Problem with LGPS AVCs with Prudential

collins74

Happy New Year everyone.

Appreciate this thread has gone quiet since October but wanted to provide an update on the service I have recently experienced from Pru.

Submitted changes for AVC contributions for both LGPS (for me) and TPS (for my wife) just before Christmas.  I also advised respective payrolls on the same day.  

Fair play to Prudential, we received written confirmation of both changes earlier this week.  Not sure if our Payroll jolted them to process this quickly or not but the changes will be in for this months pay.

Looks like the Pru have got their act together at last - is anyone else having issues still or have you also experienced better customer service?

OldBeanz

Haha
Just received a letter this morning from the Pru and thought I would revive the thread. The letter stated they would pay us another £350 compensation for our latest complaints. So now over £1500.
With hindsight I do not think it was their fault this time but they took so long to respond and with the history of poor service they coughed up again.
The actual issue appeared to be with the payroll system who could not deal with pay changes when a % of pay was involved so offered to reprocess one major pension contribution which the school would then not accept. The LGPS suggested the school would not take the money back because of money laundering. Queried the school (are you sure as I am about to raise a complaint) and they agreed to allow us to repay the money for one month but as they screwed up the next month we have paid back 4 different months (ni changes x 2, change in hours and back pay) they screwed up. The wife only has until September so fingers crossed that we are now in the position to know how to resolve any issues.
Thank you Pru and Kerching.

bioboybill

I took flexible retirement on 31st December, so stopped payments to my Prudential AVCs in November and informed them that I would be retiring and would need my AVCs to be paid out.

As soon as my last November payment was in on 15th December I messaged to ask if things were in place to pay out. I got the standard "your request has been forwarded to the relevant department" on the same day. Six days later they replied to say that my pension fund had made a disinvestment request for 31st December. However, they said they required confirmation of my date of birth from my pension fund before they would do so. I immediately replied to ask whether they had requested the information, as I had supplied my birth certificate to them a month earlier.

Since 22nd December I have messaged them six times and spoken to them on livechat. Livechat promised to escalate the matter on 3rd January and promised a call back shortly (which never happened obviously). My six messages have each received one of their two standard replies in rotation. They either say, "Thank you for your message. We need to take this message away to look into however we’ll get back to you as soon as possible", or they say, "Thank you for your message. We’re currently working on your request and will reply to you shortly. Regards AVC Department".

Even when i reply back to say something like, "You test the patience of a saint with your scripted replies" they still reply with the same. In the meantime the pension fund confirmed to me that they did receive a request for my date of birth on 22nd December and they supplied a scan of my birth certificate via their online portal the same day.

Yet all messages are basically ignored bar the scripted replies that are probably done via bots, and my funds are still showing as invested. They have altered my chosen pension age on their site from 60 to 75!


I am supposed to get my first pension payment on 31st January. If Prudential don't send my AVCs to the pension fund they won't pay my pension. I don't have much confidence it will happen. I will be so glad when I have nothing to do with them. They are useless!

collins74

@OldBeanz - I’ve had a complaint with Pru that went on so long they decided to give me compo although not they were not at fault.

@bioboybill - congrats on the flexible retirement - at least your Pru misery is nearly at an end.  

OldBeanz

bioboybill said:

I took flexible retirement on 31st December, so stopped payments to my Prudential AVCs in November and informed them that I would be retiring and would need my AVCs to be paid out.

As soon as my last November payment was in on 15th December I messaged to ask if things were in place to pay out. I got the standard "your request has been forwarded to the relevant department" on the same day. Six days later they replied to say that my pension fund had made a disinvestment request for 31st December. However, they said they required confirmation of my date of birth from my pension fund before they would do so. I immediately replied to ask whether they had requested the information, as I had supplied my birth certificate to them a month earlier.

Since 22nd December I have messaged them six times and spoken to them on livechat. Livechat promised to escalate the matter on 3rd January and promised a call back shortly (which never happened obviously). My six messages have each received one of their two standard replies in rotation. They either say, "Thank you for your message. We need to take this message away to look into however we’ll get back to you as soon as possible", or they say, "Thank you for your message. We’re currently working on your request and will reply to you shortly. Regards AVC Department".

Even when i reply back to say something like, "You test the patience of a saint with your scripted replies" they still reply with the same. In the meantime the pension fund confirmed to me that they did receive a request for my date of birth on 22nd December and they supplied a scan of my birth certificate via their online portal the same day.

Yet all messages are basically ignored bar the scripted replies that are probably done via bots, and my funds are still showing as invested. They have altered my chosen pension age on their site from 60 to 75!


I am supposed to get my first pension payment on 31st January. If Prudential don't send my AVCs to the pension fund they won't pay my pension. I don't have much confidence it will happen. I will be so glad when I have nothing to do with them. They are useless!

