How do I claim back a mis-sold SIP

Prism

Have you not been paying into this pot for the last 30 years then? If so, why is it so small. How much was it worth when you transferred it back then?

Susan_S

I don't hold the Abbey Life documentation any longer so can't be exact in the year but I think it was around about 1985 and I continued to pay into it whilst being employed by the local authority for another 4 years or so; I have not paid into it since. I had been employed for 14 years for the LA, was then made redundant and since then have worked on a self employed basis. The swap came just after legislation changed and movements were allowed, whatever year that was. I have never received any questionnaire or phone calls regarding the sale. My husband is self employed and it was his financial adviser who said I should change. Having looked at paperwork I do hold a new financial adviser moved the pension from Abbey Life to Scottish Widows in 2001 the sum then was 17k; it was this adviser who managed to get a 'little extra' being only about £500 I believe because he said it wasn't enough. As at 2017 the value of the pension is 36k

uk1

Good Luck Susan .....

In the days you were advised, it seemed to me that the presumption was very much that if you had suffered a loss the preumption was sthat it was bad advice irrespective of what you understood or were told. It was simply the loss that decided.

I actually felt that I had made an informed decision with respect to my own move from a private sector DB scheme to a personal scheme but the findings were that I was misadvised which shocked me. In the process of having it moved back the actuaries even miscalculated and said I had suffered no loss, and a less "savvy" customer would have accepted it and moved on. I delved deeper and in the end a recalculation showed that a £130k needed to be added by the IFA insurers to my pot to get it back to my old emplyers scheme. Getting it back into my old employers scheme was "life changing".

Sometimes it seems to me that when people who do not understand these things and ask for helpthey are sometimes treated a little harshly and abruptly and sometimes it seems to me even as a "blood sport" which is a shame. Don't be disheartened. Good luck.

Prism

I can't comment on if the advice to transfer to a personal pension was good or not. Its impossible to judge that without knowing if the initial transfer value was good and the Abbey Life investments were correct. However to get the best out of a personal pension or SIPP it needs to be looked after. So at the beginning you should have been asked about your risk level which lead to your initial investments in the pension. What we know is that after 16 years it had grown to 17K. From that point onwards, in Scottish Widows it has more than doubled. That works out at about 4.5% per year (probably nearer 6% before fees). This seems about average without knowing what your investments are.

It was always going to be difficult to accrue a larger figure from the moment you stopped paying into it. Personal pensions really need a continual feed to do well, but as it hasn't been paid into in the last 26 years it was always going to be a small amount. Higher risk investments throughout would have probably helped too.

Silvertabby

The compulsary review only applied to 'mis-sold' pensions taken out between 29 April 1988 and 30 June 1994.

If you did transfer your LGPS benefits in 1985, then I'm afraid you won't qualify for a review. It may be that the £500 your husband's IFA managed to get for you was outside the compensation scheme, and could just be for a calculation error rather than compensation.

I hope someone pops up with a suggestion for you, but I really don't think you'll be able to take this any further.

Susan_S

Thanks for all your comments. You guys certainly seem to know your stuff. I'm going to try to find out exactly when I changed from the local authority scheme to a private provider and keep my fingers crossed that it was 1988 onwards in the hope that this might give me some hope of redress but as I didn't get any questionnaire/telephone calls it looks unlikely.

Dox

Personal pensions weren't around in 1985 - they came into existence in 1988. That was also the year employers lost the right to make membership of an occupational scheme compulsory. SIPPs didn't exist until 1989.

Based on the above, there is a very high chance that this took place during or after 1988.

Silvertabby

This is from the Financial Ombudsman's web-site.

Note the date - in 2003 they were already saying that anyone who had not submitted a claim by the 31 March 2000 cut-off had probably missed the boat, although they didn't rule out anyone giving it a go.

15 years on, however, I fear that there will be nothing that the OP can do - even if she did transfer her pension after 29 April 1988.

November 2003
pension mis-selling complaints made after the end of the personal pension review

It is getting on for ten years since the regulators ordered firms to review the personal pensions they had sold between 29 April 1988 and 30 June 1994. Where the review found that the firm had mis-sold the policy and that the customer would have been better off staying in - or joining - an occupational pension scheme, then the firm had to make redress. This was intended, as far as possible, to put the customer back in the position they would have been in if the firm had not advised them to take out a personal pension.
The review started at the end of 1994 and firms were required to include some cases in the review automatically and to start checking them right away. These cases included people in higher priority groups - such as those who had already retired. Firms were required to write to the remainder of the customers who were eligible for the review, explaining that they could ask to have their cases looked at. Customers who wanted to be included in the review had to apply by 31 March 2000.
Customers who missed this deadline but who believe they have been mis-sold a personal pension are still able to make a complaint to the firm in the normal way, although in some cases time limits may apply.
The following case studies illustrate some of the issues that can arise with personal pension complaints made after the end of the pension review.