Admin Fee to get my money.

I bought some shares when Margaret Thatcher's government was privatising everything. In two or three cases, the companies concerned were taken over and my relatively few shares compulsorily purchased.

I got paperwork telling me I was entitled to £X but when I read the small print I was told that there was an administration fee payable before I could get the money.

Yesterday, I got a letter from a company called Prosearch who told me that, as a former holder of O2 shares, I was entitled to some £3000 because my holding had been compulsorily purchased by Telefonica SA but over £400 would be deducted from my payout as an administrative fee by Prosearch.

I rang Prosearch on their 0800 helpline and asked what the fee of £400 was for. I was told that this was a "dedicated and voluntary service" and I didn't have to use it.

I have the same problem with BAA shares and I'll investigate that further.

Does anyone in uk.finance know how to get the proceeds of compulsorily purchased shares without having to pay administration fees?

This sounds like a typical Nigerian style scam, but on a smaller scale. Assuming you kept your contact address up to date with the share registrar you would have been sent an offer for the purchase of the shares and if you did not accept and total acceptances were over

90% (or what ever the magic figure is) you would have been given notice of compulsory acquisition by Telefonica and then sent a cheque for the full value. Usually the target company's share registrar arranges to do this. Prosearch is a head hunting firm, not a share registrar as far as I can see. I may be wrong in detail, but this is AFAIK what would normally happen. Someone may be able to correct me if am wrong.

Similar process if you have a tiny number of shares and it is costing alot (in proportion to the value of shares) to send out annual reports, notices of meetings, dividends (who can be bothered banking a cheque for say 20p), etc.

There is a guy in Australia who regularly mails out low-ball offers to buy shares in the hope little old ladies will think that it is official and fall for it. The share registrar of the 'target' company is obliged to provide a copy of the register for a reasonable fee and had been providing electronic media in spredsheet or similar format. They tried to lick the spiv by providing the information in 'graphic' format but AFAIK he seems to scan the graphic format to extract the data for printing his offer forms.

Its a con , you can sell the shares yourself for around £30.00

And e-mail or phone Working Lunch on BBC to ask if they are interested in featurng this Stuart

Hi,

If you write to the Company and claim the shares they will charge you nothing. Prosearch is owned by Equiniti (formerly LloydsTSB) and Prosearch is already paid by their client Companies so this is a double charge. Ironically if you write directly to Equiniti they will still charge you nothing - go figure!

It is not the first time I have read this type of complaint regarding search companies who are owned by Registrars and therefore already being paid......

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So we can chalk this one up in the "aren't we proud to be British" column then?

And dedicated flag wavers wonder where the phrase "Rip-Off Britain" originated?