Working in a school, the wife's last day will be the 1st day of September. Thus final pru payment will not be credited until mid October so sounds as if it will make sense to cancel for September.
I am now wondering whether she should retire the day before.
Let us know how things work out.

cloud_dog

cloud_dog said:

cloud_dog said:

Prudential appear to have mislaid one of my months contributions (almost £3k), they have updated/re-initiated the account with a contribution in December and January, but are missing the November one (I'll ignore the missing Feb one for now).  I think they are of the opinion that the November contribution was included in the transfer out amount. Not so.

Because the mess up of the 'partial transfer out' each time (three times), I do not have access to historic data on the Pru portal.  I have had to take apart my MS Money records (couldn't get a report to give me what I needed) and construct them in a Word document that clearly shows the contributions associated with Transfer 1, Transfer 2, and Transfer 3, and why the November contribution was not included in the transfer out, and should be credited in to the account now in operation.

I asked the scheme administrators to raise a formal complaint because the Pru seemed incapable of following or understanding the 'partial' aspect of the transfer out request.  Specifically I needed them to confirm what action I / administrators need to take to ensure the 'partial' aspect is clear / obvious / followed.  The response was less than fulfilling, e.g. they didn't actually answer the question, merely re-stated that the Dec and Jan contributions were there and they would catch up with the Feb one in due course.  Have advised the administrators of my feelings, but I also need to clarify if they actually submitted it as a 'formal complaint'.  What a palaver.  

UPDATE - Just in case this is of interest to other readers.

So, 10 months after raising the issue of the missing contribution, and after receiving a number of communications from the Pru stating all is as it should be and there is no missing monies, magically the missing November 2021 contribution has appeared in the account.  Prior to this occuring I had requested that they confirm in writing that all complaint avenues had been exhausted (internally), in order that I could progress a FOS complaint.  Their response (eventually, 1 month later) was to confirm they were re-opening the case.

I am mightily relieved that it appears to have been resolved, but I have not received any communication from the Pru, and until I do I will remain a little wary.

A final update....

Well Pru finally came back to me with their formal findings just before Christmas and admitted they were wrong and that they managed the whole thing badly, and have offered compensation.

The only worrying thing is that I've built up a reasonable amount with them during this period and I want to start another transfer.  Hats on.

bioboybill

Latest update on my Prudential farce:

They finally got back to me on Thursday to say that after investigating my case they can now see that they are still waiting for my final AVC payment from my last wages at the end of December. When that is received they will pay out. I replied that I informed them on 24th November that my November payment would be my last and that they replied on 28th November confirming that would be the case!

I asked them to stop making excuses not to pay out, and to give me my money, as my first pension payment is supposed to be 31st January. I just got a stock answer back, so I have gone back to the Ombudsman, but to be honest they're not much use either.

I am rather surprised that the Pension Fund haven't been in touch to tell me my pension won't be paid this month. Maybe they think it will be a nice surprise getting nothing at the end of the month.

Silvertabby

OldBeanz said:

bioboybill said:

I took flexible retirement on 31st December, so stopped payments to my Prudential AVCs in November and informed them that I would be retiring and would need my AVCs to be paid out.

As soon as my last November payment was in on 15th December I messaged to ask if things were in place to pay out. I got the standard "your request has been forwarded to the relevant department" on the same day. Six days later they replied to say that my pension fund had made a disinvestment request for 31st December. However, they said they required confirmation of my date of birth from my pension fund before they would do so. I immediately replied to ask whether they had requested the information, as I had supplied my birth certificate to them a month earlier.

Since 22nd December I have messaged them six times and spoken to them on livechat. Livechat promised to escalate the matter on 3rd January and promised a call back shortly (which never happened obviously). My six messages have each received one of their two standard replies in rotation. They either say, "Thank you for your message. We need to take this message away to look into however we’ll get back to you as soon as possible", or they say, "Thank you for your message. We’re currently working on your request and will reply to you shortly. Regards AVC Department".

Even when i reply back to say something like, "You test the patience of a saint with your scripted replies" they still reply with the same. In the meantime the pension fund confirmed to me that they did receive a request for my date of birth on 22nd December and they supplied a scan of my birth certificate via their online portal the same day.

Yet all messages are basically ignored bar the scripted replies that are probably done via bots, and my funds are still showing as invested. They have altered my chosen pension age on their site from 60 to 75!


I am supposed to get my first pension payment on 31st January. If Prudential don't send my AVCs to the pension fund they won't pay my pension. I don't have much confidence it will happen. I will be so glad when I have nothing to do with them. They are useless!

