linkgroup.eu Anmeldelser 166

Totally appalling, they don't respond within 5 working days as they say, and don't respond to complaints breaking the rules. Every listed Company that they represent should move to another registrar!

My mother is trying to sell her single company holding of shares via Link Group web services. The 2 of us have completed the process and got to the last step and the drop down function does not work. The company in question is not listed (only 1 company shares) - the comment is phone if company is not listed.
The reason for using a web account is to avoid time in high cost call queues. We emailed asking for help and got no reply, but did get a letter advising we needed to call urgently as a change to dividend pay out had been requested. The whole system seems intent on generating high cost phone traffic.
My advice is don't waste your time with Link Group. Use a proper on line share account / broker.

Received a letter from Link this morning having never heard of them before. Once upon a time I owned a very few shares in a company which was taken over 10 years ago at 12p a share. Link wrote to tell me I was entitled to £4.44 "subject to administration fee". Curious because I had got rid of the shares before the takeover. Link said I would have heard from the bidder at the time (I hadn't since I was no longer a shareholder) and it had been hired by the bidder to locate shareholders who they had lost contact with. Curious again since I have lived at the same address for 25 years. I can only assume Link is trawling ancient shareholder registers for lost shareholders in the hope of stinging them for a fee. Given the reviews on this website I won't be bothering to reply to their letter. But I can only wonder at a business model that generates such a letter for what could only be a tiny return at best. I just feel very sorry for anyone who is forced to deal with Link.

I have sent five emails to Jackie Pearson in the Business Quality Assurance dept and also a telephone message for her to contact me over the course of the last six weeks all without any response regarding my complaint

Mrs A Donaldson

I have been trying since August 28th to have this pension transferred to my new company. I had another pension with Aegon who transferred with no problem. This company continues with delay tactics. First said the email of receiving company did not match their letter. I asked if I they wanted a letter from me to state I authorised this transfer. He said no just ask your company. No response after the new company resent details. Then after I complained why nothing is happening, he emailed to say it is being reviewed. Nothing so I complain again . They posted forms requesting my copies of my ID (why?) , transfer forms and the receiving scheme forms and they want it signed by a person from of the new company. Why did they not email these forms , after all they had to print it! Why did they not post these forms in the first instance? Utter incompetence and ineptitude. It's just shows their agenda and delay tactics. Now I have to do their job because they do not want to deal with my new company. Do not give these people your money. Their performance is poor and their service pathetic.

LInk are utterly useless. I am trying to transfer /sell shares from Hansa, who are registered in Guernsey. I'm the executor of an estate. To transfer the shares, the Guernsey probate office need a letter from Link stating the number and value of shares at date of death and that probate is required from Guernsey.
Link are incapable of providing this letter: so I cannot get a grant of representation from Guernsey, therefore I cannot transfer or sell the shares. It's a catch 22 situation entirely of Links making because they are so incapable of providing a service, using initiative, or actually doing something about this. I know the shares value, but Guernsey need this information from the registrars, not the shareholders representative.

I have now have 8 referral numbers, not one has had a response. They are utterly incompetent. This must have been resolved in the past but no one is capable of typing out a brief letter and sending it to me. I have never encountered such a hopeless organisation before. The Trustpilot score says it all. Any organisation that use Link as their registrars needs its head examining.

Turned out that i did not need probate from Guernsey after all because Hansa is registered in the Bahamas; which made it even more impossible to resolve.

Eventually a very helpful Hansa executive sorted it out…

Totally inept. I’ve been trying to transact a corporate share transaction for months now. Their portal is inaccurate, the functionality doesn’t work, I have 60,000 shares missing in action and am now outstanding a large dividend payment on said shares. I have to use this portal via my previous employment; if I didn’t, I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.

Absolutely terrible service. The young men who front the calls and try to solve things are polite and helpful but have no authority to do anything remotely resembling customer service. I need a replacement share certificate urgently to sell shares to purchase a house in a chain. I called them over a month before I need the certificate and asked them to scan or FedEx the application for a replacement certficate... sorry, it's not their policy; the only thing they can do is send it by express overseas in the Royal Mail, so I paid a supplemental fee to have it expressed. Twelve days later I still do not have the application form. No one can tell me why they just can't scan it. I can understand that they want a signed hard copy but why on earth can't they scan a blank document? Called today, they still wont scan or Fedex the blank document and no one appears to have a tracking number so we have no idea if it is even close to reaching me. A replacement for the application which didnt arrive will be sent tomorrow and presumably could suffer the same fate.
I need to purchase indemnity insurance and they gave me the name of a broker after I called back to ask them how to do this. Link told me they can cover up to the first GBP 100,000 and the insurance, which I pay for and is thousands of pounds, covers any amount over this. Not so, their insurance tells me. Their underwriters cannot do partial risk so I have to pay the whole amount. Even worse, their recommended insurance company told me Link are very hard to deal with and take ages to issue a replacement certificate once all the paperwork is in place - could take 6 to 8 weeks. The only way to speed this up is to get lawyers in place. I hope for the sake of the nice young customer service agents I spoke to, that Link is better at looking after its employees than it does its customers.

