pension firm stole my funds and wont respond

xylophone

https://www.creativebenefits.co.uk/creative-pension-trust/help-centre/how-to-transfer-pension-from-creative/

How do I transfer my pension somewhere else?

If you change jobs and are auto enrolled into your new employer’s workplace pension, you may want to transfer the value of your old pension to your new one.

After you have received information about your new pension and have your account up and running:

• You can generate a Transfer Out Pack for your Creative Pension Trust account using the Creative Pension Trust Member Portal, which will give you all the information you need to give to your new employer’s provider. You can click here to generate a Transfer Out Pack, but this link will not function until your account has been fully paid up by your employer. This may take a few weeks depending on how frequently you were paid by them
• If you are asked to provide a plan or policy number, don’t worry – Creative Pension Trust does not issue plan or policy numbers as all employers and their employees are part of the same, national pension scheme. No special reference numbers required
• Once we receive an instruction from your new provider, we will begin the transfer process on your behalf. This usually takes around 5 weeks, depending on your new provider

https://www.which.co.uk/money/pensions-and-retirement/company-pensions/pensions-auto-enrolment-explained/smart-pension-how-it-works-alhLv5e8C9DA

Transferring in

You can transfer other pension pots into The Smart Pension for free.

To transfer in, Smart Pension needs a letter of authority from you and a current benefit statement from your old pension provider.

These need to be sent to Smart Pensions, who will check that the plan is suitable and contact the old provider for any further information.

It appears that you followed the required procedure - Smart agreed to accept the transfer, requested it and Creative has indicated that the funds were transferred.

If those funds have not appeared in your Smart account over a year after the transfer is said to have been initiated, then it is very clear that something has gone wrong - possibly the  money has gone to another person's account, possibly it was never transferred at all or possibly it has landed in a suspense account.

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/building-your-retirement-pot/transferring-your-defined-contribution-pension

If you decide to transfer to a new pension scheme, your scheme administrator or pension provider must move your pension across to the new scheme within six months from the start of the transfer process, assuming all the necessary steps have been taken and the documentation is in place.

You might want to give Money Helper a ring?

martin2020

i quick update on my pension saga -

i raised and started the complaint with the pension ombudsman, and they have just responded saying they have rejected my application on the basis that it may not be in their jurisdiction. and that i should contact the pension tracing service for lost and missing pensions.

i clearly stated this isn't a lost or missing pension scheme and my complaint was with the provider.

Im really disappointed and frustrated with their response to be honest

Marcon

martin2020 said:

i quick update on my pension saga -

i raised and started the complaint with the pension ombudsman, and they have just responded saying they have rejected my application on the basis that it may not be in their jurisdiction. and that i should contact the pension tracing service for lost and missing pensions.

i clearly stated this isn't a lost or missing pension scheme and my complaint was with the provider.

Im really disappointed and frustrated with their response to be honest

I'm not surprised. Go back to them again and say firmly that this is not a lost or missing pension; it is maladministration [that's a key word for the PO, so please use it] because what should have been a straightforward transfer has, after [xxx] months, still not happened and both the sending and receiving schemes appear to be doing little to respond to you, never mind resolve matters.

Have you spoken to your employer as I suggested last month? Some backing from them wouldn't go amiss.

dunstonh

old provider is creative pension trust and new one is smart pension trust -   twice now the guys at smart have reached out to creative and got no response

I have a case going on with Creative and they are awful.   They have completely ignored multiple requests.  

They haven't stolen your funds.  But their service levels are truly atrocious. 

xylophone

Have you tried
See if we can help" here as a start?

https://www.pensions-ombudsman.org.uk/

martin2020

dunstonh said:

old provider is creative pension trust and new one is smart pension trust -   twice now the guys at smart have reached out to creative and got no response

I have a case going on with Creative and they are awful.   They have completely ignored multiple requests.  

They haven't stolen your funds.  But their service levels are truly atrocious. 

ah ok have you gone through the pension ombudsman ?  i know people keep saying they haven't stole my funds, but my account  on there online portal states funds paid out and they wont tell me where the funds have gone. definatly  not to me or the intended destination.

Marcon said:

martin2020 said:

i quick update on my pension saga -

i raised and started the complaint with the pension ombudsman, and they have just responded saying they have rejected my application on the basis that it may not be in their jurisdiction. and that i should contact the pension tracing service for lost and missing pensions.

i clearly stated this isn't a lost or missing pension scheme and my complaint was with the provider.

Im really disappointed and frustrated with their response to be honest

I'm not surprised. Go back to them again and say firmly that this is not a lost or missing pension; it is maladministration [that's a key word for the PO, so please use it] because what should have been a straightforward transfer has, after [xxx] months, still not happened and both the sending and receiving schemes appear to be doing little to respond to you, never mind resolve matters.

Have you spoken to your employer as I suggested last month? Some backing from them wouldn't go amiss.

i will defiantly use the word maladministration in my next episode thanks.  I have  not spoken to my employer as this isnt the current provider, its the previous one.  i was kinda hoping the pension ombudsman would deal with it, i feel this creative pension trust company is up to no good so i really want to pursue this.
 

dunstonh

ah ok have you gone through the pension ombudsman ? 

Not yet.   But we are likely to use the complaints process first.

nb_bob

I'm currently trying to deal with Creative Pension Trust. Moving a very small pension pot to Dodl. 3 months and counting. CPT are completely and utterly useless. Never respond to emails. Got told a pack of lies when I called them.