Southbank Investment Research Reviews 431

I have been a subscriber since May 2020. I enjoyed the service so much that I upgraded to Platinum membership. I have not only made money but also learnt so much about finance, markets, tech, AI, crypto, commodities, economics, risk management and even politics and history. The editors such as Nick Hubble, Sam Volkering, James Altucher, Kris Kayce and Jim Rickards are incredibly knowledgeable and write really interesting articles and stock recommendations. New services have been launched over the years which are made available to Platinum members such as True Alpha and Microcap Millionaires. It’s a really nice touch how they look after their Platinum members by providing these new services as part of their membership.

I went on their free mailing list when Nigel Farage promoted it a few years back, looking for serious investment advice, since then it has become a bit of a joke, you have a bunch of "experts" all promoting their bag of tricks, the crypto man, and the man who looks like a sort of Alien from Mars always on about his family and relations, the Gold man and so on, but the latest addition to their team is ex Youtube where he is considered a complete joke, always forecasting financial doom and gloom sometimes even for that week! which never happens of course, do they not realise what having an "expert" like that does to their credibility? As a fun read, good, as for serious investment advise forget it.

They are a bunch of scammers. Once you subscribe they make it all but impossible to cancel or even raise a complaint.
All of the listed emails are no reply . Even the ones they give you to complain .
And it's not as if their suggestions are even any good.
Edit -- And no thanks to Trustpilot.
The next day, when Southbank finally got to work at 10:00, I phoned them.
That was even worse. They have a menu system pre recorded at light speed, with hardly any discernible differences between the options. The second set IS impossible.
Eventually you get through to a message that tells you you are in a queue with less than one minute to wait .
Great, I don't mind waiting for a minute, but five second later it's groundhog day, and back to Talk Lightspeed.
In the end I opted for a call back.
This came through an hour later and the problem was resolved.
So my messages to Southbank are:
1) If you list an email address on your website, do please make sure that it actually works and doesn't just reject.
2) Get a real person to listen to your auto idiot bot.
If you have options, and insist on voice recognition, make it clear what the options are: Maybe put a pause between each one.
If you tell someone they have less than a minute to wait, then how about letting them actually wait.

I have used Southbank for a few years now, often seduced into subscribing to additional services. Their sales pitches are ridiculously long and convoluted, sound more bullshit and enticement rather than solid rationale. I loath this approach and it's a shame as there is some good rationale, but much of it is spun with intrigue, secrecy etc unless you cough up.

It is annoying that on some services I have bought I received sell notices on stocks I hadn't received the buy notice on (or I missed them because of the high frequency mailings?). I don't think their processes work that well. Only one advisor really made sense and built respect: John Butler who's way more succinct and explained things well but he is more back seat now.

Overall, I have possibly broke even over three years and stopped all of my auto renewals. I don't have the time to read or watch their long repetitive, bullshitty pitches to discover the hidden pithy and possibly good proposition.

Once in a service they are more succinct but overall they feel like energy vampires.

I have been a user of several of Southbank Investment Research products for some 16 months. In fact ,the majority of shares passing through my ISA have been recommended by them. The fact that the value currently stands at 25% more than my initial investment is testimony to their suggestions.

Southbank Wealth Advantage (masterminded by John Butler) was a long-term investment strategy of minimising risk and maximising dividends - it has worked well for me. It remains to be seen how the replacement scheme performs.

Most of the other Southbank products search for exceptional short term growth and are inherently risky. These suggestions are not available through mainstream sources which concentrate on investments rather than gambles. Some succeed spectacularly, some tank, most have mediocre results. Recently there has been more advice on stop exits and "when to sell" in general - for me the hardest part of short-term investing. My own selection of those to follow have made very satisfactory gains overall.

Much wealth creating advice promised – little of value delivered.

I signed up for an annual subscription in May 2024. They supplied some pdf booklets with general investor advice and some AI specific tips. I eventually cancelled the automatic renewal.

If nothing else it has been a useful lesson in learning how lengthy, near hypnotic, video sales pitches work. They string you along with repeated mentions of a great wealth building tip that they will shortly reveal but first you must listen to more 'important advice'. After over an hour you will still not have learned the about this great early investor tip. There will come a point where you will be told about an allegedly valuable source of investor info you can sign up for at a massive discount – but you will still be waiting for that great tip they promised at the beginning.

