Should I complain?

JohnAndrew

and if so, how?

I've had a small pension which amounted to just over 4K after tax. My 60th birthday was 18th March and I contacted my pension provider many weeks previous. They were very helpful and said I could take the full amount as a small pot.
So, forms were filled in an I expected to see the money in my account on or just after the birth date. I was hoping to put the cash into an ISA with my BS @1.5%
I phoned a couple of days later and was told that the pension dept had made a mistake and that an icon hadn't been created which would have resulted in the payment. I was promised a call back from the pensions dept..... After a couple of days of repeat phone calls some (but not all) of the money was paid into my account.
The money finally hit my account today - I appreciate the Easter long weekend may have been a holdup but surely my cash should have been available to me sooner.
I would like to complain and expect some form of financial compensation - can anyone recommend a letter?
Thanks!

Notfarfromtheborder

My view is that you'd be chasing shadows for nothing.


Loss of interest, £4k at 1.5% will be £1.20 per week.


What compensation are you trying to achieve?

JohnAndrew

I guess a gesture of goodwill for shoddy service would be a start and some recognition of their mistake would help to restore my faith!

saver861

JohnAndrew wrote: »

I guess a gesture of goodwill for shoddy service would be a start and some recognition of their mistake would help to restore my faith!

They have an obligation to provide an appropriate service. If that has not happened you can write expressing your dissatisfaction. If they think your points are correct and there was a failing on there part then they should make some form of gesture, but that's all it would be, a gesture.

I'm not sure what it would take to restore your faith -that's a different matter.

dunstonh

So, forms were filled in an I expected to see the money in my account on or just after the birth date. I was hoping to put the cash into an ISA with my BS @1.5%

You took money out of tax free pension, paying tax in the process to put into a tax free cash ISA? That was a bit of waste of money.

I appreciate the Easter long weekend may have been a holdup but surely my cash should have been available to me sooner.

30 days is the general ball park. Any more than that then questions start getting asked. Investment returns will remain in place until the end though.

Did the value increase between your initial submission and the amount they paid?

jamesd

Do you ever again expect to make pension contributions of more than £10,000 in a tax year? If so, was the payment processed and initially sent before 6 April 2015 as a small pot lump sum or was it sent after that as an uncrystallised funds pension lump sum? The first way would not trigger a reduction in the money purchase annual allowance from £40k to £10k, the second way would.

Moving the money into an ISA seems like a good way to protect against the chance of future income tax increases but it's not a good way to hold the money long term because investments can provide higher growth and beat or keep up with inflation, while cash on deposit generally doesn't..