Access Accounts Run Off - by the (rough) numbers (AC)

The £1 fee is one thing but at least it's fairly reasonable. (of course, 1 free transfer per month makes better sense and would be much fairer) AC claim in their email that lenders should withdraw their funds in a timely manner but then go on to introduce fees to do so! Comical. They imply daily withdrawals were being made - if so why not limit to once a month instead of punishing all of us with such fees.

Anyhow; What are the thoughts on the upcoming £35 ISA transfer fee? This to me seems very excessive; they claim to be receiving 400 requests a month since the closure but what an earth did they expect. I know a I can move funds using the flexible ISA feature (and £1 fee to transfer out) but it's a faff. They are not offering any free option at all to transfer ISA's.

All of these measures seem to ensure more money is kept on the platform (earning AC interest no doubt) rather than encouraging people to withdraw in a timely manner.

People seem to be losing sight of the big picture. Assetz Capital chose to withdraw from retail lending. The lenders are paying the price for this decision.

First of all Assetz put in a 'we can give you 30 days notice to do anything we want' bit into their terms and conditions then they used it to steal our interest to fund the loans they promised to borrowers whilst cutting their business in half and making a good business and a bad business. The Ombudsman points out that stealing interest is wrong and that other options would have made this unnecessary and Assetz need to repay the stolen lenders interest plus potential lost interest as if the money had not been stolen - and then Assetz Capital drag the whole Ombudsman process out when given their right to respond.

Then while all this is going on they introduce a ridiculous withdrawal fee so that they can hold on to our money for longer or profit from our desire to get our money the hell away from Assetz Capital. Assetz chose to withdraw from retail lending and then told everyone to withdraw their money as soon as it became available then got upset at the supposed cost of having to handle all the withdrawals - surely they knew this was inevitable when they did their calculations on the wind down costs and surely they knew that as soon as they started stealing everyone's interest then lenders would be trying to get their money out of Dodge ASAP.

A once a week free withdrawal would be be just about acceptable but when they say £1 per withdrawal or one free withdrawal once every three months then something just smells plain fishy. They have been telling those who complained and said that they do not accept the new withdrawal terms within the 30 days notice period that they are gathering information from various departments and then they go ahead and introduce the withdrawal fee and new terms anyway. When they finally get around to wasting the eight weeks they are allowed to reply to complaints and give their final decision and tell me and others that they don't uphold their complaints (even though they are almost identical to a complaint that they have lost before) then there will be a whole bunch of new complaints being submitted and investigated by the Ombudsman. Assetz know this and they are up to something.... using our money in the business made 'bad' by them to fund their 'good business' in whichever way they think they can get away with. They are playing us and they are playing the Ombudsman and when they think they have taken enough and the coffers are almost empty then they will drop us all like a hot potato and run for the hills in their Bentley.

What next? 30 days notice that there are now no free withdrawals and a new price of £50 for one withdrawal a year - plus we have to pay them interest for any money they have lent out for us? If you haven't complained to the Ombudsman yet then I suggest you do as it might be the only way you can get even a little bit of the money stolen by Assetz Capital back once the full Mr Law (unto himself) plan plays out.

Looks the correction to interest has been paid to accounts this afternoon.

After many weeks yesterday I finally got AC's reply to my complaint to them regarding these new fees for withdrawals. Seems they wanted to put them into action before defending them. It was the cut and paste reply saying that they do not uphold my complaint which is exactly what I had expected it would be from them. Lots of contradictions in it that made their arguments completely pointless. I will now get back in touch with the FOC and see how they want me to proceed. When I last enquired with them they seemed to suggest that if AC introduced these new withdrawal fees then my new complaint would be used to add evidence to the current complaint they are dealing with in which they ruled that AC were legally wrong to start applying new fees. 

For those not paying attention on a BH ... about £3.2m capital returned by AA.

That takes account below the £100m & to about 25% returned during the wind down period.

Somehow I missed the announcement re the 35 pound fee.

Having read the announcement - it feels to me the back office of Assetz has an uncanny and unfortunate resemblance to the characters of Catch 22.

How much evidence of self-harm based decision-making ineptitude does it take to question how these guys ever got their license to offer an ISA product?

"We're closing so you have to withdraw, please withdraw promptly, oh no we didn't think people would withdraw, the withdrawals are too much, we're suprised you withdraw despite us telling you to withdraw, we need to charge you to withdraw, you don't have to withdraw, but we told you to withdraw, so now we have to blame this on you, withdraw less, but keep withdrawing. Oh we can make more money if they withdraw like we told them to."

By the way, we will change the terms, we'll raise money as if business is ongoing, oh lets change strategy 2 months later, oh no one will notice... oh f**k they noticed. That capital will go in the other business.

P2P comes with market risk, investors accept that. FCA should be across MOST platform risk. A license should mitigate platform risk. This platform reminds me sadly of the Baltimore bridge.

FCA should be tougher on who they give licenses to going forward.

ISA manager status is provided by HMRC ... think it's just a form to complete ... doubt their any hoops to pass as you need to have FCA approval first so I suspect HMRC just takes suitability as read.

Incidentally, not just AC having an issue. PL have also introduced a fee for multiple transfers for the same reason, though not of course for reasons entirely of their own making.