Platforms add to grumbles over Towry transfers

Why is Towry able to have the facility to offer ISAs when their chief executive does not know the extent of contractual requests to transfer hundreds of millions of pounds?

There seems to be a constant blame on Edward Jones for delays and no responsibility admited by Towry.

This situation is a massive blight on the financial services industry and Towry needs to be forced to sort it out immediately.

Yes well I had a client who wanted to transfer away from TL so the client asked for certain information about his portfolio - valuation, charges etc which TL did provide in writing - along with an invoice for nearly £150 for providing said information!

Needless to say, as I'm a comission frenzied scumbag as Andrew Fisher would have you believe, I transferred the ISAs at nil cost to the client, no commision to me...........and I paid the TL invoice to boot. Fisher, that is what honesty and integrity is about. That is what trust is about. That is what TCF is about.

Now do the right thing, quit and bugger off to a bank.

Its fair to say that Edward Jones Ltd appears to have been wholly to blame for shutting up shop and leaving a trail of disaster. Perhaps David Cameron should follow in the steps of Barak Obhama's stance on BP and hold the Managing Partner James D Weddle to account.

However, Towry must have known what they were purchasing and has a duty to Treat Clients Fairly something which it is failing miserably to do.

Financial Ombudsman appears to have its head buried firmly in the sand and the FSA don't know there's a problem.

What an almighty mess!

At last, someone with the financial clout that us mere mortal former advisers could only dream of speaks up!

Maybe someone in the FSA will listen now

I will also add, Edward Jones in the US should hang their heads in shame after the way they've treated the clients they left behind.

I'm no fan of Towry but between their own lack of due diligence and the lack of performance of Edward Jones, they have been left in an impossible situation.

They only people that lose out significantly in all of this are the clients with accounts in 'suspended animation'. Fixed interest bonds maturing and the money not being reinvested, situations like BP occuring.

Can somebody somewhere do something about it all please?

The transfers that are being referred to here are those that have started since the takeover by Towry, these are people who want nothing to do with the Towry boxed proposition, for Andrew Fisher to try and blame the delays on EdwarJones is just smokescreening, the truth is that he completely underestimated the amount of business that would heomerage following the takeover, in his conceited world he believed that everyone would love Towry and be happy to pay his inflated charges, but he got it badly wrong and now he needs to accept his errors and get it sorted.

Are we looking at the same article? This is what I see ''The problem started because originally we had to go to Edward Jones in the US and we had no contact details and we just got voicemails,' said one platform.' NOTE 'said one platform'. Anonymously at that.

Fisher is many things but he is not an anonymous platform.

Edward Jones sold Edward Jones Ltd to Towry Law for a £1. This allowed Towry Law to have full control of the company. Towry Law took a risk taking over Edward Jones Ltd. We can only assume that they performed due diligence on Edward Jones Ltd before the sale. If they didn't then they are incompetent if they did then they have to take full responsibility for the risk they took on. I cannot believe that the directors and financial backers at Towry are incompetent - the system would have kicked them out years ago if that were the case. They knowingly took on a high risk keen to reap the potential high rewards that come with it. They also now have to honourably accept the potential high losses that come with high risk. They should write to clients who wish to transfer and admit Towry's failures and tell them exactly what they are going to do to put things right and when they are going to do it.

Also Edward Jones could not have sold Edward Jones Ltd to Towry without the approval of the FSA. The FSA would have also done their due diligence to approve the sale - surely!?

Once upon a time there were 7 little dwarfs: Grumpy, Misery, Footstomper, Cross, Incompetent, Useless and Disgruntled. Off to work they would go and do nothing for most of the day until their bosses lost so much money that they decided to leave and sold the mine to a new owner. Even though the 7 little dwarfs knew they were not allowed to steal from the mine, they tried to do so anyway. But the Sherriff heard about that and gave them a good slap. If they were competent little dwarfs they would simply move on and dig a new mine of their own. But that seems beyond their capabilities, so now they spend their days hiding the Forests of Anonymous Blog, misquoting, misleading and kvetching. The end.

