NOW Pensions: bad news? Stay away?

Not_Me_Officer

Just done some more quick googling & discovered this 'SMART' thing which appears to be a different kind of salary sacrifice to what i'd been reading.

So much to take in. My head is going to be frazzled at the end of it all. Lol.

greenglide

SMART, salary sacrifice etc are all the same.

It isnt really complex, everyone tends to look for complexities that arent there.

Not_Me_Officer

Well it was a good idea while it lasted.


The company I work for do not offer a salary sacrifice scheme. They may or may not in future but for the time being they just don't.


Which surprised me. The section where they get to save money would've been enough on that alone I would've thought for them to be interested.


So if it's win-win for the company to offer this scheme then why would a company not offer it? What gains could they get out of NOT offering it?

greenglide

Many companies tend not to understand just how big the savings are and how simple it is,

But their payroll systems probably don't handle it and they would need clerical processes to keep track of the amount sacrificed and the formal agreement from the employees which is signed by them. At our work there is a Web site that does all of the "flexible benefits" stuff and passes results to the HR and payroll systems.

bigadaj

greenglide wrote: »

Many companies tend not to understand just how big the savings are and how simple it is,

But their payroll systems probably don't handle it and they would need clerical processes to keep track of the amount sacrificed and the formal agreement from the employees which is signed by them. At our work there is a Web site that does all of the "flexible benefits" stuff and passes results to the HR and payroll systems.

I wonder if this is due to so many payroll systems being outsourced, it could be that they either don't want the complications from it could add to costs in that regard. Even a small to moderate sized employer with a 50% split on employers NI could be looking at savings of tens or hundreds of thousands.

mania112

^ I don't know if you know, but you can't promote your business on here.

Paul_Herring

mania112 wrote: »

^ I don't know if you know, but you can't promote your business on here.

I'm sure they do. They've contrived to mention their website in every one of their first four posts on here.

I clicked spam on each of them.

PensionTech

I have reported Lammiman for spam and promotion - I suggest others do the same.

Because their posts will be deleted, it might be helpful to anyone googling Plan Your Finances or PlanYourFinances to know that they have spammed the pensions forum with prohibited and misleading self-promotion suggesting that people should move their pensions to gain better investment returns according to their unique insights. This is a well-known scam model.

Their website rings all sorts of alarm bells - they are based overseas, their headlines confidently say completely irresponsible unfounded things like "Investment property with <well-known company> is the most profitable investment you can currently make", they claim that their website is set up to "provide free, expert advice and insights to help people make sound financial decisions" but then hidden away in their terms and conditions is "Plan Your Finances is an online portal for information on financial planning and not a registered investment firm, nor does it provide financial advice", they appear to be headed by Chris Land who claims to be a independent financial advisor but is not registered with the FCA (nor is the company itself)... the list goes on and on, but perhaps most damningly of all, they say that "Hundred's [sic] of clients can't be wrong". And that's just embarrassing.

So if you are Googling "Are PlanYourFinances a scam?" or "Plan Your Finances dodgy" or "Should I trust Chris Land Plan Your Finances" or anything of the sort, then you may find your way here and see that although we can't possibly say whether any company is legitimate or not, this company's promotions seem to exhibit several red flags of the sort that authorities concerned with fraud awareness (e.g. the FCA or the Pensions Regulator) warn consumers about.

dunstonh

LAMMIMAN wrote: »

Hi there.

1. The pension fund could legitimately have gone down e.g. if it is in investments such as stocks that could have performed poorly. So you'd have to compare the performance with the benchmark and understand what the fund is invested in to know if it is actually being mismanaged.

2. But in general, run-of-the mill defined-contribution pensions that cater to employers are typically not very good at the best of times. What you have to calculate is if paying into the pension is worthwhile because your employer contributions make up for poor investment performance/high-fees, or if the performance is so bad that you should move to a consumer-friendly personal pension or other saving structure.

I write about investments for PlanYourFinances.com
They have several articles on moving your pension at PlanYourFinances.com/retirement
And also have financial specialists who could give you custom advice

Good luck!

Alan

i am leaving the links in as there is something very wrong with this.

The website has someone called Chris Land who claims: Chris Land has 8 years of experience as a qualified, independent financial advisor licensed with the Globaleye Hong Kong office, which is a firm with 12 offices and 12,000 clients across Europe, Middle East & Asia. Chris has built a large client base of expat clients who now live in Australia, China, Europe, Hong Kong, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, UK, UAE & Vietnam.

There is no Chris Land on the FSA register. This covers all regulated individuals (current and previous) going back to 2001. This means, if he is active in the UK, then he is doing so unlawfully as he holds no FCA permissions and is unregulated. An IFA transacting the UK is required to be authorised by the FCA and would appear on that register.

There is also no company called plan your finances on the FSA register. So, again, if the company is active in the UK, as it claims, then it is acting unlawfully.

As "Alan" is spamming a UK site dealing with UK consumers and actively promoting his services to UK consumers then that would require FCA authorisation which they do not have.

Checking the T&C for Plan your finances, it says: "Plan Your Finances is an online portal for information on financial planning and not a registered investment firm, nor does it provide financial advice."

So, ignoring the fact that point 2 by Alan is total rubbish and incorrect, he is acting without the necessary permissions required in the UK and his own company website says they do not do what he is claiming they do. This appears to be the typical set up by scammers. Unregulated, outside of the UK trying to get UK consumers money where there is no consumer protection.

Not_Me_Officer

Well I have had contact back from Now Pensions which as I thought - my employer IS contributing to my pension.
After reading the google reviews of this Now Pensions (specifically the one from an employer saying their contributions weren't being taken) I did wonder if Now Pensions were taking the contributions my employer was giving, or if there was a delay ... but I guess this shows there's been no delay & everything is fine that way.


Which I guess brings it to charges & what my money is invested in.


Going back to the salary sacrifice thing ... the main reason my employer doesn't offer it is due to sickness. They have had people off on long term sick in the past, they mentioned they can't claim this SSP back so are paying someone for basically being of no use to them, so on & so forth.


I don't quite get the ins & outs of it all, but a no is a no & it's their choice so fair enough I suppose.