Pension tracing with no luck

XzavierWalnut

I have tried contacting 2 ex employers from the 1990s to find out if I actually had any pensions with them. I do not know whether I did or not, as I only have my P60s.
Both have said they have no record of me working there, even though I sent photographs of my P60s.
Tried the pension tracing service but did not get anywhere with that,
Can anyone suggest any other ways to find out?

NannaH

Did you ask the ex employers which company ran their pension schemes back then?   I imagine the employers were of a decent size if they had a pension scheme.

XzavierWalnut

Unfortunately, one of the companies does not exist anymore, bought out by Tesco, and the other says they have no record of my employment.

FIREDreamer

XzavierWalnut said:

Unfortunately, one of the companies does not exist anymore, bought out by Tesco, and the other says they have no record of my employment.

Was that Booker?

molerat

Name them.  Someone on here may be able to point you in the right direction.

dunstonh

Both have said they have no record of me working there, even though I sent photographs of my P60s.

Data protection would see their records long destroyed.  However, if had pensions pensions, then data applicable to that would be retained.

If you have P60s from the 90s, then that is pretty good record keeping.   Wouldn't you have pension statements that would have been issued annually if there were pensions?

Also note that the employer and the pension scheme are two different things.   What records the employer may retain will differ from the records the pension administrator would retain.

hyubh

XzavierWalnut said:

I have tried contacting 2 ex employers from the 1990s to find out if I actually had any pensions with them. I do not know whether I did or not, as I only have my P60s.
Both have said they have no record of me working there, even though I sent photographs of my P60s.
Tried the pension tracing service but did not get anywhere with that,
Can anyone suggest any other ways to find out?

As others have suggested, go for the administrators of the pension scheme (google '<old employer name> pension scheme' and prefer DB schemes that come up) rather than the employer directly. Payroll records for ex-employees from the 90s (or quite frankly much later too) will be long gone. Once a pension scheme closes there's usually very little (if any) working relationship between employee payroll and the pension administration (which typically gets outsourced at that point) - the pension people get the data they need to create the deferred benefit records at their end, and that's that.

XzavierWalnut

dunstonh said:

Both have said they have no record of me working there, even though I sent photographs of my P60s.

Data protection would see their records long destroyed.  However, if had pensions pensions, then data applicable to that would be retained.

If you have P60s from the 90s, then that is pretty good record keeping.   Wouldn't you have pension statements that would have been issued annually if there were pensions?

Also note that the employer and the pension scheme are two different things.   What records the employer may retain will differ from the records the pension administrator would retain.

I have no pension statements or payslips just P60s. I'm just asking them to advise if I was in the pension or not.

XzavierWalnut

FIREDreamer said:

XzavierWalnut said:

Unfortunately, one of the companies does not exist anymore, bought out by Tesco, and the other says they have no record of my employment.

Was that Booker?

The Tesco one used to be Wm Low supermarkets who were bought out several years ago.
The other one is Wincanton Logistics who still exist.

molerat

The "company" and the "pension" are usually very different organisations.

Have you contacted Wincanton Pensions, part of Capita ? http://www.wincantonpensions.co.uk/

Contacting Tesco pensions may be useful.

If you have any queries please contact us by email at pensions.dept@uk.tesco.com or by telephone 0345 070 1113.

The government tracing page directs you to Tesco pensions https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details

Search for Wm Low

Tesco Plc Pension Scheme

Previous names for this scheme

• Hillards Plc Pension & Life Assurance Plan
• Hillards Plc Retirement Cash Benefit & Life Assurance Scheme
• Tesco Plc Pension Scheme G88601
• Tesco Plc Pension Scheme Ref 102279-Gl
• Tesco Stores (Holdings) Limited Staff Pension Scheme
• Wm Low & Company Plc Retirement Benefits Scheme

Marcon

XzavierWalnut said:

dunstonh said:

Both have said they have no record of me working there, even though I sent photographs of my P60s.

Data protection would see their records long destroyed.  However, if had pensions pensions, then data applicable to that would be retained.

If you have P60s from the 90s, then that is pretty good record keeping.   Wouldn't you have pension statements that would have been issued annually if there were pensions?

Also note that the employer and the pension scheme are two different things.   What records the employer may retain will differ from the records the pension administrator would retain.

I have no pension statements or payslips just P60s. I'm just asking them to advise if I was in the pension or not.

Could you give any indication of your dates of employment - in particular whether you were employed by each employer for upwards of two years?

It would also be useful if you could name the two companies concerned (no reason not to - you aren't saying anything critical of them).