I had the same situation as anonymous 2 however they also charged the client 3% to sell his individual shares.

I just want my cash held on deposit from a maturing bond from January and my mutual funds tranferred to where I want them held, total £150k. After reporting to the Financial Ombudsman in March even they don't answer the phone anymore and I await a response to my written complaint and voicemails!

Folkelore is a strange thing isn't it? the story that I heard is that there were indeed 7 little dwarfs: Bully, Sneaky, Devious, Untrustworthy, Untruthful Dishonest and Andrew. They decided to run a burger van but could not understand why nobody wanted there overpriced, overcooked and poor quality burgers.

So Andrew hatched a cunning plan - why don't we go and buy up everybody else's burger vans and then sell to all their customers - especially when we tell them that the fresh prime burgers they had before were rubbish. And, we can push the price up.

But what he and his henchmen couldn't understand is why nobody wanted to remain on the burger van with them (with the exceptions of Misfit, Village and Totallyeffingstupid). And boy, he could not hack it when other burger vans were set up and customers, of there own volition, wanted to take their trade elsewhere - in there droves.

So with a huff and a puff he contacted the Sherriff of Nottingham to see what he would do, and apparantly they have a meeting next month. But it will change nothing. They are what they are, they do what they do and the customer is always right.

I endorse everything said by Anon 7....do the FSA or Ombudsman care or are they in cahoots with Towry.Surely 5 months delay is tantamount to criminaity?No access to my assets or to cash when needed....I thought this is the reason the FSA was set up.......they do not even lift their snouts from the trough!

Anonymous 2, that pretty much puts it in a nutshell, there is a lot of "he said this" and "they are worse than me" going on here but at the end of the day, the clients can chose who they deal with and no matter who doesn't like it - tough.

if you want to keep clients, be better than the rest - if you can't, then accept you are not going to keep them - if the old EJ advisers treated their clients well, provided they do not instigate the contact or breach any data protection rules - then thats the clients choice surely.

If Towry want to keep the clients - be better and provide affordable effective service,

tale to both - dont throw muck at each other, it makes you both look cheep. concentrate on the client, its them you both say you want so badly

To anon 8 - surely a little bit of bear baiting should be allowed from time to time? After all, i am a fan of "have i got news for you" - serious points delivered in a bit tongue-in-cheek. Besides, we know he works for TL and his comments reflect on his employer. For all you know, i work for the FSA..............

Quite a lot of anonymice on this blog - maybe something to do with having to pick a name that will always be used. Come on Citywire have another think about this. Plus the 'new' site is not an improvement imo.

As for the ongoing saga of TL/EJ it really does look like a monumental ba**s up doesnt it. And where, and where are the FSA? Oh yeah, preparing to play musical chairs as a subsidiary of the BOE.

Seems Andrew has suddenly thought that maybe the change of name has affected things. Hmmn. So loads of transfer requests referring to Towry Law and then a quick name change to dispell the confusion of the company being related to the law. That must be the reason then cos i imagine they have had so many issues in the last 50 years of confused people thinking they gave advice. Sorry, gave legal advice.

I agree about the new system, while a one-click anonymizer button is quick and easy to use, as I am registered with my real name I have to be Anonymous # now. Shame, I quite enjoyed picking nicknames, especially the ones that got under people's skin or provoked more debate.

Back to the subject, as I understand it the remaining time to clear this up is four weeks rather than the months mentioned by these 'anonymous platforms'.

Also that rather than 'droves' of clients leaving it is a very small fraction. But I guess it makes sense, the first thing I think of when I hear the word 'platform' is that oil rig in the gulf spewing out unfettered amounts of pollution to muddy the waters and their only plan so far has to be add some trash to that.

Now that I think about it 'anonymous platform = gushing unsubstantiated data' a perfect fit.

Anon6 4 weeks to sort out, so there is no issue then? Except of course for the clients who have been waiting since January of course, 4 weeks or 28 days is withn the 30 day timeframe, 5 months is not.

