Aviva Investment Fund -Help

waribai

I had a Friends Life investment bond which was taken over by Aviva. I have from time to time made withdrawals and payments have taken around 10 days to be processed. This had worked fine until this month. I made a partial surrender application in early September but 2 weeks later had not received the funds. So I called them early last week. I was told there had been a technical issue cancelling down the units and I needed to wait. I have just phoned them up a week later and been told the same thing again.
Apart from getting stressed and feeling helpless, is there anything else I can do?

dunstonh

Some of the investment bonds that Aviva have or have "inherited" through purchases have to go through a manual cross-checking calculation which adds about 10 days the surrender process.

This tends to happen on old plans where there have been lots of ad-hoc partial surrenders and/or regular withdrawals.

In most cases now, this type of tax wrapper has gone obsolete. So, it may now be time to investigate modern options.

waribai

Thanks. That might explain it. But what I really want to know is how to get the process moving aside from them being contacted by an agony aunt type from the money section of one of the broadsheets. I’m sure they would then get it done in a flash!

lpgm

I've got some of these legacy products. It's horrendous dealing with them. The Aviva family and Scottish Widows are particularly bad. Standard Life seems a bit better. I've got rid of most of them now. Still a few to go.

waribai

Just an update to this, after not receiving the money within 10 days I contacted Aviva again and was told that due to a technical issue in that insufficient units could be cancelled, the delay was ongoing. Towards the end of September I decided in frustration to cancel the whole policy and submitted a claim for a full encashment. Again, after 10 days I still had not received my funds so I contacted Aviva who said that I now needed to submit certified copies of my passport and bank statement despite them having paid out encashments in the past from the same policy to the same bank account, Aviva suddenly needed to check my documents. So, I had these stamped by the bank last week and sent them off. On Friday 19th October, I was assured on the phone that all was fine and that the payment was on the way. I again phoned today just to check and now discovered that actually the payment was delayed again as the certified copies did not have the contact details for the person at the bank who stamped the documents. This is completely unacceptable especially with different customer agents giving contradicting assurances and information. Have I not got any rights at all here or groudns for complaint?

dunstonh

You can complain about the service you have received.

Aviva is pretty good on their modern business range but their legacy stuff; especially inherited policies that were originally with a different company, can have really poor servicing.

We put in a complaint recently on an old legacy case that was held up and got a very satisfactory outcome that the client was delighted with. The Aviva complaints team were quick and thorough and their process changed the perception of the client who had gone anti-Aviva to being positive about them again. So, do give their complaints team a call.

waribai

Another update to my ongoing saga with Aviva. I resubmitted certified copies of my id for verification. This time with a solicitors stamp and contact details which I paid for. This was verified supposedly on 1st November according to their call centre. In the meantime, I took your advice and complained to their complaints department. They wrote back saying that they had sent me £100 for my inconvenience and poor service and that it would be with me soon.
My £28k encashment though would take a few more days to process. This apparently was processed on Thursday 8th November and the money sent out to the same bank account I had received partial encashments to previously. Surprise, suprise it didn't arrive. I contacted them yesterday and was told to wait until today (Friday 16th November)
Still no money. Now they are saying that they will run a basic trace to find where the money has gone. This will take 48 hours but if that proves unsuccessful then a more detailed trace will be needed which could take 10-15 working days!
I have now been waiting close on to 3 months for a payment which should have taken 5 days!
Can I contact the ombudsman yet? I am slowly losing the will to live!

dunstonh

If they are saying they have sent it, I would now be concerned about the sort code/account number (and reference number if old style building society). Have they verified those details with you?

waribai

Thanks. Yes, they have confirmed those with me. Also, they managed to get the £100 compensation money to the right account! Barclays, my bank asked for a payment reference number to run their own trace but Aviva are not keen on disclosing that to me...