Not Receiving pension 4 months after Retirement, What should I do next?

stevetrov

I retired on ill health grounds from the civil service on December 7th 2018 and I haven't yet received any pension, my employer and pension company are both blaming the other for the delay. What should I do??

More details:

I received an initial pension quote a few days before Christmas 2018 (several weeks after my retirement). However, this quote was lower than I was expecting so I requested the details of my pensionable earnings from the pension company and my employer (which took a couple of weeks). The figures were different for the last two financial years and the pension company said I had 0 pensionable earnings in 18/19 that I knew to be false.

On Jan 18th 2019 I put a request into the pension company for them to recalculate my quote in light of these figures. Since then when ever I have contacted either my employer or the pension company they have blamed the delays on the other party.

What I have done:

I have made over 20 telephone calls and written a number of emails.

I have raised an official complaint with the pension company

Contacted my union pension rep, who has offered to chase things up but nothing seems to have changed.

Where we are now:

I spoke to the pension company today and they told me they have been waiting for a response from my employer since the end of feb and that they have tried to contact my employer by email and telephone without response. I have tried to ring a number of members of staff in HR at my employer and haven't been able to speak to anyone other than on the helpdesk and promises of return calls have not been fullfilled.

The pension company has put my complaint on hold because they are waiting for a response from my employer.

What should I do now

Thanks thanks.

xylophone

https://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/pension-problems

Above may assist.

OldBeanz

The only way I managed to get through to MyCSP was to threaten to sue them. Their haughty attitude changed somewhat after that. Not that they have resolved my issue just that they are now pretending to look at it. (The money is in their favour but they landed me with an unexpected tax bill and told me about it 2 days before my first pension payment after Christmas, 2 years ago). Tell them (by email) you want to know their company details as you intend closing them down https://www.gov.uk/wind-up-a-company-that-owes-you-money . Tell them this will incur costs for which they will be liable and they have a week to make an interim payment directly into your bank account. This will grab their attention.

selloptape

You could try raising the issue with your MP, they may be able to give your ex employer a nudge, as it was a Civil Service role.

Hope all is resolved soon.

Malthusian

stevetrov wrote: »

The pension company has put my complaint on hold because they are waiting for a response from my employer.

They are still obliged to send you a final response within eight weeks and notify you of your right to go to the Ombudsman, even if that final response is "I'm sorry we're not in a position to issue a final response as we can't do anything until we hear from your employer".

I would be going to the Ombudsman at this point. This won't get you paid any quicker - Ombudsman complaints take months or years - but it will ensure you receive redress for the delay.

As to how to speed the process along, I have very few helpful suggestions, other than going to the pension company's office and handcuffing yourself to the door until a senior manager picks up the phone to the employer and sorts it out. Don't forget to invite the local paper.

I don't habitually recommend extreme solutions like this, but I have a little experience of situations like this (where the pension administrator and the employer pass the buck to each other) and they will quite happily go on like this forever for as long as the punter doesn't give them a reason not to.

I would exhaust the above suggestions of contacting the Pensions Advisory Service and your MP first though.

I quite like the suggestion of issuing winding-up proceedings, but it does involve hefty court fees which you might not get back. If a judge took the view that whichever party you sued didn't owe you money because they hadn't had the necessary information to start the pension, and/or the application was made frivolously to make a point, the company wouldn't be held liable for them.

LHW99

If you have all inclusive landline minutes on you phone I think I might try being a "thundering nuisance" and phone them both every day (twice if possible) ask always to speak to the same person, tell them you'll hold until that person comes or they pass you to the next most senior. Then get that person's direct number and repeat. Other suggestions above are good however and will certainly require less input from you.