Hargreaves Lansdown Reviews

Sold in on the premise of trading US stocks I signed up recently to test their facilities. Luckily it only took one trade to realise their incapabilities. If you are considering trading using Hargreaves Lansdowne don't bother. You'll probably end up wasting a lot of time, be unable to trade on the online interface and have to repeatedly call the trading desk to make your trades at a whopping...*wait for it* £250 per call. They don't even display real time data most of the time. So by the time you call up the trading desk, sit on hold for 5 minutes, the stock has moved on.

Seriously? I have a couple other trading apps and the H&L offering is by far and wide the most excruciatingly expensive and pointless trading platform I have ever encountered.

Total waste of time (and money)

Date of experience: 27 October 2017

OK they are expensive but their the best for service, range of investments and their website is great. I chose to stay with them after trialing out three other providers. I have been with them for 8 years now.

One little advantage they have over the other companies I trialed is that when swapping funds is that they allow you to sell 90% of a fund and reinvest it the same day, (although it would be cleaner if you could sell 100% and reinvest 90%) its so much better than others that can leave you totally out of the market for as much as a week.

I accept they would not be a good choice for holding 500k of tracker funds that you only look at twice a year, but they are a great starting place for your investment career and particularly good for small SIPPS.

Date of experience: 24 October 2017

I'm confused with the bad reviews. I have dealt with Hargreaves Lansdowne on many occasions as I have a Fund and Share account with them. They have always been professional, friendly, helpful (when I need to fill in forms etc), and prompt when withdrawing money. I wasn't very confident when I first opened my account as it was all new to me, but with their help step by step along the way it has made life a lot easier and I wouldn't think of moving elsewhere. Their website is very easy to use as is their app when you want to check on your money. Thank-you for being such a great company to deal with!

Date of experience: 13 October 2017

I invested in this fund from its launch and its performance has been very disappointing and certainly not in line with that of the FTSE100 & FTSE250 in which the majority of their investments reside. For example:

20th June 2017:

FTSE100 7520
FTSE250 19775
HL Select UK Income 103.5

12th October 2017:

FTSE100 7556
FTSE250 20251
HL Select UK Income 96.84

The fund shows a loss of 6% over that period when the general stock market here has hardly changed or is slightly up, if anything.

Is this just bad luck or poor investing?

Also, after and despite the Provident Financial debacle, HL said they hoped to pay a substantially increased dividend for September. What happened to this?

This has really soured my previously high opinion of this company.

P.S. Sorry to say that 3 months on, with both indices having risen even further, to 7748 and 20,760; the share price has fallen some more -- to 96.27.

On top of this, HL has some kind of technical problem which affects close of business prices and changes on the day. This has been going on for some time, but they can't seem to solve it.

Date of experience: 12 October 2017

Their HL Select Income was launched on March 1 2017 with great fanfare about proposed income. This has easily been my worst investment. The income fund has lost 4.74% since launch; the accumulation 3% - clearly some poor investment decisions have been made. The FTSE 100 has dropped 1.2% in this period. I intend to make this my last investment with them. I will certainly look to other companies (eg. Woodfords) who seem to have a better track record

Date of experience: 25 September 2017

Hl decided to stop my monthly recurring savings into my isa.
I've yet to know why. Possibly the anal amounts of investments I'm making and changes to my account.
Regardless; why should they stop it?
My Lisa is fine.
Have emailed fir a response. Nothing as yet.
Will be moving to aj bell if no response

Date of experience: 16 September 2017

I opened an account for my Company and asked how I could verify their bank details for transferring funds. 2 calls later the person dealing with the call was insisting the bank details were on the website. I eventually opened the page with them on the phone and the details they said were there were not. They proceeded to tell me " I can see it on my screen" . I was then told to try a different browser. I asked what to do if that made no difference ( which as I suspected ended up being the case) to which they had no reply. So it seems having gone to all the trouble of opening the account I am not going to be able to use it because they are unable to put their bank details on their web site so they are easily accessible to their customers. What a waste of commercial peoples time and energy.

Date of experience: 14 September 2017

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!! There are much better companies out there who wont try and rip you off. Not to mention the £25 closure fee for them doing absolutely nothing.

