pension data loss

rekatihw

I'm not sure if this is the right forum but my wife has not had a pension projection since we moved house 18 months ago. She contacted the pension provider (local government) and was told that they had sent it to our old address. She has contacted the provider previously about the change of address and has had correspondence from them to our new address.

Would anyone know who she complains to about the loss of personal information and the possibility of being open to identity fraud.

Thanks,

John

AnotherJoe

The information commisioner's office.

https://ico.org.uk/

I think you'd be wasting your time though. One wrongly directed bit of mail.

ex-pat_scot

Be careful: the pension scheme will maintain separate records to that of the sponsoring employer (ie local govt office).
As such, you had notified the employer, but you are relying on employer updating the scheme administrator with the record.


You might well find that assumption to be flawed.


She ought to clarify with the pension scheme administrator as to what address records they have for her, and request it be corrected where required.
If that process does not work, then you could consider escalating to the pension scheme trustees, the Pensions Regulator, or the Infomration Commissioner's Office perhaps.


I'm not sure that making a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office is necessarily your best next step though.

dunstonh

Would anyone know who she complains to about the loss of personal information and the possibility of being open to identity fraud.

Complain to the scheme administrators. It could be followed up doing what AnotherJoe says. However, minor clerical issues for one off things do not result in action being taken. Clerical errors are unfortunate but happen and the ICO are not really interested in one off errors but more widespread failures.

Often, benefit statements are produced a fair bit in advance and change of addresses can happen just before they are posted. An 18 month period sounds long but that could cover 1 or 2 statements and if 1 statement, then it could have been as the change of address was happening. So, its not possible on what you have said so far to work out when that statement was issued.

xylophone

She contacted the pension provider (local government) and was told that they had sent it to our old address.

Had you set up mail redirection before you left?

It is not impossible that any letter didn't arrive at your old address - simply lost in post? How would you prove otherwise?

It is not impossible that despite what your wife was told, there was some sort of clerical error that meant that no letter was ever sent - I seem to remember other posters complaining about long delays in receiving communications from MyCSP and LGPS.

Better for you wife to ensure that your new address is on record and to put it down to experience?

Has she now received the information concerning her pension?

rekatihw

We had mail redirect on for 12 months May-May. Think it's a mix up between LGPS and scheme administrator

hyubh

rekatihw wrote: »

We had mail redirect on for 12 months May-May. Think it's a mix up between LGPS and scheme administrator

As ex-pat scot says, I wouldn't assume notifying payroll of a change of address would get the pension team automatically notified as well, even if the employer is the same body as the administering authority, and pensions admin is done in house.

That said, might be worth checking to see whether paper statements could be avoided completely and just get them online instead - it's increasingly common for LGPS administrators to have member self-service systems, if they hadn't had one already.

System

Hi

The item was not re-directed by Royal mail during the period, or the new occupier return it as unknown / unwanted?

As to the loss of personal information, what information and by who?

If it has been 'lost' by that item of post being opened by someone other than the addressee then that is beyond the reach of the LGPS.

Usually the NiNo and Date of Birth are suppressed, but I suppose the age can be calculated from the projection / inclusion of the amount at retirement age in XX years.

The statement would be out around July/August so the re-direct would have been in place, and I assume the old address was noticed and the LGPS informed.

I don't think you, OP rekatihw, have a reasonable chance of changing anything.

I did handle lots of returned LGPS statements and did actively seek to get updated addresses, and looked for clues as to where the member may have moved to. Other authorities are also proactive, the software has a facility to suppress production of 'marked gone away' statements and there may be no case to answer.

As to ID theft, I wonder if John Whitaker is your real name?

steampowered

I wouldn't have thought an annual pension statement would contain enough data to put you at increased risk of identity fraud. I don't think there is much you can do with just a name, address and amount of the pension pot.