It is more likely to be 4 weeks before Towry can advise on timescales for sorting out this cock up. Towry should do a Robert Green and admit they have messed up and will get it sorted - why blame others when a client requests a transfer from Towry and it isn't actioned, complains to Towry and hears nothing and suffers financial loss as a result, then I might be bold in saying so but its Towrys fault.

Also sticking using your BP analogy, your droves comment is akin to BP saying the current disaster is a just a minor trickle and the Americans are to blame anyway. Also I think you mistyped your last part as it would make more sense if you said "anonymous poster6 = gushing unsubstantiated opinion" AKA Towry employee who believes the hype of Mr F.

I comment only with my own opinion. I dislike it when 'advisers' or 'platforms' or anyone for that matter, make accusations that they know are misrepresentations of the truth simply to try to take cheap potshots at someone who chooses to stick his head up above the crowd.

It seems to involve that strangely British thing of disliking success and I can only assume it is based in some kind of envy. Exactly what kind of envy.... ;-)

From the comments it seems that the majority of the bloggers here are male, especially those who make personal attacks on Fisher and/or make comments like these 'Besides, we know he works for TL...' there are two assumptions in those few words that are 100% wrong.

There you go Anonymous 2, consider yourself rebaited! I look forward to a delightful response, do you have news for me? I bet I have more experience with bears (as in Ursus Americanus) and the way certain US banking/investment management systems than you do too.

So yet more evidence against the magnificent Towry. All the while their solicitors keep sending us threatening letters saying they will recover loss of earnings. Well have a go I say - you are not losing anything whilst you still hold the assets, hence the extra £11m you made last year purely on the back of the EJ takeover.

Internal information gleaned from a very very good friend who remained at Towry after the takeover

Recent figures.....£1.5 billion in nominee at takeover, £650 million stayed, £350 million transferred out, £500 million has done neither.

My guess is that the remaining £500 million will have a large proportion that is part of the outstanding transfers still locked up in the system.

Even if only £150 million more transfers out, they've lost a third of the assets.

This is a minority but it is a substatial minority which may grow if the remaining transfers are more valuable.

Very interesting facts from Anonymous 4- i have heard similar figures, also from a Towry Adviser, who wishes he had never joined (targets ratcheted up, increasing pressure to "churn")- sounds like bankassurance tactics, are Towry just Coutts (Fishers former baby) in disguise?- oh sorry, Coutts did not outsource their transfer-out team to HSBC in India like Towry have done!!

To highlight the disarray that Towry are in, i have a client who requested in-specie transfer of her equities back in Feb 2010. Towry proceeded to sell the equities in error. After highlighting the error to Towry- what part of "in-specie transfer" do Towry not understand? they eventually bought back the stock, which resulted in a loss of approx £1,000- via the EJ Transfer Team in US. The client was promised the equities would be transferred within 7 days- we are now 4 months down the line- the client's last EJ statement does not show the stock- nor have they been transferred to the clients new firm. They appear to be in a "black hole" somewhere in India- the client does not know where her dividend payments have gone- nor do Towry! Is this treating customers fairly?

Towry are also now playing silly childish, underhand tricks like claiming "the original signature did not match our records", "we did not receive the transfer authority - even though rhey were sent G'teed delivery and we had e-mail confirmation from EJ Transfer Team in US to the contrary!!- All of which contravenes TCF Priniciple 6- Come on FSA (or B of E) you have had enough complaints direct from clients/platform providers to take action against Towry, or is it the old school tie syndrome preventing Fisher being hauled over the coals.

I would suggest Towry stop using their very expensive London Solicitors in their unjustified pursuit of ex- EJ advisers and spend such resources on sorting out this shambles- I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall in their Compliance meeting y'day!! Does anyone from Towry have the bxxxs to let us know what was said at this meeting? I fear not - or Andrew's henchmen will onto them!

Whatever the reasons for action or non-action from the FSA etc. I very much doubt it is old school tie syndrome. Once again, even in the middle of a very serious subject there are laughs to be had if you do enough research.