I have seen this tactic used to sell financial advice services on many occasions and, frankly, it has become VERY tiresome.

Cancelled subscription and charged me again.
Two attempts to contact via email with an automated reply saying will be in touch normally within 48 hours if busy a little longer…mmmmm
2 WEEKS STILL WAITING.
Good talk no action at least not by people.
Choosing to ignore customers now that has real potential.

I purchased Gold stock fortunes as well as a few others back in 2020. Not cheap. Biggest regret I made in my whole life. All recommendations down. Listening to Nick Hubble who advised to buy one of stocks for upto 50p a share. Advised from 2021 in 12 months they will be around 70p a share and then 3 years will be £2 a share. Today they are 2p a share. Looks like they may well go under. I wished Nigel Farage had never recommended these amateurs. Thanks Nick

I had no subscription with them and never requested their “Fleet Street” newsletter, that was regularly sent automatically to the spam folder. Days ago, they took 199£ from my card without authorisation (a card that I used only for Fortune and Freedom newsletter, subscription cancelled 2 years ago). I reported them to Actionfraud, not recommended!

You don’t get very much for your money. A lot of repetition. Long videos and slow to get to the point. If you like history lessons and are not sophisticated some aspects can be enlightening. However it’s unlikely that you will feel £89 was well spent. Essentially you will be inundated with more emails attempting to upsell and repeating previous messaging. Avoid !

Make it so difficult to cancel your subscription.
In accounts, they say email cs @ southbankresearch. com to cancel, but when email is sent, an auto reply saying this mailbox is not manned, either call or contact customer service through link they send in the email.
When you fill in the form via the link and submit, the next page is just blank/wouldn’t load.

In my years with SIR, have subscribed to a number of the plans. Like many others, I have over that time, made a loss on dealings of 57% and that is before subscription fees/dealing costs. There is one individual who is very much at the forefront of the service and his record for the investments I have made has been very poor and would avoid any of his offerings. I am sure they are ethical in what they do but on the 5 services I have subscribed over the years, to have never made profit on the share dealing alone and then adding in fees and trading costs it is money down the drain sadly. I am sure many have done well so it feels a little like pot luck.

These people inundate you with eMails. I had 26 in 10 days! Tens of thousands of words! I believe this is also part of a strategy combined with the unasked for "Auto Renew" policy on subscriptions. Very close to "sharp practice"

Took my money under an automatic renewal and despite 2 emails are unwilling to refund it.

Having read similar reviews here it is clearly company policy, not happpy, avoid.

Further information:

I did contact customer service and was told 'management have advised that no refund would be available' - I sent a further email and have had no response. Account No: 958814

2 Years after writing my terrible experience with this crowd and im still no better off, 80% complete loss, Some of the recommendations have been delisted as they went broke, others are currently 90% loss situation. I have been recommended to kill ALL trades as they are going nowhere, hopefully the firm advising me to release the dead money that i can get will slowly help me to claw back the GIGANTIC losses this crowd helped me to achieve. Seriously, Nigel, your name is completely tarnished with me after your association with this lot. Stay away People- you will only lose ...........

The significant amount of well researched data especially in areas not often exposed to individual investors is excellent almost to the extent it can be overpowering! As an investor relying on the skills of fund managers, subscribing provides an opportunity to invest in other areas but acknowledging the risks involved and that any investment has to be considered over the long term. I find the support excellent if needed but always acknowledging that you don't need to take the advice offered. It is not a panacea for individual investment decisions and risk avoidance.

The young lady that I spoke with was very helpful and resolved the problems that I had politely and efficiently without any fuss.

These jokers sent a buy signal for Climeon AB at 42 SEK 6 years ago
Price today is 1.42 SEK

What a joke and for this crappy service these jokers want £10,000 a year !!!

Stay away. Look at the other reviews!! They are absolutely true!!

This service has offered the worst investment advice I have ever had. I used the crypto advisory service which lost me loads of money and then I stupidly signed up for a small cap investor advice service for a lifetime fee of around £300. This service has lost me about 98% of my invested money. Out of 9 investments, one gained about 30% and the rest have all lost 90% or more. Mostly 99%+ loss. What gets me is when they report their gains/losses these are hugely manipulated to give misleading results. Some of the stocks I owned have lost 99% yet when they finally email advising to sell at a loss they say something like a 20% loss. AVOID AVOID AVOID.

Where are up to date reviews. When I looked at your reviews, they were all old.