have been an interest claim lodged against the delaying party.

If the broker was cross-selling on his own book, and not going to the exchange then it is possible that a buyer delayed settlement and once again an interest claim could have been lodged.

My guess is that the amounts involved were tiny and any interest claims minuscule and not worth the effort
 
sign said:
Like the previous poster, I'd also like to know how are shares held if I buy ones which dont have share certs such as an ISEQ etf ? In this case do I need to open an account ?
Click to expand...

To answer second part - I belive your shareholding will be held on CREST (the settlement system) in an individual CREST account. This is for Irish, UK and US shares. If you elect not to have a CREST account for US shares then your holding will be held in a Nominee account in Merrill Lynch or at KAS Bnak, depending on the security traded.

BTW I have no connection with Sharewatch and got all the info from searching the Sharewatch site and the internet - anyone else could have done the same!
 
I called the Sharewatch office in London yesterday to buy some US shares and was told in no uncertain terms that I COULD NOT buy US shares yet. It's getting really annoying to keep putting money into my Sharewatch account and find I can't use it for what I intended.

I was told by the Glasgow office in April that they usually charge £20 to send money back electronically (They waived the fee that time). It's not advertised that you can transfer money into Sharewatch electronically with no problem yet all their transfers back they want £20 - even though they have an account in Cork so transfers could be really cheap.


The infomation left on this site on 29th April directly contradicts my experience when I called London yesterday to buy US shares.

Peter, could you please update us with the current situation?
 
Just to clarify a point here - when you are dealing with a stockbroker he/she is working as an agent for you not as the other side of a transaction
Click to expand...

Ok fair enough. I figured there was some kind of mechanism like this.
But I lacked certainty. Thanks for giving me certainty regarding the procedure.

efm said:
If there was a late settlement, as you seem to be implying, then there should have been an interest claim lodged against the delaying party.
Click to expand...


Im more than implying. I'm saying it was late for a fact but that obviously wasnt sharewatches fault. I didnt get my money for nearly a month but it didnt worry me at the time. I only needed to know that it was on its way.

Out of interest what kind of interest rate would I have been entitled to? Nobody told me about interest penalties. Usually its the other way around where you get told to hurry up and send your details in or risk a penalty.
 
sign said:
Out of interest what kind of interest rate would I have been entitled to? Nobody told me about interest penalties.
Click to expand...

It's been a while but I think that the non-settling broker will be fined GBP£5 by CREST. If claiming interest I think the usual charge is LIBOR or EURBOR plus 100 basis points ie you're looking at somewhere around 5.1-5.3% per annum (which is about 0.000145% per day). For small private client deals interest claims are very rarely persued.

However, like I said it's been a while so I might be a bit off the mark here.
 
I just had a bad experience with Sharewatch. The week before last I transferred a few thousand into my Sharewatch account. As usual I had to ring up since my bank can only send numbers in the reference field so the money sits in the suspense account. The back office person found the money quickly and said she'd put it onto my account straight away. She even had me hold on whilst she did some typing. Hours later the money still wasn't there and I bought some shares. It was only after I complained that they moved the money to my account.

I complained that they hadn't done what they said they were going to do and that it made my account go into the red before going positive again. One of the Directsharedeal people even sent my email to their financial director. I got no response at all to my complaints about their back office people not doing what promised to do. The only result of my complaint is that they charged me €60 for the 2007 annual fee which had not yet been levied.

Make of that what you will.

(Sharewatch or Sharedeal - calls are recorded, if you contact me I will give you the date and time for you to listen to the call records)
 
Are any of you having annoying problems now and again with Sharewatch aka direct share deal? like the following.

* getting requests for payments of shares you purchased even though the cash was in your account to make the purchase?
*them buying (or their computer system) saying you bought 2 lots of shares rather than just one set.
*converting euro into sterling in your account without your permission

The software and your account details sometimes dont match up with what they are looking at on their computer screens in Glasgow??

Its all quite bizarre.
If do dont watch your account very closely things can go amiss...like your cash!