The reason why there is this huge mess is because in June last year, Towry transferred their investment operations to SEI, cutting their Investment Ops team down from 53 people to 11. Thats why they're in the s**t. At least I can say now I was one of the 'lucky' people to be made redundant. They simply didn't have enough people to cope with the changes of taking on Edward Jones, and their only now recruiting more people. Too late in my opinion.

I bet at their shareholder conference last week they painted a rosie picture of how wonderful things are. Well I know its not rosie as working for company that deals with platforms I hear some very bad things about how Towry deal recs have gone wrong (sometimes in their 1000's!)

Yes i heard about the "shareholder" conference on Friday - myself and a few other ex-TL'ers are still shareholders however none of us were invited to the conference. So instead of "shareholder conference" read "Fishers brainwashing of staff and lying through his teeth meeting". Usual stuff really, in good shape, the only RDR compliant company in the world, happy staff, happy clients, transfer out issues a small minority, knighthood, father Christmas is real (oops sorry kids) and they are looking to float in the next year.......again.

And I know that the game was rubbish, but even the chancellor re-sheduled his emergency budget so as not to clash with an England game. But Fisher still has a conference which either shows his complete arrogance or lack of ability to plan. Or both.

I like your comment Anonymous 2! Ha ha I am still a shareholder too so would be very interested in what was said there. Funny we didn't get an invitation isn't it? It goes against most other shareholder meetings. What were they trying to hide? The usual comments regarding the conference does sound about right. There would have been a few comments like "the FSA fully support what we're doing" and indeed "we are the only RDR company ready", which actually, they're not.

Aaah the old Towry 'State of the Union' Conference. Mid year nowadays then is it? I would imagine that based on the gradual downgrading of venues that this year was a gathering in some Little Chef off the A1?

Also, i bet the tossy 'team bonding' event had to work real hard to inject some merriment into proceedings...lets all make a paper mache replicas of ex advisors from shredded transfer out forms and coloured with the blood and tears from staff then set fire to it like a scene from the Wicker Man all the while singing My Way.

Interesting too that the ex Towry above 2 blogs refers to 'being lucky to be made redundant'. Methinks with hindsight how very right you are.

The real event in July is not the World Cup Final but the judgment in the Towry / EJ High Court - now thats gonna be worth waiting for and i suspect a lot of column inches worth of hubris will follow.

RESTITUTION - If a firm or person has benefited from a contravention of a regulation, the FSA can ask the court for an order requiring that firm to forfeit to the FSA any profit made from that activity. - Did I read somewhere that Towry made £11,000,000 from the holding onto of client assets activity?

REDRESS - The FSA may be able to obtain a court order requiring such losses to be made good. I have heard from clients that Towry have sold them out of Corporate Bonds without permission.

DISCIPLINARY ACTION if an authorised firm is judged to be guilty of misconduct, the FSA may issue a private warning, publish a statement of misconduct or impose a financial penalty. - In order for this to happen the FSA need to at least investigate what is going on at Towry rather than turn a blind eye following there bonus day.

WITHDRAW APPROVAL : I would expect approval to be withdrawn if any firm stepped out of line, including my my own. At the very least VARY A FIRMS PERMISSIONS.

UTTER DISGRACE :

How Towy are treating many UK clients and the Toothless Tiger otherwise known as the FSA. Go on make a name for yourself you will have something to reference when the FSA are dissolved.

DELIGHT

I am making a very healthy profit due to Towry not being able to service clients to my level, not even after 40 years.

My investment performance is one of the best in the industry, compared to one of the worst, you guessed it, Towry Wealth Management funds and before a Pro Towry robot sticks his head out from behind one of the very few Chartered advisers will an off the curf rebuffle, my charges are a fraction of what Towry charge and I split the commission.

I do hope the person responsible for this Calamity is having many sleepless nights, I for one would not offer My Andrew Fisher a role at my organisation and neither should anyone else.

Could someone please point me in the direction of any articles which show that the FSA have Towry on their RADAR.