Working in a school, the wife's last day will be the 1st day of September. Thus final pru payment will not be credited until mid October so sounds as if it will make sense to cancel for September.
I am now wondering whether she should retire the day before.
Let us know how things work out.

Pru apart, I would retire on 31 Aug instead of 1Sep if possible.  Reason being that payroll can't supply the LGPS with member final pay details until after the payroll for that month has been finalised.  If your wife's last day is 1 Sep, to be paid at the end of Sep, then her final pay details won't be available until at least early Oct.  

I always used to recommend that AVC payers ceased payments a month early, to allow time for the final payment to be made and then the whole fund disinvested.  Pru could be a little trying in my day, but they were never as bad as this!  My sympathies to you all, including the LGPS administrators in the middle of it all.

Just a point re waiting for receipt of disinvested Pru funds before making pension payments.... The way we did it was once we received an e-mail from the Pru confirming that the fund had been disinvested, and that the sum of £XK was in the process of being paid, we would pay out the pension lump sum/monthly pension without waiting for the actual money to be received.  We would then set up an e-diary task on the member record saying 'awaiting £XK sent by Pru xx/xx/xx'.  Simple process, which speeded up payments by up to a month.

bioboybill

My Prudential farce is finally over, but not before they made more errors and showed completely NO customer service whatsoever! 

I got my money on February 1st and found that I could no longer log in to my online account. They still emailed me to say they had sent me a secure message and I needed to log in to see it! I got onto live chat who said that as I had been paid I no longer had an account and they couldn't help me.

A week later they sent me another email to say I had another message that I needed to log in to read. Of course I couldn't!   

The next day I received a letter to say that they hadn't been able to complete their investigations in 4 weeks, so would be in touch in another 4 weeks.

Then finally I received another letter on Saturday to say they had found in my favour, but they made a load of excuses about migrating to a new system in the last year. This completely ignores the fact that this has been happening for 2 years now and their failure to respond to messages or respond with stock answers has nothing to do with migrating systems.

Anyway they awarded me 8% AER interest for the delay, which was £110.30 and another £200 for the aggravation. That's over £1600 compensation I've received for their failings over 2 years. What an awful way to run a business!

cloud_dog

cloud_dog said:

cloud_dog said:

cloud_dog said:

Prudential appear to have mislaid one of my months contributions (almost £3k), they have updated/re-initiated the account with a contribution in December and January, but are missing the November one (I'll ignore the missing Feb one for now).  I think they are of the opinion that the November contribution was included in the transfer out amount. Not so.

Because the mess up of the 'partial transfer out' each time (three times), I do not have access to historic data on the Pru portal.  I have had to take apart my MS Money records (couldn't get a report to give me what I needed) and construct them in a Word document that clearly shows the contributions associated with Transfer 1, Transfer 2, and Transfer 3, and why the November contribution was not included in the transfer out, and should be credited in to the account now in operation.

I asked the scheme administrators to raise a formal complaint because the Pru seemed incapable of following or understanding the 'partial' aspect of the transfer out request.  Specifically I needed them to confirm what action I / administrators need to take to ensure the 'partial' aspect is clear / obvious / followed.  The response was less than fulfilling, e.g. they didn't actually answer the question, merely re-stated that the Dec and Jan contributions were there and they would catch up with the Feb one in due course.  Have advised the administrators of my feelings, but I also need to clarify if they actually submitted it as a 'formal complaint'.  What a palaver.  

UPDATE - Just in case this is of interest to other readers.

So, 10 months after raising the issue of the missing contribution, and after receiving a number of communications from the Pru stating all is as it should be and there is no missing monies, magically the missing November 2021 contribution has appeared in the account.  Prior to this occuring I had requested that they confirm in writing that all complaint avenues had been exhausted (internally), in order that I could progress a FOS complaint.  Their response (eventually, 1 month later) was to confirm they were re-opening the case.

I am mightily relieved that it appears to have been resolved, but I have not received any communication from the Pru, and until I do I will remain a little wary.

A final update....

Well Pru finally came back to me with their formal findings just before Christmas and admitted they were wrong and that they managed the whole thing badly, and have offered compensation.

The only worrying thing is that I've built up a reasonable amount with them during this period and I want to start another transfer.  Hats on.

You know I said my previous update was a 'final update', well....

I hadn't received the compensation a month after they acknowledge / confirmed they would pay compensation; admittedly it would go via the scheme administrators, so I asked the scheme administrators to check and/or chase.  After chasing the scheme administrators (one month later), they confirmed that Prudential are sorry for not issuing the compensation and that because of the additional <<insert as appropriate>> they have increased the compensation payment.  It should arrive next week, although I am now wondering if the is just a ploy, promise compensation but never get round to actually paying it <<this is tongue in cheek>>.

I have started another transfer for my sins...ho hum.