Pension review offer from Portal Financial

Westin

Just wondering if any MSE'ers have used the services of Portal Financial Services http://www.portalfinancial.co.uk. I received a circular in the post from this company which offers a "free, no obligation pension review".

As well as a fairly recent company pension which I was in for 15 years until being made redundant in December, I have a very old personal pension which I first took out in the late 80's when I was 20 and we were encouraged to save for our retirement! Remember those days? I also recall opting out of SERPS years ago on advise of a pension adviser who came around the company I was then working for when again the in fashion thing was to build a personal pension plan. Anyway, a few old things linger which it would be good to have someone with pension knowledge look at.

Now what placed doubt in my mind is that this circulate has a simple form to complete and return yet asks for my NI# plus details of all my pension plan details and permission for them to contact my pension providers and obtain details on each plan. Now I get why they need this but it just strikes me as strange to provide all this personal information based on a "speculative" circular from a company I have had no dealings with or ever contacted in the past.

It would be great to hear first hand if anyone has had dealings with this company and if so what they thought of the service.

Thanks.

mgdavid

The standard rule is that 'cold calls' whether by phone or post are almost certainly a scam. At best they will cost you money for something you can do yourself.

Pensions are not rocket science, anyone of average intelligence can mug up on them and understand the important basics in a couple of evenings, and be in a position to make sensible decisions in a couple of weeks, especially with guidance from the experts and insiders on MSE. That is how I approached it in the run-up to retirement.

Your big advantage is that you are thinking about it at an age (mid-forties?) when you can still have a big effect on the outcome when you retire. You should have some sort of pension from every past employment; start digging out the paperwork and pulling the details together.

jamesd

Never do business with someone claiming to be from a financial firm who cold calls or uses leaflets. How do you even know that you would be sending your details to a firm rather than people engaged in identity fraud? Even if Portal is genuine, how do you know it's going to them?

If you tell us what you have we can tell you what you can do with it.

You can probably get lower ongoing costs by transferring the personal pension. Once you pick where you want to go it'll be a case of filling out one form or to some places, making one phone call.

dunstonh

I received a circular in the post from this company which offers a "free, no obligation pension review".

Hopefully you have also read the FCA and pension ombudsman warnings to avoid any company offering free pension reviews given the high levels of scams/fraud that takes place with these companies that offer free reviews.

If you want a review then get a local IFA of your choosing to carry out the review. https://www.unbiased.co.uk . Never act on cold calls or mailshots.

Westin

Thanks for the advice Chaps

darkcrusader

You, along with anyone else who has been contacted by this firm offering a free pension review, might also want to know that one of the people behind Portland Financial Services was previously behind a firm that got into a lot of hot water with the FSA (now FCA) for persuading people to cash in their pensions early. From what I recall, the firm in question had to pay a fine somewhere in the region of £1 million.

I believe they were also said to be charging fees of 10% of the money released on top of other commissions...

Former_MSE_Zorica

Official MSE Insert

Hi everyone,

Portal Financial Services LLP have asked us to post the following. Please note, MSE does not endorse anything posted on behalf of a company.

"We have been moved to comment on this page due to a post which is implying a link between the behaviour of a different company in 2004 and ourselves (Portal Financial Services LLP), and that people should therefore be concerned about us – a kind of no smoke without fire scenario. We have been asked by MoneySavingExpert not to mention the other company by name, so will just confirm that there is no link between our companies.

The same comment alluded to “one of the people behind Portal Financial Services” being involved with that company when it was fined by the FSA. We can confirm that this gentleman had sold his share in that company some years earlier, before the behaviour looked at by the FSA had started. He had absolutely nothing to do with this.

We would invite any users considering taking pension advice to call us on 0330 444 6000 to find out a bit more about us. We are regulated and authorised by the FCA and can also be found on unbiased.co.uk."