This is soo funny, not only from Anonymous 13, you sound as though your about to have a heart attack or maybe you have had one too many over lunch as you sound a bit nuts!! Of course the FSA have Towry on their Radar, one of which where they believeTowry are the only company who will help change this industry into one that is professiona - here herel!

As for the 2 other bloggers who say they are Shareholders but where not invited to the event last week, don't forget that this was an 'employee shareholder' conference', and probably quite rightly so, you

no longer are.

Anonymous 14 - being part of a large company restructure is of no fault of mine or the many other people who were made redundant. I don't like the company due to the appalling way they treated their staff who were losing their jobs. Oh, and when you receive just over £600 redundancy for nearly 3 years service really is quite poor indeed - especially from such a leading firm as Towry leaving you in the s**t. By the way, which office are you based at?

Anonymous 13 you can rest assured that Fisher would never want to work for you so you won't have the added stress of turning him down. There is no way any astute businessperson would work for a company where the boss says such inane things as 'Did I read somewhere....' or 'My investment performance is one of the best in the industry' says you Mr. Anonymous 13. If it's that brilliant why are you ashamed pr afraid to post your own name? If you were really that great you wouldn't be lurking on blogs - you be either doing your brilliant best for your clients or enjoying your presumably massive wealth? :-)

If you really do believe everything you read on the internet I wouldn't trust you to walk my dog let alone look after my money.

Anon 6 - having read your previous blogs and sat on the sidelines for long enough, I thought I might trouble you by posing some questions, given that you appear to have all the answers...

Like you, I swallowed the TL pill (read brainwashing) back in 2006 having joined in 2002. It took me a while to work out whose interests were being best served. Currently, you are clearly on side with all that is Towry. Given that you have attempted to shoot all and sundry down in flames, perhaps you would enlighten me with you answers to the following Q;s :

1) You mention that advisers are envious that they are not at Towry Law and that it is the British thing of disliking success....Could you please give me your/Fisher's definition of success and how succesful are T in the context of our profession ? Do you meausure success by how much you shovel into IIM or by how quickly you afford clients the courtesy of acting on their service requests.....? Or by fee turnover for invoicing clients for such transfer requests...?

2) You say that it is only a small fraction of clients affected by the delays on transfers - please give me your defnition of a "small fraction" and who has told you this (propoganda me thinks)

3) You also imply that advisers who dont make the grade move on elsewhere. Clearly this is nonsense, given the calibre of many advisers who have departed in recent months/years and continued to operate succesfully and profitably elsewhere by providing excellent, transparent, honest service and dealing with integrity. Can you explain by what baramoter you are assessed in terms of quantifying your capabilities (is it how much FUM into your in-house DIF, how many Lifetime cashflow anaysis reports you produce/fees earned or your acceptance of the dictatorial regime that is clearly evident at Towry ?. How dare you suggest that advisers who depart only do so because they couldn't "make the grade". This is exactly the type of arrogance that is turning the wider profession against Towry, who without such arrogance and ridiculous remarks, could be a damn good company.

4) You say that you doubt it is an old school tie scenarios - have you seen the recruits to the board over the past 2/3 years ? Me thinks you will find that virtually all - Jones, Middleton, Wright, Dawkins included - have worked for/with Mr F previously....No jobs for chums then .....

It is notable how you criticise others yet fail to accept that Towry have been caught with their pants down on the transferring of client assets issue. The bottom line is TL bought EJ (with the potential advantages and disadvantages inbuilt) and they thought that a la Towry Law they would merely migrate the £1bn assets forthwith. By not accepting responsibility and by by taking months to sort out this mess they have not treated cleints fairly. Simple really.

I do agree with your comments re Anon 13 though.

Answers to the above.

1. I don't measure success in the IFA business since I neither work in it nor do I use an IFA. My bank handles my savings and pension funds. I simply judge Fisher by his b*lls as he has the gumption to stand up and be counted regardless of whether your or I agree with him or not. And yes, it does appear to be mainly sour grapes or envy that is the underscore of many of the critics on here. As far as the fee -v- commission thing goes, I think it is pretty clear that around the world, the clients prefer the honesty of fees rather than the smoke-screen of commission, something that it often not even mentioned to the clients. Especially in Australia. There is a world outside of the UK you know.

