DRN-6158627

The complaint Mrs R is unhappy that Interactive Investor Services Limited (IIS) transferred almost all of her shareholdings from her Individual Savings Account (ISA) to her Trading Account, both held with IIS, instead of the one shareholding she’d intended. This has led to a financial loss. What happened On 2 September 2025, Mrs R said she logged into the IIS platform intending to transfer her entire holding in a company I shall refer to as JWG, from her ISA to her trading account. Mrs R said that during the transfer, the system was slow to react and load, and once completed, she noted the confirmation message referred to “investments” plural. Mrs R contacted IIS immediately, to ensure the correct transfer had taken place but she subsequently discovered that almost all of her holdings had been transferred from the ISA, not just the one she’d intended. Mrs R asked IIS to transfer all her holdings back to her ISA apart from the intended transfer holding with JWG. IIS said it could only do this if it was at fault but would pass the details to its complaints team to investigate. IIS issued a Final Response letter on 11 September 2025 saying that there was no evidence that it had made an error. It said Mrs R had specifically selected the shares she wished to transfer and also entered the number of shares. It said it was an investor error and was unable to reverse the transfer. It wasn’t upholding the complaint. Mrs R remained unhappy and referred her complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. She said it would be impossible for her to go through all her shareholdings and select each one individually in the time it had taken to complete the transfer. She said she believed there was a system glitch that resulted in the wrong shareholdings being transferred. The Investigator didn’t uphold the complaint. He wasn’t persuaded that there were any system issues with IIS’s platform at the time Mrs R made her transfer request. He was persuaded by the evidence that each investment was selected manually for transfer, which could only have been made by a user logged in to the account. The Investigator said that the time the transfer was made corresponded with the time Mrs R said she was online to make the transfer. He was therefore satisfied that the transfer request had been made by Mrs R. So, he wasn’t persuaded that IIS should be held responsible for the transfer of the incorrect shareholdings. Mrs R didn’t accept the Investigator’s view, she said via her representatives who replied on her behalf, that the view wasn’t fair and reasonable. Mrs R said it was impossible to physically request and confirm the transfer of 46 individual shareholdings in the three minutes and two seconds that she was on the platform making the transfer request. Furthermore, that she wasn’t given the opportunity to confirm the transfer before the system started to glitch, but the transfer still went ahead. She also questioned why she would’ve given up over 10 years of ISA protection or accidentally completed over 50 screens to achieve this outcome.

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The Investigator wasn’t persuaded to change his opinion so the complaint has been passed to me to make a decision. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. Mrs R has said she logged in to the IIS platform on 2 September 2025 just before the markets were due to open, at 8am. She said after noting down the summary of her investments from the previous day, she decided to transfer her entire shareholding of JWG from her ISA account to her trading account. Mrs R said she noted the system was running slow and “twirling”. The transfer subsequently completed, however Mrs R discovered that instead of just her shareholding in JWG, almost all her shareholdings in her ISA account had been transferred. I’ve reviewed the evidence provided by IIS, which shows the transfer request was started at approximately 08:05am and submitted at approximately 08:08am. The evidence also shows the transfer request was actioned by IIS at approximately 08:12am. I note that these times correspond to the time Mrs R said she was logged in to the platform checking her investment. I’ve noted from the evidence provided from IIS’s internal audit, that the quantity of shares input for each individual shareholding recorded at the time of the transfer, corresponded with the shares transferred from the ISA account. These included the lower number of shares held in one investment and didn’t include a request for another shareholding that remained within the ISA account. I’m therefore persuaded that the shareholdings were transferred based on the details submitted. I reached out to IIS as part of my investigation, to determine if Mrs R could’ve selected all the investments, albeit by mistake, and then amended the number of individual shares to transfer or deleted the request for one of the investments entirely. IIS confirmed, that while there is a “select all” option available, Mrs R wouldn’t have been able to amend the number of individual shares if this process was followed. IIS confirmed that Mrs R would’ve had to select each shareholding investment individually, along with the number of shares to transfer. Mrs R has said that she believes it was a system issue or glitch that resulted in the incorrect shareholdings being transferred. I’ve considered this, and in my opinion, if this was the case, I would’ve expected all the shareholdings in the ISA account would’ve been transferred, or the full number of shares in the individual shareholdings would’ve transferred. This was not the case here, as one of the shareholdings was only partially transferred and one shareholding wasn’t transferred at all. It seems unlikely to me that a system glitch would’ve resulted in a specific number of shares being transferred rather than the full shareholding. And this is consistent with IIS’s explanation that Mrs R would’ve had to input the number of shares she wanted to transfer. Mrs R says that after selecting the JWG shares, she wasn’t given the option to confirm her selection – it was at this point the system started to glitch and then she received a confirmation that her ‘investments’ had been transferred. But based on what I understand of IIS’s transfer process, she would’ve needed to confirm her selection in order to proceed. So, I don’t think it’s likely the transfer process could’ve been initiated without Mrs R confirming her decision to transfer the shares.

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I’ve also considered Mrs R’s comments that it wouldn’t have been possible to submit the information required for all 46 shareholdings in the minimal time IIS have confirmed the transfer took. I’m unable to determine how long exactly it would’ve taken to input the required information for the transactions. However I’ve ultimately not seen enough evidence to persuade me that the incorrect shareholdings transferred, were as a result of a system issue. Overall, from the evidence I’ve seen, I’m not persuaded that the transfer of the majority of Mrs R’s shareholding most likely occurred as a result of a system issue with IIS’s platform. Whilst I understand it may not have been Mrs R’s intention to transfer these shares, I haven’t seen sufficient evidence to persuade me that IIS should be held responsible for this. I appreciate this isn’t the outcome Mrs R would’ve hoped for, but I won’t be instructing IIS to take any further action. My final decision My decision is that I’m not upholding this complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mrs R to accept or reject my decision before 25 May 2026. Lee Williams Ombudsman

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