Virgin Pensions : A warning

bylromarha

OH stopped his Virgin pension payments last year indefinitely - Self Employed, income down, couldn't afford the £150pm.

Payment to Virgin went out last week from his bank account - turns out they reinstate the direct debit automatically after 12 months.

They can't refund his money as it has gone into his pension, so he can only get it back when he withdraws his pension in 20 years.

His bank account has gone into overdraft because of it, so implications for his credit file.

So be warned...

wealdroam

What I can't understand is why, if the money has been wrongly taken, your OH hasn't insisted on a refund from his bank via the Direct Debit Guarantee.

Did he cancel the DD at the time of stopping payments?
If not, why not?

Does going into an overdraft really have an impact on his credit file?

keyser666

wealdroam wrote: »

What I can't understand is why, if the money has been wrongly taken, your OH hasn't insisted on a refund from his bank via the Direct Debit Guarantee.

Did he cancel the DD at the time of stopping payments?
If not, why not?

Does going into an overdraft really have an impact on his credit file?

I would be getting it back via the DD guarantee as well

System

I can only assume the OP's husband suspended payments to their pension as opposed to closing the pension. In which case they would be bound by the terms and conditions of the pension scheme they are in.

In that scenario you would not cancel your DD and I don't believe the direct debit guarantee would be a viable option as the money was not wrongly taken, it was taken in line with the T's & C's of a Virgin pension.

wealdroam

goater78 wrote: »

I can only assume the OP's husband suspended payments to their pension as opposed to closing the pension. In which case they would be bound by the terms and conditions of the pension scheme they are in.

In that scenario you would not cancel your DD and I don't believe the direct debit guarantee would be a viable option as the money was not wrongly taken, it was taken in line with the T's & C's of a Virgin pension.

Yes, that's a reasonable assumption.

Perhaps the OP will be back to tell us if you are right.

bylromarha

OH asked Virgin to suspend his payments indefinitely. They didn't cancel the DD as he was intending to start paying in again when the money started coming in again. Virgin have now listened to the call from a year ago and confirmed this is what he asked for.

Virgin were told that he'd be claiming the money back under the DD guarantee - however, Santander won't allow him to claim it back until we have an official letter from Virgin stating they made a mistake.

Account doesn't have an overdraft facility set up on it, so the payment took the balance below 0, so has counted as an unauthorised overdraft.

hugheskevi

Any particular reason for using Virgin as the pension provider? They are very expensive for what they offer (eg see this thread).

You/OH might want to investigate transferring the pension to a different provider. The pension board can give further thoughts about that if you consider it.

bylromarha

hugheskevi wrote: »

Any particular reason for using Virgin as the pension provider? They are very expensive for what they offer (eg see this thread).

You/OH might want to investigate transferring the pension to a different provider. The pension board can give further thoughts about that if you consider it.

I asked him this the other day when I did an MSE search for Virgin pre posting this thread.

Seems it was the best pension out there when he started in 2001 and he hasn't bothered to keep his eye on whether it still is - OH and I are very different when it comes to money as you can tell