2. 55000 accounts - 5000 asked to be transferred out - 2000 still being dealt with. I studied mathematics but even without that it still ads up to a small fraction to me. Perhaps you use a different counting method? Abacus?

As for who told me, my source knows the figures pretty intimately and as I am not in the business nor a client, has no reason to lie to me. All I did was ask the person of my acquaintance who would be most likely to know. Got an answer.

3. I didn't 'dare' to suggest any such thing. I said that if they are clearly not suited to the industry they should try something else. From personal experience I know for a fact that the vast majority of people hired by EJ are completely unsuited to be stock brokers. They will hire anyone with a pulse to get them to transfer friends' and family money over and then eventually they are either shoved out the door or they quit, which often means they are then ineligible for Employment Insurance Benefits. This is not their fault, the fault lies squarely at the feet of EJ's hiring practices. I don't see why Towry should be forced to employ those staff just because they bought a small portion of EJ.

4. Perhaps I misunderstood the 'old school tie' comment. My understanding is that it is a British term meaning that the person/people went to upper crust private schools followed by Oxford or Cambridge, or Queens, or Yale or Harvard etc. If this is the correct meaning then no, I don't see any 'old school tie' going on. If it simply means friends or previous associates, as just about everyone here agrees, the financial world in the UK appears to be very small so it is hardly surprising that the top jobs would go to people who have probably worked together or at least run across one another in the past.

Towry bought a portion of EJ. But from everything I have seen on here and across the newspapers and other money blogs around the world, the funds remained under the control of EJ HQ in the US until the end of April. Not quite the same thing now is it?

Response to Anonymous 6 - point 2 - whether the amount transferred out is a majority or minority is irrelevant. The key issue for most client transferring out is the unreasonable amount of time it has taken to transfer funds and consequently putting clients at a financial disadvantage. They have paid £58.75 to have their ISA funds transfered in 30 days. This has not happened and needs to be addressed by Towry.

The last paragraph. The fact is that Towry bought 100% of Edward Jones Ltd UK clients assets late last year, this was the UK client operation of Jones. From that time Towry had 100% responsibility to administer the clients money. Towry agreed with Edward Jones US that Jones US would help administer the assets until the end of April. This service was an option for Towry to agree to or not. If they thought that Edward Jones were incompetent then Towry should not have agreed this detail of the contract. Jones had a commitment to Towry to administer the assets, not to the clients. If Towry thinks they were mismanaged then Towry needs to take this up with Edward Jones. Any problems clients are having with Towry is 100% Towry's responsibility to deal with.

If what is being said by the supporters of Towry is true then Towry could easily deal with client discontent by putting in writing to clients why the delays have occured. Replaying in writing to clients justifiable reasons for delays will be understood by most clients - I have some opinions of why this doesn't happen and would love to be proved wrong by Towry writing to clients with the facts. Please Towry - just do what clients want and what you have contractually agreed to do for clients..

Anonymous 1. In that case the discussion should have been about specific numbers and not somebody questioning me about I call 'a small fraction'. I was correct in my statement in that regard. It is a 'small fraction' and that is the question that I was answering. The question was addressed to me, I answered it honestly. I have answered honestly in every response I have made on these blogs. Though I have to admit that it makes me laugh every time someone says about me 'He obviously works for Towry'. So wrong on both counts. And hey, it gives you all something to blog about.

I like the cut of your gib anon 6 !

Anonymous 16. Now that really did make me laugh out loud. Thank you!

Many, many, many years ago, in a pub somewhere towards the bottom of North Hill in Colchester a man whom I knew was a local bank manager walked past me and commented 'Now there's a trim little craft!' and patted me on the behind. Uninvited, obviously.

Added to that, that very morning as I walked to the office where I worked, the manager of the office next door, which happened to be the Pru, pinched my bum. Little man, owlish glasses, 'butter wouldn't melt' type and he pinched my bum!

Two random events - Taught me everything I needed to know about men in the financial industry. So now you know (at least in part) why I get such a laugh out of winding you all up.

