Amass Ltd..

Kit_Carson

http://www.costa-action.co.uk/ Scroll down. There is a warning about Amass on here.

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/firmBasicDetails.do?sid=142432

Hotmail address? Covered only under a passported IMD licence ( ie can only sell insurance ), so not authorised to give pension advice to UK residents. Get to an IFA asap.

solchain

Just want to say thanks for the replies, I am going to get her to speak to someone asap, I think it has already happened, but she was waiting for a call from Amass as there was something else they needed, I have told her to not to talk to them right now.

I will either be back with more questions or how it panned out.

Thanks again everyone - I promise to update this either way.

Kit_Carson

Get as much info as you can and report this to the FCA. Post on here details if you want. That SIPP firm needs to answer a few questions. IFAs in the UK are sick of coughing up for scams caused by offshore firms.

TrickyDicky101

How old is she? === I think this is a very important question so please answer it.

solchain

TrickyDicky101 wrote: »

How old is she? === I think this is a very important question so please answer it.

Hi, she is 59.

jamesd

At 59 she doesn't need pension unlocking companies for a SIPP. She's already entitled to take out all of the money using the rules that apply from 6 April 2015. If it happens that the place she's with doesn't yet provide the features she wants she can just transfer to a place like Virgin that does. Virgin charges nothing for doing this using the new option called an uncrystallised funds pension lump sum (UFPLS). Those lump sums are 25% tax free, 75% added to normal income and taxed accordingly. Usually the rules will mean that the company charges too much tax and a HMRC form needs to be filled in to get a refund of the extra. She can do this for any potion of the pot at any time.

There is a more flexible alternative called flexi-access drawdown. That allows taking the 25% tax free lump sum from any portion of the pension and taking any amount desired from the remaining 75% at any time. This makes it easier to optimise the income tax because you can do things like trying to take out only enough of the 75% to use your personal allowance and no more. Virgin doesn't offer this option but Hargreaves Lansdown and any other places do. Also for zero charge in the case of HL, provided you leave at least £1,000 in the account for a year.

But the key things are:

1. she's being scammed because she doesn't need to transfer to some obscure place to do this.
2. she's paying a high price to be scammed because withdrawing the money is available free from legitimate companies.
3. she's probably going to have all of her money stolen.
4. she must contact her existing pension companies as soon as possible to tell them to block transfers out.
5. if the transfers out have already happened, she must also contact Avalon SIPP Trustees to tell them not to transfer the money onwards but to return it to the place it came from. Tell them it is because of a pension liberation fraud attempt. A legitimate phone number for them is 01666 501710 and I've sent you an email address of an individual there privately.

jamesd

It turns out that the mother has been emailing the same person at Avalon who I spoke with on the phone earlier today.

It's a sad reality that any individual or firm that has been assisting in a fraud must be viewed with great caution because legitimate individuals or firms can either be duped into helping fraudsters or occasionally are knowing participants.

In this area, in addition to cancelling all authorisations and instructing a return of the money to the place it came from, she should be following the FCA's advice to report to Action Fraud. That in this case would sadly mean including this individual and all email correspondence with them as part of the fraud reporting.

It's even more important now to contact the places where the money has been to prevent them from transferring to Avalon, because of the possibility that Avalon or an individual employee there is a participant.

Note that I do not know whether Avalon or the individual actually are knowing participants. It's just the circumstance that so far they have been assisting with rather than preventing the fraud that means caution must be used with regard to them and that they will need to be included within the future investigations, both FCA and pure criminal.

Kit_Carson

Questions have to be asked as to why this SIPP provider is even dealing with this firm. There has to be zero tolerance to protect the consumer.
I suspect a lot of decent SIPP providers get hoodwinked.

I have seen a really clever pension liberation that caught out a market leading SIPP- Usual suspects involved.

jamesd

In this case the emails may be revealing: was the individual at Avalon saying that to get the money would take a transfer to Cyprus and an executive pension scheme? If so, they were at best lying to the person if they knew their age, because that is not required.

Or they may just have been assisting with the mechanics after being told by an IFA that it was correct. But that does not seem to be the situation and if it was correct I'd expect them to be dealing with the IFA more than the end customer, since customer contact is the IFA's job. Also in this case if they were told age and that the desire was just to get the money I'd expect an immediate double-take and telling the person that it is not necessary to do any of those things.

atush

solchain wrote: »

Just want to say thanks for the replies, I am going to get her to speak to someone asap, I think it has already happened, but she was waiting for a call from Amass as there was something else they needed, I have told her to not to talk to them right now.

I will either be back with more questions or how it panned out.

Thanks again everyone - I promise to update this either way.

Not sure if you are aware of the Immediacy of her situation. I'd be calling her old pension place, and the IFA who is operating the transfer immediately. Like now. Lik ASAP.

I would record a conversation if you can using your phone, and I would send any covering documents immediately by email so you have a evidence trail, and by snail mail using both special/recorded delivery to stop this transaction in its tracks.

I now you are worried which is why you came here. Not sure you are worried/acting fast enough.

Good luck and let us know what happens.

I would immediately start a complaint by the transferring IFA scheme by recorded letter.