serious ill health retirement

mexico2372

James:

Now whilst some of your replies have indeed been very helpful this certainly let you down!
You seem to have completely missed the point of my criticisms of the way it was being handled, i guess you must work for one of those type of companies then as you seem to have taken the criticism personally.

The whole point is that they are blatantly telling lies!, got it?. Why tell lies that it was being done in a couple of days? (last Monday)....Then on Friday after receiving nothing then why tell lies that "if it was not done on Friday it was definitely Monday and she would be in touch with the CETV then" which has also turned out to be a blatant lie in the response i got yesterday?
The same woman said yesterday that she was waiting on it "coming to her" and it was going to be either Friday but much more likely Monday and late Monday at that so she could not get the valuation finalised to me until Tuesday at the earliest!!
Sorry, but THAT is my point James that by blatantly telling lies or certainly deliberately misleading me is pretty awful work practice i am then keeping my IFA hanging on as well.
Why not just be honest and simply say it takes a while and we will do our best if, as you say it usually takes months and months?
By completely backing them up in that it seems like you completely condone telling lies, maybe it's just the way the industry is then eh?
My IFA says it doesn't normally take the massive timescales that you say but hey ho....

Oh and one final point on your reply.....just why on earth would i be desperately trying to cash in my pension if i was lying on my death bed?...dear oh dear. I have approx 8 months to live!

xylophone

Oh and one final point on your reply.....just why on earth would i be desperately trying to cash in my pension if i was lying on my death bed?..

I recall a case where someone was in exactly this position and desperately anxious to sort out his pension for the sake of his family - I cannot recall how long ago this was on the board but another contributor may.

I am sure that there can be few on the board who do not appreciate the strain you must be under- it goes a long way to explain ( if not excuse) the tone of your latest post.

mexico2372

xylophone wrote: »

I recall a case where someone was in exactly this position and desperately anxious to sort out his pension for the sake of his family - I cannot recall how long ago this was on the board but another contributor may.

I am sure that there can be few on the board who do not appreciate the strain you must be under- it goes a long way to explain ( if not excuse) the tone of your latest post.

Hi, yes, i guess my answer to James was a bit "cranky" but i just didn't like the tone of it, hence my response.

yes, well everyone's different. Personally, if i was on my death bed that last thing i would be wanting to try and sort out was my pension, ha ha. I'd make sure i had that all sorted in advance and have my death benefit nominees up to date and if not, well, tough, :rotfl:

The whole point of my reply to him was that he seemed to be justifying lies being told. That was my point. It's neither here nor there if i was a 50/50 chance of dying and lying in hospital or the admins of a pension work hard........the whole point was that i am and still am being lied to by this one particular woman at the pension admins.
i said if she said it was going to be longer and x amount of weeks then fine, so be it....but the fact i am being blatantly lied to and fobbed off is what's making me this way.

Again, after those posts, after her lying twice, she then had said that i would DEFINITELY have my CETV on Tuesday and she would email me.
I was back at hospital yesterday so when i came home i thought oh, better check my mail....and surprise surprise....nothing!

This is what's annoying me, if they were straight up, said it would take a while then fine, ok, i'm not going to pop my clogs tomorrow or anything, i can wait a bit..(well i do hope not anyway, :rotfl:) but this just fobbing me off with excuses and lies would annoy me in any situation to be honest, never mind the situation i find myself in now.

Cheers, anyway, i think you kind of understood my crankiness

xylophone

I would be surprised if there were any intention of lying or fobbing you off-it is difficult to imagine that anybody would want to do anything other than their best for somebody who is in so serious a situation.

And I do not see that James was justifying what is happening, merely trying to explain.

And I strongly suspect that the person to whom you spoke was simply passing on what she had been told?

mexico2372

Oh ok, you're also backing this woman up.

To clarify, this woman is the SENIOR pensions administrator! I repeat, SENIOR pensions administrator!