All these glitches are very uncomforting...doesnt give one much confidence in what they are suppossed to be doing.

anybody else had these sort of issues???
 
smiley said:
Are any of you having annoying problems now and again with Sharewatch aka direct share deal? like the following.

* getting requests for payments of shares you purchased even though the cash was in your account to make the purchase?
Click to expand...

Yup...I had that...and I was a first time buyer of shares with them so under their own rules I wasn't allowed to trade anyway without cleared funds up front!

To be honest it didn't bother me too much personally as I am not a regular investor / trader but it seems to me their front and back office systems aren't integrated / referencing each other correctly. What probably happened is that back office or front office used an incorrect account number and the link between the cash and trade was lost (that's my layman's guess anyway)
 
I never get replies to emails, I asked them about receiving annual reports and div's but only got automated tracking response.
Very poor show if they don't reply to registered users emails
 
efm said:
but it seems to me their front and back office systems aren't integrated / referencing each other correctly
Click to expand...

or to put it another way their right arm doesnt know what their left arm is doing!!

As regards the system too, you cant actually buy shares online unless the cash in your account. How could they possibly not understand this and then come looking for the cash which HAD TO BE IN YOUR ACCOUNT IN THE FIRST PLACE to buy the shares.

What are they actually putting in their tea? It must be very strong.

8till8...are you looking for the annual reports and divis etc for e.g. US shares??
Wonder how they handle this?

Quite quite bizarre all this.
 
I had some minor difficulties recently. You may have Euro cash and bought in Sterling or Dollars. The money then has to be coverted. If you ask for the cash office, you will speak to some human being, rather than a machine and they will convert for you.

You cannot buy online without funds in the account, but once you build up a relationship, they will buy over phone for you eithout cash being in place. You than have a few days to make the payment.

I have never eperienced the purchase of two sets of shares instead of one.

If I ever had a problem, I have emailed through the website or direct to one of the staff once I have their email and the problem is sorted out quickly. I do agree that the automated response is quite annoying, especially if the original query is never answered!

All in all, I am satisfied with the service. It is efficient and reasonably priced, plus you have the benefit of CREST rather than the usual NOMINEE holding facility.
 
I have had a few administrative problems with Sharewatch and also problems with incompetent staff. The one major problem I had was in February/March '09 when I sold some shares while out of the country (5 month work-placement). I was delayed in returning my share certificates and had received a number of phone calls requesting I submit them. I did not get the calls as I was out of the country. When I finally caught up with Sharewatch (about 3 weeks after the sale), they told me that because I hadn;t gotten in touch, they had used my money to buy the shares back - in my name, without my permission!!
I presume this is totally illegal, but did not make a stink because I was (and am) so far away. Does anyone know what rights I have in this regard? I return home in July and would like to follow-up on this to the full extent of the law.
 
i would imagine it is perfectly legal. You failed to send them the share certs on time to prove you owned the shares.

It doesnt matter where you where. It was your responsibility to send them the cert.
 
joconnol said:
I have had a few administrative problems with Sharewatch and also problems with incompetent staff. The one major problem I had was in February/March '09 when I sold some shares while out of the country (5 month work-placement). I was delayed in returning my share certificates and had received a number of phone calls requesting I submit them. I did not get the calls as I was out of the country. When I finally caught up with Sharewatch (about 3 weeks after the sale), they told me that because I hadn;t gotten in touch, they had used my money to buy the shares back - in my name, without my permission!!
I presume this is totally illegal, but did not make a stink because I was (and am) so far away. Does anyone know what rights I have in this regard? I return home in July and would like to follow-up on this to the full extent of the law.
Click to expand...
 
Hi,
I also have a problem with Sharewatch. They have sold double the amount of shares I had with them because of overlapping of phone and online trading . How can they sell shares for me which I do not own? Now if the price rises I lose money as in effect I have borrowed shares.
 
how did you do a double trade? Did you do the sale inline and then phone up to do the same one? If so, then the problem is yours.
 
id like to hear from the rep from Sharewatch, a reason why so many securities are never available for online trading?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top