Pension company Capita has lost our Marriage Certificate

sanibel686

I am in the process of claiming/drawing my company pension and in order to register my wife for widows pension I had to send them her Birth Cert and our Marriage cert.

Capita insisted only originals were acceptable so we photocopied them and sent them with the claim pack by registered signed-for royal mail.

They returned her birth cert on it's own so I called to ask where the Marriage cert was. They said "according to our records we have no evidence of receiving it" they then asked me if I was sure I had actually sent it. An argument ensued! I said we are meticulous with our records and had carefully looked after this document for 34 years. Both my wife and I also confirmed over the phone that it went into the envelope with the rest of the pack.

I made a formal complaint and they told me they would open an investigation. They are currently in my opinion simply "going through the motions" and we hold no hope of seeing it again.

Clearly our original marriage cert was a very precious and sentimental thing to us. I know we can order a replacement but we feel a sense of significant loss.

Do we have any options/recourse??

JJ_Egan

Recourse ?? are you asking for Compo .
Basic problem you have no evidence that it was received .

tacpot12

What would you like to happen?

POPPYOSCAR

sanibel686 wrote: »

I am in the process of claiming/drawing my company pension and in order to register my wife for widows pension I had to send them her Birth Cert and our Marriage cert.

Capita insisted only originals were acceptable so we photocopied them and sent them with the claim pack by registered signed-for royal mail.

They returned her birth cert on it's own so I called to ask where the Marriage cert was. They said "according to our records we have no evidence of receiving it" they then asked me if I was sure I had actually sent it. An argument ensued! I said we are meticulous with our records and had carefully looked after this document for 34 years. Both my wife and I also confirmed over the phone that it went into the envelope with the rest of the pack.

I made a formal complaint and they told me they would open an investigation. They are currently in my opinion simply "going through the motions" and we hold no hope of seeing it again.

Clearly our original marriage cert was a very precious and sentimental thing to us. I know we can order a replacement but we feel a sense of significant loss.

Do we have any options/recourse??

This is one reason to have more than one copy that can be sent off when needed.

Anything can happen to an original lost in the post etc.

The problem you now have is proving you sent it. All you can do is insist they pay for a replacement.

davidmcn

sanibel686 wrote: »

Clearly our original marriage cert was a very precious and sentimental thing to us. I know we can order a replacement but we feel a sense of significant loss.

Do we have any options/recourse??

At best you can expect the cost of obtaining another official extract. I think viewing the older official extract as being "very precious and sentimental" is probably a bit odd, the original records are of course kept by the registers. I'm sure you have other far more precious and sentimental mementos from your marriage. If it was really that important to you then you could easily have got a new extract and posted that instead.

Silvertabby

The best you can hope for is that Capita pay for a replacement copy, I'm afraid.

We had the same dilemma when Capita wanted our original marriage certificate when Mr S claimed a little pension from them. We married in Germany, and it is likely that the original register is now gathering dust in some remote MOD archive - so no way were they getting the original just in case they lost it.

No help to you, unfortunately, but something for others to take on board.

sanibel686

I suppose what I am looking for, first and foremost, is a little forum love and sympathy, which you have provided thank you!!

Do I want compensation? £11 for a replacement is nothing and not worth going through the motions for.

Putting a value on the loss of our precious doc is impossible and implausible to sue for it anyway.

As for the person above who found it odd that we value these docs above the level of a mere replacement, we also hold our parents docs and those of our wider family on both sides. Further; the signatories on our original doc were personal friends who are now dead. I trust this clarifies.

Looking at the replies it appears that we have been naive in thinking our docs were protected. Next time I do anything similar I'll video myself stuffing the envelope whilst I say "so this is the level of proof required to hoist an incompetent company and the insidiously choreographed excuses of it's management onto their own petard.

What would I really like?
Me, Matt Allwright and a posse of cameramen to ride over to Capita's Darlington offices and extract a cripplingly broadcast-able admission of inadequacy from a "nominated spokesman" ending with an offer to come back and re-interview him after he has re-engineered his woeful processes.

comeandgo

If you have documents you fear losing check if the company will accept a solicitor verifying a copy. My husbands birth certificate is from on old third world African country and there is no way on earth it is leaving us and every department we have ever dealt with have suggested other paperwork or solicitors stamp on copy.

davidmcn

sanibel686 wrote: »

As for the person above who found it odd that we value these docs above the level of a mere replacement, we also hold our parents docs and those of our wider family on both sides. Further; the signatories on our original doc were personal friends who are now dead.

But the point is that what many people think of as the "original" doc isn't the original - if by "signatories" you mean the witnesses rather than the registrar, their original signatures are on the certificate which is still safely held by the registers. All you had was an official copy issued at the time it was registered.

Silvertabby

Just a thought, but as an ex LGPS administrator I can say that we did (um) occasionally find that certificates became detached from pension claim forms during the mail sorting process. Ones that weren't immediately identifiable were popped into a folder in the hope that the owner would query the loss. Perhaps Capita have a similar process?

unholyangel

Silvertabby wrote: »

The best you can hope for is that Capita pay for a replacement copy, I'm afraid.

No help to you, unfortunately, but something for others to take on board.

I'd be cautious about doing this. Or admitting to doing it. They are official documents. The self printed copy would not be.

I haven't quoted any of that part in case you wanted to edit - with a mind to how some people love digging through post history for any ammo they can find

As an aside, I needed to get a copy recently and was only around £10. I was surprised as it used to cost a lot more!