Date of experience: 07 September 2017

Was informed via their online message system that the account closure fee to close my ISA would be waived.
I printed the message as proof, also typed a letter as requested and sent these two documents along with the withdrawal form to HL.
Completely ignored! Still got charged the fee.
Why lie?!

Date of experience: 23 August 2017

This is the first neagtive review I have ever posted.

The first thing to note, is that whilst operating with them, HL do give good service, most things are electronic & paperless. Unfortunately their costs are just too high - once you have a few years of ISA's savings the monthly charges get very high - particularly if you are holding funds. You can save a lot by switching.

I started a process to switch away from Hargreaves in June. Once they get such an instruction they must have a note on their system to put you into "leaver" or "bad customer" status as things immediately change.

Everything is now done by paper & post so as to slow things down and also, in my view, to lose any audit trail.
At first they refused to accept my instructions. They said the signature on the application wasn't mine. This took weeks, by HL writing back to my new provider, who had to contact me - HL didn't bother to advise me - even though, if their concerns were genuine it could have been a case of fraud.
I provided a copy of my passport with a new instruction. Another 6 weeks have passed and the current stage is that some of my current holdings cannot be transferred - not unexpected as platforms have their own specific funds in some cases. I had already instructed HL to sell the units but as this hadn't happened I tried to sell them myself. But they have frozen my account so I cannot. So on 14th August I again advised HL to sell the said holdings and to transfer the cash. They have basically ignored me and refuse to communicate. This will have cost me money as the market has fallen since. Its all, of course in their interest as they can continue to charge 0.45% of my ISA account until the transfer happens. I also think they they hope you just give up with the transfer. I have raised an official complaint - they have acknowledged this - a chap by the name of Tom Knibb - Client Services Manager - they have a template to acknowledge complaints - based on the reviews on here they do need one ! - Tom said "Our main priority at the moment is to complete the transfer and I can therefore assure you that we are investing every effort to ensure this is the case" - ha ha. So we are over 2 months since my transfer request and there has been no movement whatsover in transferring to my new provider - but as HL have 8 weeks to respond before you can go to the Financial Ombudsman service they are in no hurry.

Date of experience: 23 August 2017

I came on here to share what is a dreadful experience of trying to move my ISA away from HL after being a customer of many years. I thought it might be just me that has had such an awful experience but having read the other reviews it's clearly HL's strategy.
I am moving because of the fees which are too high - and as they are applied on a % basis they increase as your ISA increases in value - there are many better & cheaper platforms out there.
I applied to move away in June and the process has hardly started. They will lie, delay, lie again, blame the new platform provider, avoid, ignore messages - I even wrote to the CEO Chris Hill - ignored.
I've asked for a formal complaint to be lodged - they say be patient and they will review later.
I'm honestly not sure if the transfers will ever be made - all quite worrying actually.

Why ask on here for me to message as if this is all a surprise and an exception. I message everyday trying to get a resolution - I've messaged your CEO - I thought about contacting Peter Hargreaves until I read in a review below that he doesn't reply either.

Date of experience: 19 August 2017

I use the HL (via the vantage fund and share account) as my broker for trading in a number of dematerialised shares on the LSE held in their nominee account. The services and fees for handling transactions on these shares (mostly in AIM listed companies) is excellent - I have used both their online web service at £12 a trade and for more complex deals their phone dealing service at £50 a trade. Their phone service in managing trades in particular has been brilliant. Their online tools may look a bit dated, but have all the information there you'd want.

Date of experience: 16 August 2017

I have been a customer of Hargreaves Lansdown for several years and have a Stocks and Shares ISA, SIPP and Fund & Share account with them. For most of that time, the customer service has been very good in terms of response times and, whilst HL are prone to send lots of (junk) marketing material and investment ideas which verge on advertorial, the website is clear and easy to use. The principal downside to the service is its cost and the bias of the 'advice' / information that is routinely sent to customers and plugged on the website: passive products receive little or no airtime; a fund manager, Nick Train, is presently being described on the website as 'the UK's answer to Warren Buffet'.

