Portal Financial Services LLP

Spruance

This morning I received a letter from Portal Financial Services, of Rochester, Kent. A company that I have never heard of and hence with whom I have had no prior dealings. As far as I can tell they are not linked to any of the other financial institutions that I have business with.

The main thrust of the letter is to ask if I am 55 or over and maybe wanting to draw down part of my pension pot under the new Government pension rules.

Clearly they know that I am over 55 as otherwise why are they writing, unless of course they are writing to everyone in the country just on the off chance. Likewise I do have a private pension fund although I fail to see how they could possibly know that.

On the plus side the company does appear to be properly registered with the Financial Conduct Authority and is authorised - amongst other things - to conduct pension related work (FCA Registration no. 501272).

What I object to is the unsolicited approach and especially the style of the enclosure which I think that many people would feel obligated to complete and return.

The covering letter is signed by one {Edited by Forum Team} who describes himself as a Partner. This is presumably the same person who is listed as contact person on the FCA website and whose direct company email address may also be found on the FCA website by searching for company ref 501272 here: https://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/firmRefSearch.do

Needless to say that I shall be telling Portal Financial that I do not want to do business with them and asking for them to delete my details as required by Data Protection legislation.

I would be interested to know if anyone else has been contacted by this company offering help with pension drawdowns.

PensionTech

Haven't come across Portal in my own travels. Nice to see them on here; wondering why a company would be so scared about bad publicity that it would come across and respond to an MSE thread less than 2 hours after it was posted. "Free pension reviews" always a concern; no such thing as a free lunch and whatever they do for free is unlikely to be actual advice or anything of the sort (more likely writing to providers to get transfer values/pension statements - something you can easily do yourself without leaving yourself open to pushy advice sales afterwards). Also I would never choose an adviser based on junk mail. The FCA (and various others) have warned about all these sorts of things: http://www.fca.org.uk/static/fca/documents/protect-your-pension-pot.pdf.

But no reason that I can immediately see to think they're dodgy, and they are indeed regulated. However I do note that there are lots of mistakes on their website; with such rudimentary flaws in their pensions knowledge, I wouldn't trust them with my money!

brewerdave

I, too, received a letter from Portal financial "out of the blue" on Monday. I presumed that "someone" had sold them my details/dob - had already decided to ignore them -when I'm ready IF I decide I want some advice I'll find someone local from a site like unbiased.co.uk!!

DaveMcG

I got an unsolicited letter from them a few months ago, the jist of which appeared to be transferring to some vehicle in order to access 25% cash. The letter entirely ignored the proposals announced by the government.

Drp8713

I have come accross them before, got to the payment stage of the transfer, only for the member to call up asking what the transfer was about as he had only been told he could "unlock a lump sum" and hadnt been explained that to do so he would be transferring out of a final salary pension scheme and lose all of his guarenteed benefits which he could have taken in 6 months in full anyway.

Registered, legal, but worrying practices it seems.

gadgetmind

A message from Portal Financial Services seems to have disappeared. Maybe this one will too, or maybe the whole thread?

Former_MSE_Andrea

Hi everyone

The company has asked to reply on the thread. MSE doesn't endorse anything a company says on the Forum.


Money Saving Expert has kindly allowed us to reply to this thread, both to help the original poster, Spruance, and to correct a couple of points that have subsequently been raised.

To Spruance: We are sorry to hear that you have received an unwanted mailing from us. We will of course remove your details and make sure we do not mail to you in the future if that is what you would like. Please can you contact us directly on 0845 555 0300 or email info@portalfinancial.co.uk confirming your full name and address and we will look to remove you from our mail database.


Subsequently in the thread our operating practices have been questioned and conclusions drawn without the benefit of knowing the client’s full circumstances, the conversations that were had or the advice actually given to the client.

Separate comments from those who presumably have not dealt with us suggest that we do not actually offer free, regulated financial advice and even go so far as to suggest we may be involved in liberation activities, something we have been battling against for years and actually managed to get Google to start policing on Adwords.


The last thing I want to do is to start a slanging match but I do feel it only fair that we be allowed to put a few things straight.

Firstly, as someone kindly highlighted above, we are in fact regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and can be found by anyone on their register - http://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/firmRegulator.do?sid=220114.

The way we work is to offer proper independent pension advice to each client following a full fact find. We are probably unusual in that we provide full regulated advice with no obligation – our clients only choose to pay a fee (which is explained to them fully) if they want us to act following our advice. If a client takes the advice on board and decides not to do anything then they don’t pay us anything. If we think the best thing for the client is to keep their pension arrangements exactly as they are and they do just that then again, they don’t pay us anything. This happens a lot with final salary schemes as you might imagine but overall our business model works for us and we operate the same model for transfers and for “at retirement” cases.


