Scottish widows pension transfer nightmare

Markp1984

Hi everyone, I'm trying to transfer my sw pension to Vanguard, and it's been horrendous.
Initially it seemed fine, sw sent me a letter saying they'd cashed in the pension, and transferred it. A week later I contacted vanguard, as there was little sign of my money. 
They told me that although they'd received some money, the amount received wasn't what SW stated it would be and they'd been as yet unable to contact sw to clarify. 
This was the 13th October, so I gave sw a call, an hour on hold, just to get through to a lady who was no help and transferred me to a different department (which held for 20 mins, before I ran out of time). 
I wrote an email via their online form, which I've still not had a reply to. 
Today I thought I'd better contact vanguard again, they've told me that unfortunately their team can't reach Scottish widows either, and due to industry rules they can't invest or keep the money, so it has to be returned to sw. 
I'm very very stressed, as there's no way it seems to talk to Scottish widows, my capital isn't invested, and I've just no idea what is going on. 
I really don't know what to do next, any advice would be much appreciated. 
Thanks, Mark

dunstonh

Having done thousands of pension transfers over the years, I generally find SW perfectly fine on the majority of their plans.  Some of their heritage plans/non standard plans can be sluggish to transfer as they require human intervention but the rest tend to arrive within a week or two.

SW's contact centre is generally poor on response times.  It is also vital you get through to the right SW department.    Ex clerical medical or the bancassurer plans are dealt with in a different way to SW original plans.  The SW Retirement account is dealt with elsewhere too.

The quickest way to get a response from SW if the normal call centre lines are not working for you is to go straight to their complaints team.

Markp1984

dunstonh said:

Having done thousands of pension transfers over the years, I generally find SW perfectly fine on the majority of their plans.  Some of their heritage plans/non standard plans can be sluggish to transfer as they require human intervention but the rest tend to arrive within a week or two.

SW's contact centre is generally poor on response times.  It is also vital you get through to the right SW department.    Ex clerical medical or the bancassurer plans are dealt with in a different way to SW original plans.  The SW Retirement account is dealt with elsewhere too.

The quickest way to get a response from SW if the normal call centre lines are not working for you is to go straight to their complaints team.

Thank you for your helpful reply. My pension is only a decade old, so nothing unusual. 
May I ask, given the choice of phone or online form for the complaints department, which would you think is preferable? 

Marcon

Markp1984 said:

Hi everyone, I'm trying to transfer my sw pension to Vanguard, and it's been horrendous.
Initially it seemed fine, sw sent me a letter saying they'd cashed in the pension, and transferred it. A week later I contacted vanguard, as there was little sign of my money. 
They told me that although they'd received some money, the amount received wasn't what SW stated it would be and they'd been as yet unable to contact sw to clarify. 
This was the 13th October, so I gave sw a call, an hour on hold, just to get through to a lady who was no help and transferred me to a different department (which held for 20 mins, before I ran out of time). 
I wrote an email via their online form, which I've still not had a reply to. 
Today I thought I'd better contact vanguard again, they've told me that unfortunately their team can't reach Scottish widows either, and due to industry rules they can't invest or keep the money, so it has to be returned to sw. 
I'm very very stressed, as there's no way it seems to talk to Scottish widows, my capital isn't invested, and I've just no idea what is going on. 
I really don't know what to do next, any advice would be much appreciated. 
Thanks, Mark

You're describing this as 'horrendous', but then say the events giving rise to your concern only happened on 13 October - a week ago. A week is a long time in politics, but the bat of an eyelid in pensions, so please try to step back from 'very very stressed'. Your pension is safe, even if it is having a little wander between providers; and if you suffer any financial loss as a result, that should be remedied once the transfer has gone through.

Given how hard you are finding it to cope with this, using the online complaints form is likely to be less stressful for you than running the risk of having to hold on a phone line, or having a conversation which, given you're struggling to cope with the situation, could well make you feel worse.

Owlman45

Hi, I have also had problems contacting Scottish Widows and experienced the same wrong dept transfer give up phone experience.
They have moved offices earlier this year and their systems just do not work. Complain away and let the forum know if you are succesful.
I have also written on 6th September and 6th October still no response, perhaps they are only dealing with Financial Advisers now?

Albermarle

Many pension companies have these sorts of issues. The Pru have been paying out compensation on a regular basis for poor/non existent customer service.
Same for the big pension administrators like Mercer and WTW.

michaels

08000321409

Very apologetic complaints handler who admitted that their systems are 'not yet where they would like them to be' following a system migration and that she couldn't actually see details of my pension that happened when it was on the old system and that my complaints/messages via the website messaging service had been 'tricky' so had been passed around by lots of people who had added notes but no one had actually actioned it and thus hadn't replied.

Markp1984

Thanks for all the replies. It's hard to understand what's happening at SW, Vanguard have actually tried to call them 4 times to my knowledge on my behalf, without success too. 
On Saturday I filled in the complaint form, nothing back yet, but hopefully something will happen later this week.
I've totally lost faith and trust in the company, I just want someone to speak to, I'm sure it's an easy fix. 

Mookat

I instructed II to transfer part of mine to my SIPP at the end of August as SW took away online access. Nothing has been transferred yet, II have contacted SW repeatedly & so have I. After being passed around & left hanging on for over 45 minutes, I was told it is due to their system migration & they have no visibility until the migration is completed, they thought that would be the end of October.

[Deleted User]

Might be worth contacting a newspaper.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/sep/29/scottish-widows-has-been-so-heartless-after-my-wife-died-of-cancer

Markp1984

Mookat said:

I instructed II to transfer part of mine to my SIPP at the end of August as SW took away online access. Nothing has been transferred yet, II have contacted SW repeatedly & so have I. After being passed around & left hanging on for over 45 minutes, I was told it is due to their system migration & they have no visibility until the migration is completed, they thought that would be the end of October.

Have you tried the complaints form, you can find it via Google. That way at least the clock starts ticking down for the ombudsman (8 weeks), even if they don't do anything. They're obviously in a terrible mess, amazingly I contacted them just over a year ago, which is the only time I've ever had to ring or email and they were absolutely brilliant. A lot has changed it seems.