The good customer service changed as soon as I indicated, on 4 July, that I wanted to transfer my and my wife's ISAs to Vanguard. I made the formal request to transfer both accounts on the same day (HL charges £25 to transfer an ISA balance and £25 to close the account, so it is not a free service). By 2 August, HL had sold all of my wife's holdings and none of my own. The cash was just sitting in my wife's account (i.e. had not been transferred to Vanguard) and none of my holdings had even been submitted for dealing.

I telephoned HL on 2 August and was told, by a member of the transfer team, that it was Vanguard who were causing the delay. This person told me, in clear terms, that HL had provided Vanguard with a 'portfolio valuation' on 6 July (two days after my initial request) but that Vanguard had failed to confirm or respond to the request and that HL had recently had to send a chaser to which again no response had been received. In other words, HL blamed Vanguard for the entirety of the delay. I subsequently phoned Vanguard and was told that this was untrue. Vanguard had confirmed the valuation on the same day (6 July) and had not received any chaser.

HL's Transfer Completions Supervisor responded as follows on 2 August:

"... please accept my apologies that my colleague provided you with an incorrect update on the status of your transfer. As Vanguard have confirmed to you, they provided acceptance for your transfer on 6th July 2017. Hargreaves Lansdown are currently experiencing high volumes of business and unfortunately in this instance, we have not been able to process your transfer in as timely a fashion as we strive for."

It is now 9 August and neither transfer is complete. HL has stopped responding to my emails asking for an update. Even putting the untrue attempt to blame my new provider for the delay to one side, the customer service has fallen well below the standards I had come to expect from HL. No explanation, apart from a generic reference to 'high volumes of business' has been provided for the delay. I can only infer that HL have no interest whatsoever in treating departing customers well, which reflects very poorly on the business.

Given that the same thing happened to my wife's account, this experience cannot be explained away as a one-off. I would advise people to steer clear of Hargreaves Lansdown.

Date of experience: 09 August 2017

Just reported them (HL) to the FCA and National Trading Standards for deceiving customers with fees charged for Overseas Stock deals during the transaction placement, where 1.5% fees are cleverly concealed into distorted exchange rate quoted (screenshots saved and included). Emailed Hargreaves 3 days ago with my concerns giving them time to address this directly with me, but received no response, no acknowledgement - nothing... just dead silence. Well, I let FCA deal with it now...

Date of experience: 02 August 2017

I've been with HL for a couple of years. I've never had any problems and can't fault their service. I am considering transferring to Interactive Investors in the future however, as HL's percentage based fee becomes very heavy once your portfolio grows, compared to II's flat fee. So I would recommend if you have a small portfolio, but once your charges hit more than £80 per year, which will not take long as your portfolio grows, HL becomes uncompetitive. I can't see myself being with HL in a few years once I have a decent sized pot, which is such a shame, because everything else is great.

Date of experience: 29 July 2017

First published 27th July 2017
Updated 14th August
Updated 26th August

In all honesty this review is an attempt to get HL's attention.

Pros - 5 stars for the website and the 'free' information contained within. If you are new to investing then you could do a lot worse than start with HL.
5 stars for the speed of answering and responding to telephone inquires.
5 stars for the speed of answering secure message inquiries.
5 stars for the 6 monthly reports.
5 stars for the speed of account creation and the transferring in from other platforms (... but now read the bit below about moving to other platforms!)

... until now!

At the start of July 2017 I decided that I no longer wanted to pay £120+ per month in platform fees for a mainly stable portfolio of funds (I have given HL this feedback before - they should re-balance their fees where there is little activity). I informed HL of my decision to do a 'partial' transfer from both my and my wife's ISAs funds to iWeb.

As I was going to redress the balance of the portfolio I decided that I would liquidate the funds that I wanted to transfer and to reallocate once the monies had reached iWeb. This would mean that HL had only two transactions to key (one via faster payments, and one via CHAPS) ... their other activity was to charge us £25 per transaction. Simple?

Cons - 1 star secured messages stopped being responded to.
1 star - telephone inquiries were simply answered as "it's in progress" ... and then "it's ready to go, but we're very busy".

I have raised an official complaint and will update here.

