Seeking Advise- Aviva lost our pension fund 😒

dunstonh

original policies (3 pension plans) were bought with Friends Provident which was bought out by Aviva 
so we didn’t transfer- It got automatically transferred from Friends provident to Aviva
but we never got notified 

Clarification on that point.  The original plans would not be transferred.    Friends Provident operated out of Salisbury.  When AXA and FP merged and became Friends Life, all existing plans remained as they were except the branding changed to Friends Life.   When Aviva bought Friends Life, it was exactly the same.     All the original plans carried on unchanged and still operate to this day out of Salisbury under the same policy numbers and same terms.  Just the logo in the corner changed.

not sure this was the starting point of administrative mistake<br>

No.   Nothing has changed even to this day on FP plans.

When did you get the last statement on the plans?  i.e. if the last one was in 2021 then you know it started some time after that.   

Aviva is not giving us any details - After a month of phone calls and email they replied your three policies were got merged in to Another Aviva policy -but where ? , what’s the new policy number - we asked for latest summary of the new plan - No reply as that policy doesn’t belongs to us Something like this will be sluggish to sort out.  A month will be insufficient to obtain the information required.

Aviva have not transferred any FP plans automatically.  It would require a manual transfer request.

one assumption - Aviva wrongly entered details and our pension plan appeared in to someone else’s account, that person then transferred in to his own pension plan - if this is the case then it’s a fraud It doesn't mean its fraud.  An error or assumption does not mean it was fraudulent.

we never requested this transfer we got very concerned , Aviva is not telling us where is the plan and it belongs to whom They cannot tell you that.  

Around 15th August we received a one liner reply by post that Aviva don’t have answers yet and will write us back in four another weeks time&nbsp;<br>on 23rd August they sent us £100 cheque via post - only stated they sending this cheque reference to our complaint&nbsp;

That is normal and you should bank the £100.   This is not going to be a quick outcome and because of the delay you will get inconvenience payments.   You could get several more before you get the outcome.

so yes we have in writing that these three policies were merged in to new SIPP plan&nbsp;<br>Has the word "SIPP" actually been used?      This is important as Aviva only offer one SIPP plan for new business and that is on their Aviva platform (operating out of Glasgow).   They could have been transferred to a legacy SIPP (such as an ex AXA one but that is probably unlikely).    If it was transferred to another provider, Aviva wouldnt know if it was a SIPP, personal pension or stakeholder pension.      So, any reference to SIPP is very specific and suggests that it is still with Aviva   (edit:   There are a couple of providers that have SIPP in their brand name, so that could be a possible alternative but again, not many do)

f it was belongs to my husband they would have sent us details of the plan and close the complaint immediately&nbsp;<br>after 6 weeks in to complaint we received £100 cheque indicating they know they have messed up&nbsp;

Its almost certainly an administration error.   I had seen something similar before where policies of someone with the same name got mixed up and a data merge.     It took about 9 months to get resolved.   The policyholder didn't lose out and got a goodwill gesture that made it worthwhile in the end.      

So, consider this a frustration that will be put right and there will be a goodwill gesture from it.  It just won't be fixed quickly.   And you will probably never know exactly what happened.    In the case I dealt with, I did find out because providers release a bit more information to IFAs as we can see more of the audit trails on systems than consumers can.   But they cannot release any details to you of the place it ended up as that would be a data protection breach.

Ksw3

I have previously had experience with FL where they failed to send annual statements for 3 years and requesting an ad hoc one took them 8 weeks... 

I hope its all sorted soon but I do think fraud is very unlikely. 

DeeNexus

@dunstonh
Thank you 

Pat38493

dunstonh said:

Its almost certainly an administration error.   I had seen something similar before where policies of someone with the same name got mixed up and a data merge.     It took about 9 months to get resolved.   The policyholder didn't lose out and got a goodwill gesture that made it worthwhile in the end.      

If it turned out that this was a similar situation, what would happen if the person with the same name who accidently received the pension, had already drawn it down and spent it and/or transferred it to another provider?

My working assumption would be that Aviva would have to reimbuse the OP regardless whether they could get the money back from the person who received it incorrectly?  That person would then have to pay Aviva back or risk being taken to court, even if they claimed that they didn't realise it wasn't their money?

Marcon

Pat38493 said:

dunstonh said:

Its almost certainly an administration error.   I had seen something similar before where policies of someone with the same name got mixed up and a data merge.     It took about 9 months to get resolved.   The policyholder didn't lose out and got a goodwill gesture that made it worthwhile in the end.      

If it turned out that this was a similar situation, what would happen if the person with the same name who accidently received the pension, had already drawn it down and spent it and/or transferred it to another provider?

My working assumption would be that Aviva would have to reimbuse the OP regardless whether they could get the money back from the person who received it incorrectly?  That person would then have to pay Aviva back or risk being taken to court, even if they claimed that they didn't realise it wasn't their money?

If the insurer is shown to be at fault, then yes, they'd have to reimburse the policyholder's account and then pursue the person who received the funds in error.

The person concerned would have to return the funds, since there would be little chance of arguing that they didn't realise the £50K credited to their pension didn't belong to them. Trying to claim that oops, I've spent it, wouldn't get far.

QrizB

Marcon said:

Trying to claim that oops, I've spent it, wouldn't get far.

"Oops, I've spent it, died and my estate doesn't have any money" would work, though.

dunstonh

If it turned out that this was a similar situation, what would happen if the person with the same name who accidently received the pension, had already drawn it down and spent it and/or transferred it to another provider?

The provider would still have to make it right out of their own money.  They would then go after the person that received it to recover whatever they can.      They could push for a fraud investigation into the person receiving it if the amounts are sufficient to make it obvious there was an error.  i.e. if the receiving scheme had £1m in it then its unlikely £50k would be noticed as that is within normal volatility.   However, if it had £5k in it then it clearly would be.

DeeNexus

Hi everyone
Just adding an update 
Yes it took months but finally we did receive our funds back and successfully transffered to another provider 

Thank you everyone for your input