Alliance Trust Savings 

Spoke with Alex this morning who couldn’t do enough to help, continue helping and telling me what to do next week once things are in place. Very impressed and knew how things worked!!
Very pleased with her

Spoke to Dominic, answered my query competently and helpfully.

Cheap but awful. Don't be persuaded by price, you get what you pay for and Alliance trust are just terrible. A clunky system, terrible customer service (misinformation and untrained staff). Can't wait to leave.

I have found this company very difficult to deal with, particularly their online service. It takes an age to load, and often times out, meaning I have to repeatedly log in. When phoning customer service to help with these problems, they then send out paper forms in the post, which have to be returned via post. It’s not just a one-off, this has happened frequently over years. It makes it difficult to withdraw monies.
If you are choosing a provider, I would strongly recommend going elsewhere . This company is frustrating and it feels as if they are doing everything possible at every stage to make things difficult.

Alliance trust are in my opinion are applying charges that are completely out of proportion to the service they proivde. I was charged £50 to move an samll investment & £10 per month to manage it.

My SIPP broker was Stocktrade ( very good) Stocktrade was taken over by Alliance Trust and of course they changed their charges etc. Using their online platform I bought shares in a very large USA company recommended in the D Tel, no problem doing this online and no warning that this share was classified as "non-standard", which meant that some 3 months I'm later charged £350 for holding a non-standard share in my account. My big Gripe is that the fact this was a non-standard share should have been flagged on their dealing platform upfront. Avoid this company - they aren't even that cheap with dealing charges on my SIPP of 0.3% compared to £9.95 with Interactive Investor or similiar with AJ Bell.
I will complain to the Financial Service Ombudsman.

Very poor at providing information. Would definitely not recommend this company to anyone.

Cheap, but not budget, and the website is poor and disorganised. Constant contact is needed to deal with the difficulties of their site. Information is dispersed, and difficult to find. If you want to check a price you have to start a trade. If you want information you have to go somewhere else. It's disjointed and time-consuming to use.

It also keeps logging me out. Once you've made five mistakes in your password, over any period of time, you are locked out and have to call them to reset. Meanwhile it invites you to try again so you may not realise what's happened.

I missed the deadline to apply for an IPO by a few hours because the IPO section says:
"Participate in IPOs and Share Offers
To subscribe to any open Offer:
Login to your online Account and select the offer in the Trading Centre"

I followed that to the 'Trading' section which gives dates but not cutoff times. Although I'd already called them to clarify other unexplained issues around the IPO, apparently more information about IPOs is back where I started, actually some way off-screen below not linked from the Trading section, including Cutoff times which I missed.

Their advice is that I should have found the other information, wherever it is, rather than rely on the Trading Centre when dealing. As I'd missed their cutoff they weren't prepared to help, as they needed time to process it.

Is this company short of cash ? Instead of settling deals on settlement
day it quotes 10 business days for cash to be withdrawn and even
after charging £20 for a CHAPS payment they say that will take 5 days.
Totally ridiculous that they are the only broker I know whose default
is to re-invest dividends unless you are clever enough to find
the page with the opt out. Nowhere do they warn you about this feature.

Have been trying to activate an account with this organisation, over two weeks now, hopeless. Wrong links sent to me in first instance, then cust adviser asking me to clear internet history, cookies etc, before even thinking link was incorrect and should never have been sent to me. Now for the second time "IT" are involved in resolving issue, alas I will just have wait this one out, it is not important really, they are only holding 620k of my funds no hurry.

Its difficult to know where to start with this review but here goes:
I had reason to complain but couldn't find their Complaints policy because at the time the website sent me from one place to another and then back again. I guess they couldn't find their complaints policy either because they are supposed to resolve or acknowledge complaints in three business days but it took a week to acknowledge.

Their application forms are poorly designed and sloppily written and don't include details on how to submit them. My application was held up because I didn't submit the application in hard copy. However, when they sent me the application by email they didn't specify this and neither did the form itself. Being close to the ISA deadline I was concerned that I would miss the deadline. I phoned several times for updates on the application process before eventually being told that they were waiting for a hard copy application. Its a pity they didn't tell me this on one of the earlier calls. Frustrated, I finally chose an alternative provider.

