"The man from the Pru" and his tall stories

wheels1970

Sorry if this is long winded...but feel it's important to raise for other MSE users.

Sure that those amongst us old enough will remember some bad press about the Prudential and AVCs. My partner was a teacher in the 90s and like many others, was strongly encouraged by Prudential to invest in AVCs (which at the time was a considerable chunk of money each month). He was led to believe that this was the only way to be able to retire early.

The man from the pru was careful in him omission to explain that additional years could be purchased in the pension scheme which could have been a more realistic alternative. Hindsight and facts are is a wonderful thing.

Having received a yearly statement he was aghast to realise that he would need to be 84 years old in order to benefit fully from the scheme and pointed out to the friendly man from the pru today that with inflation his paltry £294 per annum would probably buy him a loaf (or if lucky, two on a BOGOF) by that time. Silence on the end of the phone...

He has asked the pru to transfer his fund (approx 5k) into a private fund (having not contributed to the pru for over ten years and now self employed). The pru "said no", he said "it's my money" they said "hmmmm".

It may be a case of like it and lump it, you made your bed. He is not the first to realise and on searching there is clearly a number of disgruntled clients and legal precedent of which the nice man from the pru seemed blissfully unaware.

The moral of the vent, regardless of the outcome, is always, always, seek independent financial advice when in your 20s and planning for your families future and never believe a word the nice man from the pru tells you. :eek:

giraffe69

The Teachers Scheme has all the available information on added years easily available. By all means seek independent advice but why take such a significant step without doing any checking? If your husband belonged to a union they would have assisted at the decision point also.