Seeking Advise- Aviva lost our pension fund 😒

DeeNexus

Hi Group members 

We are dealing with an issue with Aviva , they have lost our pension fund. apparently it was merged with someone else’s pension fund - Aviva haven’t been able to retrieve our funds yet 

Details 
* My husband bought a personal pension plan when he got his first job with Friends provident. 
Recently, we decided to merge all our different pension funds in to one pot
started process in June 2023, and that time we came to know our plan was transferred to Aviva 
we never got notified so we were unaware

when we contacted Aviva First week in June after many phone calls, many emails , dealing with some inexperienced agents, finally Aviva told our policies were merged in to another Aviva policy ( but they won’t tell us policy number or any other details as it got merged with someone else plan
As we never requested the transfer, big questions is how did Aviva merged our policies in to someone else’s plan as there are linked to our national insurance number and each person’s details are different 

Aviva told us you merged these plans , which we didn’t so that raise another concern about some fraudulent activity so we raised with action fraud 
we raised official complaint with Aviva and it’s nearly two months Aviva haven’t been able to retrieve our funds 

Yesterday we received a cheque of £100 as a compensation, our funds are nearly £50 k and Aviva offers us £100 for the goof up 

We are also thinking to raise with Pension Ombudsman if we didn’t get our funds back 

Feeling helpless right now 

can anyone suggest if anything else we can do ? 

Many Thanks for your time to read 

Albermarle

DeeNexus said:

Hi Group members 

We are dealing with an issue with Aviva , they have lost our pension fund. apparently it was merged with someone else’s pension fund - Aviva haven’t been able to retrieve our funds yet 

Details 
* My husband bought a personal pension plan when he got his first job with Friends provident. 
Recently, we decided to merge all our different pension funds in to one pot
started process in June 2023, and that time we came to know our plan was transferred to Aviva 
we never got notified so we were unaware

when we contacted Aviva First week in June after many phone calls, many emails , dealing with some inexperienced agents, finally Aviva told our policies were merged in to another Aviva policy ( but they won’t tell us policy number or any other details as it got merged with someone else plan
As we never requested the transfer, big questions is how did Aviva merged our policies in to someone else’s plan as there are linked to our national insurance number and each person’s details are different 

Aviva told us you merged these plans , which we didn’t so that raise another concern about some fraudulent activity so we raised with action fraud 
we raised official complaint with Aviva and it’s nearly two months Aviva haven’t been able to retrieve our funds 

Yesterday we received a cheque of £100 as a compensation, our funds are nearly £50 k and Aviva offers us £100 for the goof up 

We are also thinking to raise with Pension Ombudsman if we didn’t get our funds back 

Feeling helpless right now 

can anyone suggest if anything else we can do ? 

Many Thanks for your time to read 

It sounds like Aviva have made a big mess up. The fact they have offered you a £100 compensation shows they know they have a problem.
However I think you can be confident that a huge company with a reputation to protect are not just going to lose your £50K pension forever. Wheels can turn slowly in these situations ( not just with Aviva) and you probably just need to keep pestering them until it is sorted out.

pramsay13

Have you made an official complaint to Aviva? 

DeeNexus

Yes we made official complaint with Aviva and Action fraud as well 

xylophone

they have lost our pension fund

Our?

Do you mean your husband's pension fund?

Details 
* My husband bought a personal pension plan when he got his first job with Friends provident. 
Recently, we decided to merge all our different pension funds in to one pot
started process in June 2023, and that time we came to know our plan was transferred to Aviva 
we never got notified so we were unaware

Do you mean that you tried to merge your own pension fund with your husband's?

prettyandfluffy

I would reject the £100 compensation as inadequate or make it clear you are taking it as an interim payment only. 

DeeNexus

@xylophone , Thank you for your comment 

No , my pension is with different company,
my husband had 3 different work pension and one personal pension so we wanted to put all different pension in one pot

This is my husband’s personal pension which Aviva has transferred in to someone else’s plan 
we don’t know how did that happened 

For a few minutes let’s say someone else tried to steal our pension and merged with their own but still how it’s possible as everyone’s pension linked to their nation insurance number and other personal details 
So even if someone else tried how did Aviva let that happened 

even when we call, agent on phone didn’t have answers they keep saying your policies ( 3 pension plans) are inactive 

DeeNexus

@prettyandfluffy, 

We have rejected £100 straight away, we won’t be even going to redeem £100 in to our account 
Our pension fund is nearly £50 K , we just want our pension fund back in to our account not interested in £100 

May be they just trying to keep us quiet by offering £100 ,

pramsay13

DeeNexus said:

Yes we made official complaint with Aviva and Action fraud as well 

What was the outcome of the complaint? You can take it to the pension ombudsman if it's been 8 weeks. 

TadleyBaggie

Not sure what you think Action Fraud will do, this is !!!!!!-up not criminal.

DeeNexus

@pramsay13, 
no outcome as yet , they wrote us back last week that they still don’t have a reply for us and followed by £100 cheque after 3-4 days 
we have refused to take £100 compensation