I emailed Link Group at BusinessQualityAssurance on the 24th August 2022 with a complaint.

It is now the 2nd September 2022 and I have not even had a reply.

This is not in line with the FCA rules which they seem to be ignoring:

Keeping the complainant informed
DISP 1.6.1R01/11/2007
RP
On receipt of a complaint, a respondent must:

(1) send the complainant a prompt written acknowledgement providing early reassurance that it has received the complaint and is dealing with it; and
(2) ensure the complainant is kept informed thereafter of the progress of the measures being taken for the complaint's resolution.

Difficult to give less than one star. Investment through Pru ISA and customer feedback is not acceptable.

Terrible company rude staff who speak down to you when you ask for help nothing is provided really bad over phone and worse email
I have been trying to transfer my pension refused to do it saying sent documents out never got them they are a nightmare of a company

As per other reviews, this is an appalling company and not sure how they have not been pulled up before the FCA for their practices.
I have been trying to put my mother and fathers affairs in order and needed to get new share certs issued for both of their holdings. Was told that it would cost £122.88 per holding - a massive 8% of the current value of their 95 shares they each held in SSE.
I have so far been on the phone to Link for 48mins and counting... The administrator doesn't appear to know what she is doing and kept putting me on hold for 10 mins at a time to ask a colleague. When she eventually got around to telling me the cost (and convoluted process involved) I asked to speak with a supervisor, at which point I started looking at these reviews, whilst I was on hold for 15 mins. When the administrator came back to me she told me the £50 admin fee would be waived by Link for each cert but I would still need to pay the £73 indemnity to a third-party insurer - this is non negotiable but appears to be money for old rope for the insurance companies!
Overall, a terrible experience and just not expecting the process to run smoothly in the coming weeks... a case of fingers crossed with no confidence at all.

Unfortunately I am one of what seems to be many people who have had an awful experience of dealing with this organisation. Long story short I left a previous company in August 2021 and as a result requested my employee shares be transferred to my name and a number sold to pay tax owed. The shares required to pay the tax were sold, but there is still no sign of my share certificates etc. I have contacted them numerous times by phone and email ( a number I had to chase as I received no reply). I currently have no idea where the shares amounting to tens of thousands of pounds are and have got absolutely nowhere with the complaints process. This company treats its customers abominably. I am now at the point where I will be contacting senior members of the company with a detailed breakdown of my issue in the hope they may be able to address the issue.

Link Asset where sent my share holding postal order on the 26th May with the instructions to sell all my shares. I am still after chasing 8 times all not helpful in the slightest and being given different reference numbers and yet still not received a single penny and it is the 13th June today. This service stated that it takes 2 to 3 days to pay electronically into your bank and is a disgrace as it is now 17 days since I submitted the relevant documents. Still no money and shocking service. If you ever want to sell shares then never use this service as a joke! Wouldn’t mind but the shares are worth a fraction of what they where before the pandemic and they still mess it up….. fuming and thinking it’s a scam so be careful!!!

Settling my late Fathers estate I had to obtain replacement share certificates from a number of companies, Link’s was the most laborious and drawn out of them all costing a massive £207 for a replacement certificate.
The certificate never arrived so I had to contact them by phone, took ages, eventually the came back to me and said they had posted it by standard Royal First Class 6 weeks earlier, they seemed to think that was the end of the matter and wanted me to pay a charge to receive a replacement.
Link sent my Share Certificate by standard mail, I believe that something costing £207 with a potential value in the wrong hands of several thousand pounds should have been sent at least by some tracked method as would any item I purchased on line would have been, instead I still have no Certificate and Link by their actions have left me open to Identity Theft.
Instead of just sending me a new Certificate Link have decided that it needs to be dealt with under their complaints process which adds weeks to the whole process, it’s now over 9 weeks since I paid for the certificate that I don’t have.
Link have acted negligently in sending my Share Certificate by only First Class mail, exposing me to potential financial loss and identity theft.

