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Charles Stanley Direct: Investments reviews

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2.04
Based on 4 reviews, last reviewed 6th Dec 2025
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Latest highest rating:

4

Used their broker services for over 12 years Used their broker services for over 12 years and before that had a Charles Stanley, Advisory account. Not cheapest at £11.50 commission for an online... Read more Reviewed on: 26th February 2024
John C's avatar
John C

Latest lowest rating:

1

Charles Stanley Direct - AVOID! I would strongly advise to avoid Charles Stanley Direct (CSD). I was tempted by their cash back offer, but never again! I attempted to transfer a SIP... Read more Reviewed on: 6th December 2025
Peter M's avatar
Peter M
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Charles Stanley Direct Investments reviews (4)

Charles Stanley Direct - AVOID!

1
I would strongly advise to avoid Charles Stanley Direct (CSD). I was tempted by their cash back offer, but never again! I attempted to transfer a SIPP to CSD. My initial transfer request was made on 31 July, in the end I gave up and cancelled the process in mid-October. In that 2 ½ month period, the first month was wasted with no request being made to the source provider, and the next 6 weeks by repeated promises and failures to send certain due diligence information that the source provider insisted on receiving before transferring funds. I spoke and messaged CSD on numerous occasions, but they seemed powerless to actually do anything. All they could do was pass on messages to Embark Pensions (EBS), who are the administrator and responsible for doing the transfer. The problem is that my only contact was with CSD, not with EBS, so I could not chase them directly. I complained to CSD on 5 October. They delayed their response until 28 November (they wrote that they are experiencing a higher than usual volume of complaints – I wonder why!). Their response was simply to deflect all blame to EBS, but they did write “the delays in the progress of your transfer, including failing to send due diligence information….were the fault of EBS”. I can see there are many negative reviews about EBS elsewhere on the internet. I have no idea of the quality of service of CSD, as I never got that far, but I would strongly suggest avoiding using them while EBS acts as their administrator. My SIPP was sat as cash during this process. The fund in which I intended to invest went up by more than 10% in this period, so this frustrating and pointless saga came at considerable cost to me. After I cancelled, I switched to another provider, and the cash was transferred to them in a couple of weeks, showing the process can work efficiently, but not with CSD! Reviewed on: 6th December 2025
Peter M's avatar
Peter M

Used their broker services for over 12 years

4
Used their broker services for over 12 years and before that had a Charles Stanley, Advisory account. Not cheapest at £11.50 commission for an online trade. Do not support enduring limit orders. Only one ISA account per client. Otherwise very good service. Reviewed on: 26th February 2024
John C's avatar
John C

Good ISA service. The visuals could be clearer.

3
Set up was super easy and the staff I spoke to were very helpful. It has also performed well generally. The improvement area is in some of the visuals with regards to the performance of the ISA over time, the graphs used are fairly basic and don't permit closer analysis, if nothing else so that one can try to understand what is going on with invested funds. Reviewed on: 28th February 2023
Freddie Coughlin's avatar
Freddie Coughlin

Good Value

5
A great investment platform and good value too Reviewed on: 23rd November 2019
Gary H's avatar
Gary H

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