I don't believe any of my feedback has been taken on seriously. I think the front end of this business needs a complete overhaul or they will likely continue to lose custom.

I moved my SIPP account to them. They have some unusual capabilities to handle USD cash accounts and US shares which I value, but the customer service is dreadfully slow, almost completely unresponsive to emails and poorly trained in understanding their own firm’s capabilites. Any question or request has to be referred to another department that responds in weeks, if at all. It took months to get things set up right and overcome repeated denials that they could do basic things like credit dividends in USD. There is something really wrong with how they are managing the operation.

Online platform sort of works and trading and moving money between ATS-held accounts is painless. However trying to actually withdraw your money to your bank is another matter and takes you back to Victorian banking. You have to search around for an obscure forms link to complete and submit. In this age when most folk use Faster Payments ATS still use BACS which should take 3 working days. Not so with these people, they love your money so much they quote 10 (ten) working (not even calendar) days. Even then you typically have to phone them at least once to progress your withdrawal. You'd think they still work with quill pens, errand boys and stagecoach mail - they are so incredibly slow. I suspect a paper cheque may end up still being quicker than their BACS offering. All the customer service time spent dealing with such slow transfers must cost them more than the small fee for faster payments. They offer CHAPS withdrawals for a fee but even for that they do not guarantee same day. Even 15 years ago other online platforms managed practically next-day fee-free withdrawals. Alliance Trust is still very stuck in a bygone age.

This company seems to have no interest in helping customers to resolve problems. They send bland responses that seem to have the aim of hoping that you will go away. I will be going away - to a company that wants my business. I really wish that I had never invested my savings with this outfit.

Terrible, terrible, terrible.

I was a happy Stocktrade customer until they sold to Alliance. The experience I have had now is awful. It takes ages for them to respond to email enquiries; telephone help isn't much better. Information given is incorrect. Website is terrible. Messaging is terrible. Getting hold of your money is terrible - apparently it takes 10 days to make a transfer.

If you are thinking about using them, please don't. Find another company otherwise you will be disappointed.

Yet another person who has been trying to close their account and get their money - they ignore emails and when you call them you get the feeling that they really don't give a damn.
They say "Things are in progress and you will get your cash withdrawal in 10 working days" when you call them up. You are left hanging with the platform giving no indication that the transfer is in progress and when you chase them up again on the phone (after say 8 working days) they seem to have nothing on their systems to say the transfer is on progress and that they will get "right on to this today".

Its frankly appalling and I would urge anyone thinking of joining this firm to think long and hard about it. I wish I'#d never heard of Alliance Trust Savings.

As so many others here have already discovered, transferring away from ATS is a nightmare of incompetence and delays with no or very slow response to queries. Everything is always blamed on an unusually high volume of queries that they are having to deal with. I decided to move my ISA due to two occurrences of them messing up a simple transfer of cash out to my current account. Both times took them weeks to do the transfer (and lots of chasing and a complaint) when I really needed the cash ASAP. Having taken the decision to move elsewhere, it has taken nearly 3 months for my investments to move after much chasing and another complaint but they have still kept hold of my cash and I have no idea what is happening with it. I have sent messages but have had no response as usual.

Have been trying to transfer out of Alliance Trust Savings for the past 3 months. Still no sign of movement. They admitted to me, when I eventually got through on the phone, that the majority of emails are routinely ignored until the customer chases by phone. They've also "lost" a letter I sent them and temporarily misplaced several hundred pounds of dividend payments. But, what a surprise, they still have the temerity to keep taking their "service" charge every month. Company appears to be in a death spiral. Avoid.

This used to be a good company to deal with. However, it took 3 weeks to reply when I asked about transfers to another provider. I then decided to change providers and after 7 weeks being chased by me and my new provider, they have still not acknowledge the move. I contacted their Service Quality team and they provide neither Service no Quality. I am banging my head against a brick wall - or rather a sponge - and I don't know what to do next as the new provider is threatening to put the transfer on hold.
My opinion based on my experience is this. If you are thinking of swapping to Alliance Trust Savings, don't. Their incompetence since the Elliot affair is breathtaking.