Halifax Share Builder www.halifax.co.uk

Have cash got with Halifax so tried their Investing Funds. My wife also opened an account as well. But when she invested a large lump sum - they took the money twice!. They did rectify the problem, but there was no apology. We decided that next time we need some cash we would close her account. When we sold all the units - we didn't get any money into our bank - so she checked in her account and they had re- bought the same amount of units! How , why, is it worth finding out? We have both decided to sell all our units in our accounts.

Yesterday (Wednesday) I sold a UK unit trust. This evening, Thursday I looked at my account. The unit trust is 'still there'. So I rang up. Apparently it's been sold and the details on my account will change on Monday, that's five days after issuing the instruction. I'll get my money on Thursday, eight days after asking them to sell the fund. That's ludicrous.

I moved to Halifax from Comdirect (now selftrade) when Comdirect/Selftrade started annual fees (as I did not have enough invested to justify the fees).

In comparison, Halifax come across as bunch of rank amateurs.

I had invested based on information provided by the Halifax website, which proved to have been incorrect. had the information been correct, I would not have made the investment and would not have lost a considerable sum.

When I complained, Halifax tried to shirk their responsibility claiming "You should do your own research", which I take to mean, 'we know a lot of the company information we provide is completely incorrect, but we just don't care.'

In the end, Halifax refunded the trading costs, but that nowhere near compensated for the loss due to trading based on information provided by them (P/E ratios in this case) which was completely incorrect.

The cheapness is halifax's only redeeming feature. But cheapness does not equate to value for money!

Use only for small investments in blue chips that you are well aware of the performance of via other sources.

DO NOT RELY ON THE INFORMATION GIVEN IN THE RESEARCH CENTRE, IT IS OFTEN COMPLETELY INCORRECT!

MY ADVICE IS SIMPLE: GO ELSEWHERE!

A couple of weeks ago I logged onto my sharebuilder account and sold a few shares. Today I'm informed that sharebuilder has been taken off the Halifax internet banking website. My account was set up in 2005 and is entirely web-based, so whatever minimum written information they originally sent me (and I recall I've the problem of not having an account number, etc. before) is long gone. Apparently a 'new website will be set up soon', but according to Halifax customer services nobody can access their shares until then. Great, huh? As soon as I can get back in (which is obviously going to be a battle) I'm selling all the shares and closing the account - good riddance!

Although a good on line share transacting site for low level activity it does have some shortcomings. It does not seem to have a facility to record a share account financial statement for credit/debit similar say to a normal bank account statement. Thus the declaration on an account that "Available to Invest" is £0.0 does not mean that the balance of Account is indeed zero - it could unbeknown to the client to be in debit. So keep your own "Statement of Account" as the share dealing system is not auditably foolproof.

A reliable service as long as you can login! I'm now waiting for them to post a temporary password as they don't appear to be able to email one to me (estimate 7 days). They do however appear to be able to email marketing material on a daily basis!

Perhaps if they spent more time on their customer service then marketing budget they would be able to offer a better overall customer experience.

I can only speak from 2009 onwards but the service provided has been great. Any problems I have had have been quickly resolved and the call centre staff actually seem to know what there doing. A rare exception. Whilst there is no advice that is what you pay for, an execution only service. Anyway I can only assume that since these posts there has been a big improvement as on the whole the service I have received has been excellent.

Expensive and put together from someone who knows nothing about what is needed for the investor. You might aswell throw your money into the wind instead such is the unreliability of their service. Halifax truly are the worst broker available. There should be a 'no stars' or minus stars for Halifax.

Small dealers use online services so they can buy and sell against the market trends and with the high dealing costs we need to deal when markets panic. Halifax was down on 7/11 and is down again today 9.22am 10/10/08.

They should be forced to warn new subscribers that they WILL be down at crucial times.

I strongly advise against using this service as some might struggle to get access to buy or sell shares by live online dealing or by telephone during busy times. Even when the markets are not busy their system sometimes rejects my attempts to buy and sell even small amounts of shares.