HL have had a six figure sum in their customer account for 3 weeks, and they think that it is alright to say to me, today, "we'll get back to you in a few days" ... well I've had enough!

They seem to have forgotten whose money it is, and what it represents to me (life savings!).

UPDATE 28th Jul (one day after the initial submission to Trustpilot, 2 full working days after formal complaint, 8 days after first chase up phone call, 18 calendar days after iWeb request to HL) ... funds no longer in my HL account. ... Believe it or not I've got another tranche that I want to transfer and will initiate the sales next week! (wish me luck that HL are more attentive).

I really hope that my experience is a one-off as I have 5 other family members who have investments with them and, as stated in the title, I and my wife will still have some funds with them that are either not available with iWeb or that HL continue to offer a better proposition.

UPDATE 14th August - HL have contacted us about our complaint and have accepted that they have fallen below their own expected standards. Their response on this website, below, is an attempt to take my dissatisfaction away from public eyes except that is not the reason for this website.

My wife and I have received compensatory offers which, for some reason, were not of equal, or pro-rata, value ... something that my wife was very upset about as there was much more of her money tied up in this extended process than my own!

You may think that, as stated above, our second move of monies would be treated with a much greater efficiency ... well, it would appear, that mine has (cheque keyed 9th August). The point I'm making here is that my wife's hasn't. I'd be very happy for HL to provide me with real information and not hide behind the, standard (?), response, received today (14th) "it'll be processed in the next 3-5 working days". The process was initiated, with iWeb, on the same day and in the same envelope. I'll be happy to accept the delay has been caused by iWeb if HL state that is the case ... but that detail is not forthcoming as yet!

I have also read some of the other, current (July/August 2017), negative reviews on this website and it really does look like HL are struggling to provide a quality service when it comes to transfers to other providers. So here is a very public message for HL - sort it out, put more people on the job so that even if you are losing customers that when they go they don't feel the need to complain about you losing sight of who the money belongs to.

I have recommended HL to friends in the past - I have received gifts from HL when those friends have become customers. I was not influenced by the money or gifts when providing those recommendations - I really thought that HL was a great place to invest through ... now I'm left with a bad taste and a complete loss of trust. My questions for anyone reading this review is ... "is this a one-off? ... or are there others who are receiving a poor service? ... how confident are you that HL will get their service back up to the excellent levels they once had?"

UPDATE 26th August 2017 - Following on from my provision of the purchases that I made, with the funds transferred into iWeb platform, HL have taken the delay to those purchases and provided 'restitution' values alongside the compensatory offers. I have found that dealing with HL's complaint representative (I would like to name him but have not asked his permission) a far more satisfactory process than chasing the actual transfers.

In summary - Hopefully I will not be adding any more negative comments on this web-page. I still believe that for new entrants to the world of investments that you could do an awful lot worse than HL ... I still have some funds through them, as is my wife's SIPP. However, you cannot getaway from the relatively high platform costs that the higher investor (into funds) will incur or that, in my case at least, the issues that I had transferring to another platform ... that experience was so poor compared to every other interaction I have had over many years.

END

Date of experience: 27 July 2017

I've been using Hargreaves Lansdown for a few years, we have some up and down with them. Recently, I did the ISA transfer to them, but the fund was invested in the wrong units type. I phoned and email Hargreaves Lansdown the next day, they promised that they will switch the unit type for me. So far after 4 phone calls in the past 2 months, nothing has been done. This is unacceptable as their service fee is 0.45%. I'm looking into move all my family investments from them as we couldn't trust Hargreaves Lansdown anymore.

Date of experience: 25 July 2017

Great organization. Helpful staff.

Date of experience: 25 July 2017

Untrustworthy shoddy liars thieves(?) I sold £7500+ worth of shares a week ago, HL will not allow me to withdraw that money because of "IT issues". I have called them several times only to be told "there is nothing more they can do". I have asked several times for someone in senior management to call me back, they never call back. I am left with no alternative but to call in Avon and Somerset police service to try and recover my money. Take my advice and look elsewhere. HL cannot be trusted. They are borderline criminals.

Date of experience: 25 July 2017

An excellent trading platform for all levels of Investor

Date of experience: 09 July 2017