I, and everyone i have spoken to here are completely in agreement with me that for someone in a senior role certainly should NOT be acting in this way.
I am in Edinburgh, Scotland, and i can assure you that here at least, the way she has been dealing with this is not normal. Seems like wherever you and james are from are quite happy for someone to tell you lies/mislead you/fob you off and just accept it but i certainly do not.

So far last Monday i asked for a CETV, she told me yes mo problem, we will deal with it urgently and i will have it in 2 days!,

I waited until late Thursday when i simply sent an email asking how it was going and if she had got the CETV for me.

She replied on Friday morning stating that it would be done hopefully by today (Friday) but if not DEFINITELY on Monday.

I waited all day on Monday and emailed her again late in the day to ask if she was getting back to me or not.
She then changed her story, totally contradicted her previous story and said she wasn't ever expecting to have it finalised by Monday (so, not even by the Friday) and that it would be Tuesday and she would definitely contact me with it.

Now it is WEDNESDAY afternoon.....and silence, zada, zilch, zero, nothing!

So, up until now i have been very civil with her about it, i have not been constantly on her back by emailing or calling constantly either.
I did call her 10 mins ago where she stuttered and mumbled and didn't seem to even know what i was even talking about. Then amazingly she said in a way that did not exactly inspire me with any confidence that "oh, i think i may remember something about this, but to be honest i am not sure i have it here on my screen now but nothing seems to have been done and she will now have to action this urgently and get back to me as soon as she can"

If you don't think this is misleading, fobbing off or blatant lie telling as well as downright incompetent behaviour from the SENIOR administrator then i hate to see your definitions then. This is the so called SENIOR administrator and if she is being let down by some other person even more senior than her then she should be more professional in her dealing with it as it is truly awful service.

xylophone

until now i have been very civil with her about it,

One would hope you would continue to be civil.

If you have not received the information required by the beginning of next week, a polite letter sent by special delivery and marked for the personal attention of Ms YYYY might achieve a result?

mexico2372

Well,

I did indeed email asking what was going on regarding my CETV and why i was being told all these stories and that now it had just turned into silence.

I received a phone call afterwards from a guy who said he was the overall manager and had picked up my email as the woman whom i had been dealing with was on a day off so another member of staff passed it on to him as they were not sure what was happening with this.

I filled him in on all the details, and he apologised right then. Said this was an awful way to have been dealt with and that this is not the normal working practice or procedure.

He said he would call me back. In 5 minutes he did, and i received an email just as he called with my CETV!
He couldn't understand why but it was simply waiting to be passed on to me and had been since late MONDAY!! he also mentioned there was also one or two other cases still left on file that seemed to be in the same situation and he'd some problems in the past regarding this.

So, he apologised again, said he would be taking action regarding the awful way this particular woman had dealt, or not dealt as it seemed, with this and that it was unacceptable no matter what my own personal situation was and he would also send a written apology too.

So there you go. Having worked in an office environment where i had to deal personally with customers over the phone and in person for 15yrs there and now, being a tour guide and driver i know exactly how to deal with customers in all sorts of situations and as i said from the beginning, this woman in my case had no idea whatsoever how to deal with people and as it proved was totally incompetent at her job.

Oh, by the way, the CETV was way short of some of the estimates via here but it was still good enough. Just under £55,000 and the whole amount of that is mine to transfer as well.

So £55,000 is still way better than the £18,000 i was originally going to take by just cashing the Civil Service pension in directly with them, so many thanks to all the good advice i got from a few people on here as it has gained me almost £40,000 as i had absolutely no idea whatsoever about pensions! :T

It's obviously not fully over yet, still got to get it transferred so hopefully that goes smoothly and without any hitches.

kangoora

Congratulations! I hope things go smoother for you from now on but it sounds like you're over the worst part of it.

CathA

So pleased you got the information you needed. I'm still waiting for my CETV but then again, my situation is different from yours. Good luck, hope it all goes well.

xylophone

A satisfactory outcome and after some frustration efficiently handled.

I have to say that I am rather surprised that the "overall manager" should criticise a member of his staff to a member of the public in this way -hardly professional behaviour I should have thought.

Apart from any other consideration, it would appear that she was not there to ask....