Cannot locate Serps fund

agarnett

Fingers crossed for you then!

As you can see, I have an extremely cynical view of the MO of these back books vultures.

When you think that each of the names in that enormous list I gave you each had a portfolio of products and that as you can see from Phoenix' website, they deliberately change the name of the Company, they merge and demerge funds, they make up new rules as they go along, they've even bought or sold a name (I forget which but the name is Resolution) to a completely separate business - you can see that it is fully intended to be smoke and mirrors. Most IFA's find with-profits boring (as in sensitive to explain). So they don't talk much about it. Consequently most customers find it even more boring because they are not being advised about it any more, and so they know far less than they might have done 20 years ago about with profits.

The establishment has for the second time stepped back from sending in the Robocops or Ironmen as forensic regulators of with profits business, lobbied no doubt by the City. The first was a Treasury Select Committee enquiry in 2008 which decided they didn't like what they saw but they did nothing except help Prudential decide not to try anything quite so dodgy as they first intended for their with-profits funds. The second was when Clive Adamson at the FCA ended up having to fall on his sword for being too aggressive a regulator and causing the poor darling Insurance Company shareholders to suffer a false market in their shares after he clumsily leaked FCA's intentions to investigate.

The news story then became the one about the new FCA fancying themselves as being strongarm, actually being plain clumsy and soft enough to roll over and poke fun at. The proper story which still remains untold about the insurance industry being thoroughly Crooked with regards to with profits over a long period is yet to break.

The closest we have got to a scandal breaking lately is that the current chairman of FCA alluded in the latest Treasury Select Committee Inquiry into FCA's clumsiness, to industry mistakes of the past which seem now to be starting to cost homeowners their homes (a reference to endowment shortfalls - mostly with profits again of course!). That is a very obvious case of the industry still having its underwear on full view after hurriedly pulling up their pants when fingers were last pointed. And the smell won't go away.

baz8755

Annoyingly even if the money is found it is bound to have languished in a poorly performing product. Whereas the funds they did transfer have almost doubled in value in my SIPP

baz8755

OK so more than 10 days have passed and no news.

I called Phoenix who claim that the Pension provider I was transferring to was unable to take the Protected rights so that part was not transferred. They also have not as yet calculated how much money is my protected rights pot with them.

So I am now wondering if I have a case for some form of compensation as firstly they never informed me that my provider could not take protected rights (this is actually untrue as they were unable to) but also when I chased this issue a couple/few years ago I was told that they had transferred all my holdings to my new pension provider.

All I can say is that Pearl/Phoenix do not seem to be a very trustworthy provider.

gadgetmind

baz8755 wrote: »

So I am now wondering if I have a case for some form of compensation as firstly they never informed me that my provider could not take protected rights

There is no excuse for them not informing you, but equally well, you should have been verifying this yourself.

Given all the mergers, rules changes, and government meddling, all of the pensions companies are nightmares regards admin and you do need to keep an eye on them.

baz8755

gadgetmind wrote: »

There is no excuse for them not informing you, but equally well, you should have been verifying this yourself.

Possibly true but back then I was nowhere near as pension savvy as I am now and I trusted financial institutions to be honest and open.

gadgetmind

baz8755 wrote: »

back then I was nowhere near as pension savvy as I am now

I know what you mean.

I trusted financial institutions to be honest and open.

I'm not sure I made that mistake! But it's more down to them not recruiting the best people, not investing in their systems, and generally being a bit rubbish, than outright dishonesty.

I think you need to tell them that you're escalating this to an internal complaint with a view to proceeding to FOS. They were told to do a transfer, messed it up, didn't tell you, and now haven't got a clue what they did or didn't actually do!

dunstonh

So I am now wondering if I have a case for some form of compensation as firstly they never informed me that my provider could not take protected rights (this is actually untrue as they were unable to) but also when I chased this issue a couple/few years ago I was told that they had transferred all my holdings to my new pension provider.

That is the responsibility of the receiving scheme or intermediary.

The reason for this is that the receiving scheme tells Phoenix to transfer non-protected rights and supply the discharge form. Phoenix do that and send you a closing statement telling you how much they have transferred to the new provider.

If the pension didnt close because of protected rights, then you would continue to get an annual statement (normally).

The receiving scheme tells you how much they have received and that they have applied it.

You are not due any compensation as the transaction you wanted to do was not possible and the pension remained in place and would have continued to receive bonuses. If the admin was mucked up regarding ongoing statements and poor telephone service then you could be looking at a goodwill gesture for inconvenience of around £25-£50

baz8755

Since transferring the non protected rights I have never received any statements from Pearl/Phoenix

gadgetmind

The biggest mess I had when doing a transfer was back when I used an IFA. I couldn't make SJP's numbers make sense, the IFA didn't even seem to know how to do the calculations so wasn't a great middleman, and SJP kept insisting they were right.

Several years later, SJP found they were wrong (someone else pushing further/harder and they did a wider check?) and I got a cheque for £700 with tax bill paid.

baz8755

Having spent months dealing with Phoenix, TPAs, PO here is the almost final outcome.

Having initially denied they had my protected rights funds Phoenix did locate them and transferred them to my SIPP. However they never provided any statements and admit that they thought the account was closed. However they maintain that the wording of the transfer letter that excluded protected rights was perfectly clear. Oh and they have offered a goodwill gesture of a few hundred pounds.

So.....

I raised the issue with the PO who immediately forwarded the complaint to TPAS.

TPAS were pretty good but were met with a blank wall by Phoenix who held there story and completely ignored any requests for statements, stating that they suspected these would be used as a claim against them.

TPAS forwarded the case back to the PO who sided with Phoenix solely on the fact that I was informed that protected rights were not transferred. I asked for the case to be reviewed and got the same response. They did however state that I could probably start a whole new claim regarding lack of statements but as they could only rule on 3 years they final sum would be in line with what Phonenix have already offered.


So what are my options now as I am still unhappy with the ruling and feel that at the very least Phoenix still need to account for what happened to the funds over the past 10 years.