there are no words for the level of red tape and incompetence I'm encountering at Computershare as I try to get my ex-employer's shares transferred out of trust.

first there was a nightmare of getting my ex-employer to actually notify Computershare that I'd left, freeing up the shares I bought in a company employee plan to be sold. that was the easy bit, it seems.

Friday 13th: ring and request form to be emailed.

Tuesday 17th: ring again and make a fuss. Form arrives and is faxed and posted back to me. notice they mention a "transfer fee" and suspect it will be outrageous.

Days pass.

Tuesday 25th: ring again, to be told there is no record of form arriving. am asked have I sent the fee? no I haven't because I don't know what it is. Insist on getting more information: apparently once they find my form (if ever!), they'll write to me (2-3 days is my guess, but going on performance it might be a week) asking for $110. Then, when I've sent it, they'll bank the cheque and - this is where it gets stupid - they'll "send paperwork" to my ex-employer to be approved. again. I question this. I ask what paperwork exactly. the call centre person can't answer me. I say it could take days, weeks to get that back from my employer. and even when they do, and once they free them up, I have to get comsec to transfer the shares into my account before I can sell them. I could sell them through Computershare, but hell will freeze over before I deliver them any of my money; besides, I'm going to keep some of them.

now awaiting an email from an actual human, with a name, so I can try to sort this out.

meanwhile, Comsec tell me that the shares won't transfer anyway because of extremely minor differences in the name and address under which the shares are held and my Comsec account name. so I have to change that as well.possibly I would do better to just sell them and rebuy; that's not an option for my ex-employer's shares due to the Computershare profit thing, but it is for some others I just own outright through anothe broker.


I've lost count of the number of steps involved in doing this. too fucking many, that's for sure. meanwhile, share price drops gently like a feather in the wind...