To Anon 6 - thank you for your responses.

Point 1 - you mention "smokescreens" and situation in Australia....Whilst you may be correct re Australia, my primary focus is on dealing with clients in the UK. Having operated on both a fee and commission basis over a 14 year period as a CFP practitioner, I have witnessed the best and worst of each approach. For you to imply that commissions are bad / fees are good and that clients prefer that approach - when you state that you have no advisory experience - is a flawed argument. I work with the same generally very wealthy - clients and have worked with them on both a fee basis and commission structure and they were equally happy with each. The bottom line is that both fees and commission structures can be perfectly fair and appropriate for clients providing the client has transparency and is aware of exactly what the costs are, where the charges go, what the adviser is receiving and what service they will receive in return. Simple. On this note, you may or may not be aware that Towry's fee structure is so transparent that they refuse to specifically quantify the exact external fund manager charges for their DIF and instead quote a range...Additionally, it wouldn't necessarily be fair (would it...) for a £300 per hour adviser to be completing work (and billing client) for a client if a £74 ph administrator is able to do the work. Not very transparent and fair me thinks.,...

2) I also studied mathematics. By my reckoning c10% outflow in a short (few months) period is a high outflow. Market leading wealth management and financial planning businesses would be disturbed by outflows of more than 5% in a whole 12 month period, let alone 10% in a few months... (+other normal transfers out from the core Towry longstanding business)

Either way, you miss the poiint that even if it was "only" 100 clients then that is 100 too many for a firm that is supposedly treating clients fairly...

3) I agree re EJ advisers and the fact that some (but not all) are unsuited to our profession.

4) Towry have to take responsibility for the acquisition of EJ. They bought the business and I understand they were responsible (from a source I have...) for the whole business, including dealing with transfer outflows. What has caught them out is the backoffice admin platform (SEI) being unable to handle such outflows and sell/rereg thousands of individual stocks etc in a very short period of time. On that basis, the 10% would indeed appear to be a "significant minority" and one the Fishy didn't expect.

Anon 100 - while I am sure you are honest and up front with your clients and tell them exactly how much you are earn in commission, can you really state that every member of your professions is equally honest with their clients when it comes to commission? If so, the UK must be Utopia because it sure as hell doesn't happen here.

Whether or not 10% loss of a client base is bad, the statement still stands, 10% is a small fraction. Well it was when I went to school, but that was back is the slate and chalk days, perhaps 10% is a big fraction now? Poor old Pythagoras wouldn't stand a chance these days I guess if basic mathematics has changed so dramatically.......

OK who called in the big Gun? Have I really ticked you off that much with my comments? We had an earthquake here today. Seriously. But it was just a little one so I'll probably keep rattling cages on the blogs :-)

It's all gone very quiet on these comments. I take it World Cup fever is possibly involved?

At least in the UK it's football, in my neck of the woods it's a total shutdown of the downtown section, including the financial district, of one of our major cities which is costing many business' huge amounts in lost revenue, not to mention the ludicrous amount of money our leader decided to splash out on a fake lake complete with deck-chairs. But it makes sense, after all it's not like there is a real lake within spitting distance or anything.......

So there you go Anon 100 - Ex TL, that should give you something to feel better about as your head into the weekend :-)

I decided to transfer my nominee account to a differrent broker at the time of the Edward Jones sale to Towry. I instructed my new broker accordingly and he instructed Towry to transfer my holdings, three Unit Trusts, one Corporate Bond and eight company shares. The Corporate bond was within weeks of maturing. Towry charged me £40 to sell it. The total commision for the unauthorised sale of my asset was £458.

After formally initiating a complaint to the ombudsman to start the two month waiting time clock running, a letter to the Chief Exec. and threats to use all avenues of publcity to broadcast what they were doing I got my money and £500 compensation for loss of interest on the Bond and losses through being out of the market.

I am prepared to put my name to this

Yours truly

Robert K Saxton

Further to above the request was to transfer electronically using Crest

Robert K Saxton