Originally a Capita client but my shares now managed by Link Asset Group.
The reviews on line really worried me & the incredibly long intro before being transferred to an advisor did not enthral me.
However the advisor was extremely efficient & we will see if the rest of their service for the sale of these shares go well. Their administration charge of £76 is outrageous compared to other Registrars (regardless of number of shares sold).

I am the executor of my mother's shares, and before deciding to sell the shares, I had organised power of attorney as requested by the link group. this was then sent to them as requested by registered post. Link group did not dispute a power of attorney in any way. nor did they bother to send you forms that you may need to fill out if you decide to sell the shares, They then let you sell the shares, and confirm to you that you being a power of attorney will receive the cheque in your name and not the investor's name. they then send you a cheque after promising that it will be in your name and when it arrives it is in the investor's name, they then tell you we will have to send out a new cheque and may need to charge you for this service, also they then send you a dividend cheque for your shares in the investor's name and then you have to call them to complain and to be told that you have to fill out a few more forms to have this changed.

my question is what is the point of having a power of attorney drawn up and legally documented to send to them.

I know that out of this review all I am going to get is the following

Thanks for providing feedback on your experience.

If you still need help in resolving your situation, please do contact us and we’ll be happy to discuss this with you

Link Group do not even deserve a one star but that is the default option. I have been trying to sell my late mother’s shares since February ( now end of May) It has been a complete catalogue of incompetence from beginning and we have yet to reach the end. I have phoned at least seven times - when you manage to get through to a live person they need a full history of what went before in all the other phone calls ( why is this not obvious from their records?) then they leave you on hold while they ‘check your record’. This may take up to ten minutes on hold- again-having already waited up to 40 minutes for someone to answer after incessant pre- recorded babble about what you can do if you just use their online ( non human) options- which they clearly would prefer you do but is not what you need. When you do get a human who answers- the response is they need to check this out with ‘the back room’ or a manager or someone else and they will call back - in up to five working days! The occasions when they said they would call back - they don’t. I put in a formal complaint - it took over six weeks ( with interim holding emails) to provide a response which can be summarised as ‘ we understand your frustration’. I paid for missing share certificates in March - in May after numerous futile phone calls as to why things hadn’t progressed - I was informed they had found no record of payment. I eventually did get in touch with someone who seemed to know what he was talking about ( Tom) and he said he would investigate. He came back indicating they couldn’t verify I had paid but would ensure it was looked into further. I sent in a scanned copy of my bank account showing that the sum had been transferred on a date in March ( we are now mid May). Finally someone contacted me to say they had verified the fact I had paid for the missing share certificates. I sent in the remaining share certificates and signed the required indemnity form sent by recorded delivery. The next week I receive an email saying that to progress they needed a signed indemnity form. When I informed them I had sent it they say they have not received it. When I checked through the tracking ref number the letter has been received. I then received an email indicating -yes they had received it after informing me they hadn’t. So three months after I started the process I still have not been able to sell these shares because Link Group seem incapable of doing the job they are set up to do. I have no confidence that having provided all the required information I won’t encounter yet another issue due to their sheer incompetence. In contrast I sold shares through Equinity - it was so easy - efficient competent staff - all done in a week. It’s a disgrace. There seem to be too many staff at Link Group who are not adequately trained and have to keep deferring to ‘senior staff’ to check on issues - leaving you on hold for minutes at end. Even then nothing gets resolved. This is ultimately the responsibility of the senior staff in the organisation. Your systems are not fit for purpose! It leaves the client having a throughly stressful experience - particularly when already dealing with bereavement. The complaints process is totally inadequate. Waiting 6-8 weeks for a response is completely unsatisfactory and even then the response is ultimately a fob off.

I wait with anxious anticipation for a resolution. When this happens is anyone’s guess - but when I get it I will never deal with Link Group again.

I am executor for my father's estate and so far have found the Link Group to be really easy to deal with particularly compared to another company. They were easy to get in touch with and it didn't take too long to sort things out. In comparison to another company they were fantastic.

Mother sadly died nearly 18 months ago and I still don't have the money she had invested via this company. I have just chased them yet again after sending a form off two months ago with no response. If I don't get the cheque in the three working weeks as promised I will be contacting the financial reporting council.

Added on 24/05/2022: AGAIN ! Another letter from Link group with a delaying tactic - this particular gem is a request for bank account details which they have had FOR OVER A YEAR ! Over a year ! ! This goes way beyond incompetence and can only be deliberate avoidance of paying out money. I'll be spending the day contacting the financial ombudsman. This behaviour is utterly, utterly, despicable.

If you have a choice at all, don't use Link.