On Nov. 15 my daughter bought 760 shares of BDT.TO for her tax-free, Roth-like ISA with Hargreaves Lansdown in London. In February Interactive Brokers UK (where she has a trading a/c b/c their commissions and forex fees are cheap) convinced her to move her ISA to them. They then inexplicably changed the ticker of BDT (which they do trade on the TSX) to BIRDF, the Pink Sheets ticker, and then said that since they don’t trade BIRDF they kicked it out of the tax-free wrapper. (All this after first suggesting the solution was to re-transfer the ISA to HL.)
Obviously BIRDF and BDT are the same stock. When I rang Compuserve in Toronto the transfer agent for BDT they knew nothing about BIRDF. On the other hand Bird’s shareholder relations department do, but don’t, or don’t yet, have any solution to offer.
I’ve started to hear complaints from many about IBKR. They are ghosting us now. HL is getting back next week all but two of the stocks and fund they originally transferred to IBKR. The stocks in the suspense account are worth £17,000 and I don’t want the existing gains to be taxed or to lose the tax-free status of the eventual proceeds.
Any ideas are welcome. The Financial Ombudsman has been asked to help but hasn’t replied yet. HMRC has a procedure for protecting customers from broker error. But first we have to get IBKR to stop blaming the victim. They ignore the original trade confirmation and any subsequent document. And had the nerve to send over an arbitration agreement which we will never sign.
