Aviva lost my pension contributions!

tantriclady

They have lost my pension contributions! Unbelievable situation.
I am aghast that nothing has been done in my case. This is now with the Ombudsman but is slow progress.
I started paying into an old pension scheme with Aviva. For nearly 2 years, I have paid £100pm plus nearly £2k lump sum at the start.

I asked for a pension statement but was ignored. I asked again. After 3 months I phone in Feb 2019 and stated that I wanted to complain. They sent me a statement in March. This did not include these extra payments going back to Jan 2017. I asked about the progress of my complaint and wanted a figure for performance of this pension. They repeatedly promised they would send it out. 4 times they sent the statement without the new sums on it. They logged my complaint in April. A senior complaints officer was allocated to sort it out. He sent me out a statement with under half the payments on it and letter stating they had resolved my complaint in June 2019. He has now left after stating that Aviva had lost my paperwork back in Feb 2018 and that my payments had been redirected to a deferred account and the shares/units for my pension not purchased at all. So I've lost out on growth of the fund. As of last week, they sent me yet another statement showing half of my contributions on there but still haven't purchased any shares/units for my fund and the money is still not in the pension account. They are infuriating at Aviva. I am now trying to withdraw all my Aviva products as I cannot trust them when I retire to pay my correct pension. Scary.

And my tax return to HMRC is now wrong for 2 tax years. Gah. I cannot believe this can happen.

Is it just me?

Albermarle

I had an Aviva pension from a previous employer and decided to add a lump sum to it . They can take a debit card payment online , so it was easy . I know it can take a week or two for the money to appear in the pension but after one month, no sign of it. Called them and they said they could see the payment, but for some reason it had not progressed but they would sort it out and within a week all OK . Next lump sum payment exactly the same happened .
So clearly something not working in their system.
To 'Tantric Lady ' , It is not your fault but if you were checking online you would maybe have noticed the issue sooner, and also then no need for pension statements as you can see all the fund and overall values in real time online

xylophone

Mistakes happen but clearly Aviva has fallen far below acceptable standards of service.

You have complained, (quite justifiably) to the Ombudsman - there seems little you can do now apart from wait for his ruling - at the least he should require Aviva to put you back into the position you would have been had the errors not occurred?

I imagine he may also award some compensation for the maladministration?

Brynsam

Are you sure the Ombudsman has accepted the case? Normally you'd be expected to use the services of TPAS first (might be a lot quicker, too). See https://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/pension-problems/making-a-complaint

tantriclady

I phoned them within 2 months of making the first payments and was told that because it was an old pension, it wouldn't show online. But the other pensions in this plan did but they said to wait for the yearly statement and reassured me that it was an IT thing.

tantriclady

I went to FOS initially and they have redirected me to the Pensions Ombudsman. Trouble is, I am still oaying into it as I don't want to lose the benefit of having it growing (or allegedly growing!)


The HMRC tax issue is concerning as I have now submitted it seems, 2 wrong self-assessments based on these contributions off my taxable profits for the last 2 years.

jamesd

As long as you made the payments your tax affairs are correct.

Aviva will be required to put you in the position you would have been in if the mistake hadn't been made. That means investing each month to get the correct value and adding to the difference between that and the current value to your pot.

Alice_Holt

Just wondering if a Subject Access Request to Aviva (including transcripts of telephone calls) may provide useful evidence?

https://www.aviva.co.uk/legal/subject-access-request/