Prudential service is causing me real issues (long)

clonkel

Hi,
At this time I feel I have nowhere I can turn to fix a situation that I find myself in with Prudential and any advice would be great.
I finished work on the 31st July 2020 after working at a university. My pension provider is Hants. I paid AVCs for several years and the provider that Hants uses is the Prudential. In June I called the Prudential and asked for no more payments into my AVC. I did this to ensure I stopped my AVCs one month early in order to make sure that there would be no payment in July. Typically the cycle is the payment is made from payroll at the end of the month, it is received by Prudential on or around the 7th of each month and is allocated to the fund around the 20th of each month. The reason for stopping a month early was for the Prudential to be able to disinvest the fund without having to wait until the 20th of August and therefore I would receive my pension payment from Hants a month earlier.

I checked my payslip on the 30 July as soon as I received it. To my shock another payment had been made to my AVCs. I called payroll who said it was their mistake as they had not been in the office (Covid) to pick up the list of payments from Prudential. If they had have done then they would have seen zero payment from me. I then called Prudential and spoke to an advisor to find out my options. He said that typically they would get the contribution on the 7th and it would take 12 working days to disinvest so I was looking at the 25th of August. Based on this information I agreed with both payroll and Prudential to let the contribution be added for July.

I can check my fund online and each day I never saw the contribution applied. It got to the 20th August and still nothing. I called the Prudential on the 20th and they said that they only received confirmation from payroll the day before, 19th that they could apply the contribution. I said that this was never explained to me and they said they were not aware this was part of the procedure and were unsure why it happened., he would call back but he did not. They said they would investigate. I called on the 21st and the advisor said he would find out why the contribution had not been applied and he would open an investigation. Called on the 24th and still the same answer. They did not know why the contribution had still to be applied but it was a different team and they had no direct communication with them. Called on the 25th and explained that the contribution had still not been made and I would like to speak to a manager. No call received from the manager. I explained that given the 25th was the latest date I was given for disinvestment that I would take the fund value on that date and if when it all eventually happens the fund is lower I expected to be compensated the difference if it is negative. They opened a complaint and said it would take 5 working days.
Here I am on the 26th and still the contribution has not been applied. Without this simple transaction it can not be disinvested. I have spoken to 4 advisors (one twice), two of which are senior advisors. They are at a loss to understand why the process has not happened and keep promising investigations.

I could now be looking at November for my pension and this is going to cost me financial hardship. Is there anything at all I can do as I feel lost and toothless with the Prudential?

Thank you very much for any advice you may have

dunstonh

I have spoken to 4 advisors (one twice), two of which are senior advisors. 

To be fair, none of them will be advisers. 

I could now be looking at November for my pension and this is going to cost me financial hardship.

Why do you need to wait?    Yes, you will have a payment floating around to deal with but it shouldn't stop you doing what you need to do.   Once they sort the payment issue, they can either return it to you, add it to the pension or transfer it to the pension provider you will be using for your retirement income.

Also, as this is the AVC, it should have no impact on the main scheme (unless you have one of the rare schemes that allows the AVC to be used for payment of tax free cash).

Is there anything at all I can do as I feel lost and toothless with the Prudential?

You have made a complaint. So, you need to wait for the outcome.

Brynsam

clonkel said:

Hi,
At this time I feel I have nowhere I can turn to fix a situation that I find myself in with Prudential and any advice would be great.

If you'd looked at your paperwork, all schemes/providers are required to give details of TPAS: https://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk - but as the answer above says, now you've made a formal complaint, you need to await the outcome. If the timescale for that slips, give TPAS a call.

clonkel

@dunstonh thank you. Yes the avc forms part of the tax free cash
@Brynsam thank you.
I am in their hands but they are doing nothing other than instigating investigations and complaints. It is incredibly stressful and frustrating that they have no answers. They say the team is split between Edinburgh and Reading and that they really have no dealings between the teams to the point they cannot call them. 

Thank again 

Thrugelmir

The impact of Covid on working practices shouldn't be underestimated. Majority of Pru staff will be home based. Hence the delays and difficulty with internal communication. Not helped by the height of the summer holidays which reduces staffing levels further. 
If your payroll department had never made the deduction. Then none of this would have happened. Though you don't say when you notified them. Payroll cut-off is often earlier than many people realise. 

xylophone

If your payroll department had never made the deduction. Then none of this would have happened. 

They have trotted out the Covid excuse?

JoeCrystal

Thrugelmir said:

The impact of Covid on working practices shouldn't be underestimated. Majority of Pru staff will be home based. Hence the delays and difficulty with internal communication. Not helped by the height of the summer holidays which reduces staffing levels further. 
If your payroll department had never made the deduction. Then none of this would have happened. Though you don't say when you notified them. Payroll cut-off is often earlier than many people realise. 

That is what I was thinking. It is possible that clonkel did not tell the payroll that he wants to stop the AVC contribution but instead telling Prudential instead as he posted that he expected the Payroll to know from Prudential's requests instead when it should be another way around. 

clonkel

Thank you
Payroll were initially at fault and apologised. They receive a list each month from the Pru and no one was in the office to collect it. They did then try to blame the Pru by saying they had written to them to ask for the list electronically. After speaking with the Pru they said they sent it both electronically and by post. I told the Pru to stop taking the contribution and the process is that they contact payroll via this monthly list. I agree that it would have made sense to cover both ends by calling payroll but given that the Pru said it had to come from them I went with that process. In all honesty it should have worked but payroll did not do their job properly and this was evident with the grovelling apology I received. 
Several more phone calls this morning and it seems that there is starting to be some movement. It is hard to get my hopes up again so will see what happens with today's promises when the sun rises tomorrow.

thanks again

jamjar92

The way AVC payments work between the council and pru is very slow. If I want to increase or decrease the amount I contribute, the process is you inform the pru, the pru inform the council in writing. The whole process take 2 months normally. You would think in this day and age it would be a bit more automated, or al least electronic. I am paid in the 15th of each month, and normally the months payment is posted around the end of the month and sometimes (esp April's) can take upto the 5th the following month.

Silvertabby

As jamjar says.  However, I always used to tell people to cancel their AVCs early by telling payroll first, then the Pru.  

The LGPS need the exact disinvested figure in order to calculate the correct pension and amount of tax free cash - and so have no option but to wait for the Pru to complete their processes.  However, Covid aside, these seem to be dragging on longer than they should. 

OP, have you asked the Pru if they can reject the July payment and return it to your payroll?  

clonkel

@Silvertabby I think if I did that it would make the process even more complex. I spoke with the complaints team this morning, they called me. The guy said he had 3 days to work through it but after looking at the notes and talking to me he would refer it for a full complaint which takes up to 4 week for them to provide a resolution. If that is not satisfactory then an additional 4 weeks etc. Meanwhile my contribution has still not been added.

thank you