Rookie Mistake
OK, I’ve been investing a few years. But this morning I’ve learned a rookie lesson.
The hype about Royal Mail being so heavily oversubscribed suckered me in to subscribing for it: a self-fulfilling prophecy. So far, so good.
But instead of applying direct, I applied within my ISA. So now I’m a hostage to my broker: I can’t go to another broker to dispose of them (well, would you want to hang on to 227 shares?). And both Hargreaves Lansdown’s website and their phone lines are unavailable, probably due in large measure to heavy demand to trade those shares.
Bah, Humbug.
Posted on October 11, 2013, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
niq's soapbox 
Agreed it’s frustrating. I’m having the same issue. But I doubt that going elsewhere would make much difference. Unless you have an account with another broker already, you would no doubt have to go through all their proof of identification and supposed anti-money laundering nonsense before they’d speak to you, so I doubt an instant trade would be possible… and I guess most of the lower cost brokers are in the same boat as HL this morning anyway.
I’m going to have a cup of coffee instead!
Actually, it appears H-L is the only major platform to be proving completely unavailable.
Evidence: thread on the Motley Fool website’s Royal Mail board. The only other problem logging on was at sippdeal, but that poster had no problem getting through by ‘phone. Others like Barclays, TDW, iWeb, TMF service / Halifax – people reporting selling with no problems.
12 10 update: I can forgive a bit of a hiccup first thing. What is becoming really annoying now is the inability to get onto HL’s platform to do other business that has nothing to do with the Royal Mail stagging frenzy.