Please be assured that we give the financial advice that we believe is in the best interests of our clients. I would hope the majority of IFAs would do the same.

Portal Financial

PensionTech

No. We have simply suggested that people receiving unsolicited contact about transferring their pensions, or being offered a "free pension review", should be on guard. That is sensible advice, backed by TPR and the FCA. The reports on here of people's actual dealings with your company are very concerning and I see little reason for them to lie. I've also had a look through some literature on your website and find that:

• there are some errors in pensions knowledge
• there is some vastly negative coverage of defined benefit schemes which seems to suggest that transferring out is a better option and money is safer elsewhere
• your "case studies" involve unregulated, high-risk investments like hotel rooms and solar energy.

If you have an issue with us saying that, based on the information available, members should tread with caution - then you are hardly advocating responsible conduct.

Spruance

After posting here and speaking to my own Financial Advisor I also emaled Portal Financial Services (PFS for short) directly.

This morning I received a very thorough reply although I have to say that the contents makes rather alarming reading. My Financial Advisor had already suggested to me that PFS had probaby bought my details on a list of potential candidates, and the email received this morning from PFS confirms that this is precisely what happened.

This is the relevant paragraph of their reply:-

To answer your questions we purchase the mailing data we use for our direct mailings from a select number of data firms that themselves are registered with the DMA and must act within the Data Protection Act. These companies are contracted to provide what is known as “opted in” data, in accordance with the Data Protection Act and we rent this data in good faith. The company that provided your details was The Trading Floor (part of the Call Credit group); their address is: One Park Lane, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS3 1EP. If you wish to find out exactly how much data they hold, where it came from, and how this was opted in to receive 3rd party marketing mailings. Alternatively you can contact them by phone: 01133 884300 or email: [EMAIL="DataProtection@thetradingfloor.co.uk"]DataProtection@thetradingfloor.co.uk[/EMAIL].

The problem here as I pointed out in my reply to PFS is that I never opt in to receive third party mailings and am always very careful to scrutinise both online and hard copy forms to ensure that I am not going to end up on some sort of 'Mugs List'. For the same reason I am also opted out of the commercial part of the Electoral Roll and for good measure am ex-directory and TPS registered.

I have also spoken to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) this afternoon and they have confirmed that this type of practice (I would say horse-trading) is only permissible for people who have opted in to receive third party offers.

Finally, I have emailed 'The Trading Floor' (qv) requiring them to delete any other information that they hold about me and to further issue a suppression order to ensure that this does not happen again.

Subject to how 'The Trading Floor' choose to respond, I have been given the further option to revert back to ICO for further assistance should that prove necessary.

This has left a very bad taste in my mouth as it only takes one company to be lax in their implementation of the letter of the law and then the cat is out of the bag so to speak.

[Edit at 7:39pm on 19Jan2015]:-

In a surprisingly prompt email response, 'The Trading Floor' tell me that they in turn obtained my details in November 2012 from....

Marketing Source Ltd, Sentio House, Pynes Hill, Exeter, Devon, EX2 5AZ
Telephone 0844 871 4750 Web www.marketingsource.co.uk Email [EMAIL="contact@marketingsource.co.uk"]contact@marketingsource.co.uk[/EMAIL]

Somewhat ironically, 'The Trading Floor' further add "For your protection Marketing Source will only supply the original source details to the consumer directly, in this case you."

It is just a pity that no-one thought to give closer consideration to Data Protection laws when selling my data around the country without my prior knowledge or express permission.

I suspect that Marketing Source will come back with something on very similar lines.

mania112

Clearly (by looking at their Facebook photos) PFS have a large number of staff and are approaching Pension Advice from a different angle than traditional IFAs.

So, by buying in Opt In leads, they're going to p*ss a few people off, but I guess if they can keep that many people employed it works overall.

Most savvy folks (and therefore those with bigger pension pots) would tend to prefer the 1to1 relationship though, i'd suggest.

sharon1612

Oh my goodness what do I do??? PFS contacted me several months ago. They send someone out to collect all your I.D information (which is a bit scarey). I had to chase them up on several occasions as nothing much was happening after all the form signing. Their actual 'fact finding' about my situation was very 'hit & miss to say the least. I'm not that well & did not deal with them as I should, needless to say I contacted my current pension provider & told them that I did not have a new pension advisor when, apparently, PFS told them that they were now acting for me. This all started with a phone call to provide a free pension review. I have a very small pension & a few frozen ones that I had not looked at properly for years so I took them up on their offer. At first the young girl wanted me to make decisions over the phone, but I asked for everything in writing. Several weeks later I receive a very flash package containing my report, written by someone I have never spoken to in my life, advising that I put my pensions with Novia & start making contributions to an Aviva Stake Holder Scheme. I am 57 disabled (unable to work) & they have classed me as a 'Balanced Investor' . I'm in such a muddle now. I feel so stupid