Ex-employer will not transfer my pension to Vanguard because they are based in the USA

CuriousGriffin

I am currently on a postgraduate course so I'm not employed but trying to sort my pensions  from previous jobs out. I was trying to move everything into my personal pension with Vanguard but I received this email from an ex employer today:
"Unfortunately, we are unable to transfer your pension benefits to the Vanguard Pre Retirement plan as the scheme appears to be based in the USA (as far as I can see from their webpage, the only mailing address is in Texas, USA) I have checked with my supervisor and he has confirmed that it is not possible to transfer PASNAS benefits to a scheme in the USA.  We are also not able to process any transfers via online portals.  If you have any UK contact details for this scheme and your benefits with this scheme are held in the UK;  Or you have an alternative UK based pension provider who is able to accept a transfer of your pension benefits, please complete a new form and I will be happy to look into this further for you."

Does anyone have any advice? I was wondering if maybe I should transfer it to a UK provider and then move it again into Vanguard? 

MovingForwards

Assuming it's this one you want

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/what-we-offer/personal-pension/transfer-a-pension

Then you open an account with vanguard, fill in the transfer form (one for each pension) and vanguard deal with the transfers.

xylophone

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/what-we-offer/personal-pension/transfer-a-pension

"Unfortunately, we are unable to transfer your pension benefits to the Vanguard Pre Retirement plan 

Is this some kind of scheme Vanguard run in the US rather than the Vanguard Personal pension which you have?

Have you contacted Vanguard to clarify?

EdSwippet

Your ex-employer seems to have visited the wrong Vanguard portal. vanguard.com is for US residents. Vanguard is a UK pension provider. They need to look at vanguardinvestor.co.uk. For example:

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/what-we-offer/personal-pension/transfer-a-pension

Ordinarily, to transfer a pension you work with the scheme you are transferring to, and they take care of most of the interaction with the scheme you are transferring from. Is this a defined benefits pension? If yes, the transfer might not be all that simple even so. And potentially, not advisable either.

All this assuming this is a plain UK-to-UK pension transfer, you are not a US citizen, are not trying to move a UK pension to the US (which won't work), and so on.

xylophone

According to the Key facts Vanguard Personal Pension  June 2020

Key Features

What is the Vanguard Personal Pension?

The Vanguard Personal Pension is a UK registered pension

scheme (recognised as a SIPP). It is a long-term, tax-efficient

savings product designed to help you invest for your

retirement. The Vanguard Personal Pension provides access

to a wide choice of Vanguard investments to help build your

retirement savings.

There is some confusion somewhere?

CuriousGriffin

Thanks all, I have contacted Vanguard. I was hesitant to do this to start with because the ex-employer wouldn't tell me how much is in the pension, they'd only tell me my non-salary sacrifice contributions from the first 3 months I worked there. I've popped the figure of the non-salary sacrifice contributions into the Vanguard transfer form but I'm hoping the ex-employer do transfer it all over. I've had a lot of communication issues with this ex employer. When I started the process of getting things sorted they said they would send me a leavers letter with my options and I had to make a decision within 3 months of receiving the letter/leaving the company. I left the company over a year ago! 
Thanks for your help.

MovingForwards

What kind of pension is this?
A defined benefit - where you get a fixed amount for each year of service.
Or
A defined contribution - where you, and the employer, both pay in and a pension provider handles running the pension.

How long did you work for the company?

CuriousGriffin

MovingForwards said:

What kind of pension is this?
A defined benefit - where you get a fixed amount for each year of service.
Or
A defined contribution - where you, and the employer, both pay in and a pension provider handles running the pension.

How long did you work for the company?

Defined benefit final salary
I only worked for them for 11 months

penners324

Your ex employer will have nothing to do with it. It will be the pension provider.
Who provides that pension?

NottinghamKnight

penners324 said:

Your ex employer will have nothing to do with it. It will be the pension provider.
Who provides that pension?

It's a db scheme so the employer is the point of contact, probably public sector. Normally it would be difficult to transfer to a dc scheme but for less than two years service the only options typically are refund of employee contributions or transfer of the accrued pot to an alternative pension which is the better  deal for most. 

green_man

EdSwippet said:

Ordinarily, to transfer a pension you work with the scheme you are transferring to, and they take care of most of the interaction with the scheme you are transferring from.......

Whilst true you will probably find that the scheme you are transferring from wants you to fill in some specific forms for them. They are very careful recently to ensure that you aren’t being scammed etc (a good thing generally)

I recently transferred my works DC pension to Halifax SIPP. I contacted both sides to initiate the transfer, filled out forms for both organisations yet still had to fill additional forms a month later for my ex employer once they actually got around to doing the transfer. (Lots of questions like: Did you contact the SIPP provider or did they contact you?;  Has anyone from the SIPP provider suggested you can increase your pension value?  Etc etc)