Claiming Pension while disputing advice

gm0

Fairly academic at this point. Complaint timeout.

Approach

Scheme rules of the time - for your joining scheme date and leaving date.  Scheme booklets.
Letters about the attempted transfer across, out and then not in.

Compare

A What should have happened for a member like you.  Anything mandatory.  What options should be in the letter.

B What did they actually say. 

If you chose an option after the letter but basically A=B. There is no complaint. 
Your decision. Underbaked. But yours.

Same approach applies to the scheme you left.  And the one you tried to join at new employer.  To end up with refund when attempting transfer/buy in - clearly there is more to this about what was allowed for buy in, or for AVC, about who supported what and when.  And you elected, or were bounced to a refund - absent an alternative destination (dates all matter - AVC support - closure of DB schemes, freestanding AVCs and such like).

This is not your fault vs any reasonable expectation of what people typically know at the life stage.  Avoid feeling bad about it so far as possible.  But that alone doesn't get you fault and recompense allocated elsewhere. 
Nor could it.  It just means you needed more specialised informed advice at the time which may not have been readily available to you in your financial situation.  Which is rough. 

So perhaps check does A=B - if have or can readily access contemporary paperwork letters + booklets. 

With improving understanding. If you can't find a major screw up by the old or newer provider based on correspondence you already have. It may be best to focus your financial planning efforts elsewhere. 

LHW99

To add to the above, I was briefly a member of a DB scheme in the mid-1970's. On leaving I got a small refund of contributions, and a preserved GMP pension amounting to £6 per year at age 60 (which I could and did take as a small pot of £100 at that age).

It's how things worked in those days, and even with all the legislation since, I was never able to have it transferred to any other scheme, even my SIPP.

hyubh

LHW99 said:

To add to the above, I was briefly a member of a DB scheme in the mid-1970's. On leaving I got a small refund of contributions, and a preserved GMP pension amounting to £6 per year at age 60 (which I could and did take as a small pot of £100 at that age).

Hmm, not doubting the overall thrust of your anecdote, but GMPs only began in 1978... (That said, failure to pay a CEP was unusual, or put another way, usually the result of a screw-up, since no one wants to stay responsible for a clutch of tiny pensions for the sake of it.)

FIREDreamer

hyubh said:

LHW99 said:

To add to the above, I was briefly a member of a DB scheme in the mid-1970's. On leaving I got a small refund of contributions, and a preserved GMP pension amounting to £6 per year at age 60 (which I could and did take as a small pot of £100 at that age).

Hmm, not doubting the overall thrust of your anecdote, but GMPs only began in 1978... (That said, failure to pay a CEP was unusual, or put another way, usually the result of a screw-up, since no one wants to stay responsible for a clutch of tiny pensions for the sake of it.)

There was an extra benefit prior to GMP which I think was EBP, it was literally a few pence a week, perhaps this is what the small benefit is, but I would think the OP is too young for that.

LHW99

FIREDreamer said:

hyubh said:

LHW99 said:

To add to the above, I was briefly a member of a DB scheme in the mid-1970's. On leaving I got a small refund of contributions, and a preserved GMP pension amounting to £6 per year at age 60 (which I could and did take as a small pot of £100 at that age).

Hmm, not doubting the overall thrust of your anecdote, but GMPs only began in 1978... (That said, failure to pay a CEP was unusual, or put another way, usually the result of a screw-up, since no one wants to stay responsible for a clutch of tiny pensions for the sake of it.)

There was an extra benefit prior to GMP which I think was EBP, it was literally a few pence a week, perhaps this is what the small benefit is, but I would think the OP is too young for that.

It could well have been that. I actually left that job in 1975, and the preserved "bit" was originally (I think) with Norwich Union, then CGNU, then Aviva (possibly with others in between).

The amount didn't change at all over time, so wasn't exactly a significant part of my pension plans.