Transfer without my say so?

thepearce

I've just found out that a previous employer is changing pension fund provider.

I wasn't aware of this (and my [future] investment choices) as they held my old address. Yes, I should have updated them but it's one institution that slipped my mind - I also had mail forwarding for 6 months, so they must have narrowly missed that.

Apparently my pension from EDS, handled by paymaster(affinity) needs to move from Fidelity Institutional (AMC of ? 0% alledgedly - which I don't believe) to Skandia (0.18% AMC). There'll be a 0.5% transfer fee for this.

I had until 2 November to submit my investment choices which I've obviously missed now. I'll therefore end up invested in some default scheme.

I wondered are they (paymaster) allowed to do that without my express permission? In the past [by default] I've made an investment choice - surely if that is to change I should have need to agree it?

Luckily I have only 10 months contribution invested so 0.5% is not a huge amount but what if the transfer fee was 1% or more and I had £20k invested?

I actually got in touch as I'm thinking of altering my investment choices. I won't be happy if I have to pay a subsequent fee to transfer to another Skandia choice. Obviously I'm bound to be hit by another transfer fee if I move it to another pension provider of my choice.

dunstonh

I wondered are they (paymaster) allowed to do that without my express permission?

Yes they are.

In the past [by default] I've made an investment choice - surely if that is to change I should have need to agree it?

They gave you a chance and you didnt respond. However, nothing stops you amending it afterwards at your convenience.

peterbaker

Yet another pension transfer / wind up / pension depletion forced decision or default type story - the gall of employers, trustees and 'IFAs' (sic) is absolutely breathtaking (present company excepted of course )... their day of retribution will come ... soon I think

Edit: Just a comment about how I see these underhand 'transfers' using a current analogy ... the sub-prime led credit crunch. When we were given these company pensions as major parts of our employment benefits packages years ago, we were given promises. Our employers were prime, and their IFA's brought in to advise us and sign the papers with us were also wheeled in as prime. The pension schemes we signed up to were prime. Pensions were the one thing we could rest easy about, and successive governments allowed us to believe it and still do today. As years have gone by the "prime" has gone out of most business ethics, principally led with wholly unscrupulous financial directors who joined the accountancy profession unwilling to accept the old "dull as an accountant" tag and instead they launched themselves into making their mark at board meetings with their clinically incisive powers of manipulating everybody's figures, from the sales director's to the pension funds we all thought were protected. In the beginning these types were commonly to be found in American owned internationals. The Americans are not into wide-ranging employee benefit packages. So the accountants became habitual pick-pockets for their paymasters, and they were ably abetted by a new breed of Company Secretary/General Counsel equally unwilling to sit on the sidelines, and who instead were sharp lawyers with similar ambitions for clawing their way to high office. Then came the HR managers who coveted seats on the board despite the old adage that 'Personnel is a dead end career', and got there for similar reasons, and between the three types we ended up with disgracefully manipulated takeovers and total disregard for earlier promises or even compliance with TUPE regulations.

In larger companies quite often these three types would all be 'weedled' into positions as trustees of the pension scheme in timely fashion for takeovers and restructures and major changes to the schemes, and due to the nature of office politics, no one was quite sure who had moved from being a jolly good egg to someone actually taking the 30 pieces of silver (i.e. who had moved from prime to sub-prime in their morals).

I have said it before, and I make no apology for saying it now, these types are/were scum, and so are/were those who take/took percentages from our funds in aiding and abetting them.

Like the credit crunch, I feel a big shakedown is about to begin, in favour of ALL of us who have been diddled out of our proper pensions.