Clerical Medical - Extremely Poor Service

YorksNick

There's a few posts on here from a few years ago about Clerical Medical's poor service but I just wondered if I'm the only one having issues currently. I'm a trustee of some bonds from my late mother's estate and trying to get a partial encashment. I have already had one complaint upheld as the initial enquiries about how to submit a partial encashment was handled very badly. I was told it would be "10 working days" but the encashment form was submitted on 5th November and still not paid. They've stalled once saying there was a discrepancy on the Trust Registration document but that was resolved on 11th November. The original complaint has been reopened but was assigned to a different Complaint Manager as the one I'd been dealing with (David) was on holiday. However despite numerous, repeated phone calls no one ever calls back. I've now succeeded in getting the complaint reassigned back to David and spoken to him today and he was extremely apologetic and is trying to progress things, with a promise to call back on Monday.

Part of my complaint now is around the Complaints Team!

The Customer Service team are also unhelpful - "it's being processed" is about as much information as I can get out of them. 

I'm going to be raising with the Financial Ombudsman Service but just curious if others had similar (or better) experience.

dunstonh

There's a few posts on here from a few years ago about Clerical Medical's poor service but I just wondered if I'm the only one having issues currently.

Scottish Widows have improved servicing recently on that side of things in my experience.  Still not up to the service they provide with their modern business options (like SW platform or other providers platforms) but better than it was.    However, both the recent CM cases I dealt with were pensions.  Not investment bonds.

Some of the legacy CM bonds have system issues.   If there have been previous withdrawals (under the 5% deferment) or partial surrenders or fund switches and the number of transactions has gone above a certain amount then they have to be referred to a specialist team for manual calculation.   That adds a chunk of time and really slows things up compared to those without that issue.

Marcon

YorksNick said:

There's a few posts on here from a few years ago about Clerical Medical's poor service but I just wondered if I'm the only one having issues currently. I'm a trustee of some bonds from my late mother's estate and trying to get a partial encashment. I have already had one complaint upheld as the initial enquiries about how to submit a partial encashment was handled very badly. I was told it would be "10 working days" but the encashment form was submitted on 5th November and still not paid. They've stalled once saying there was a discrepancy on the Trust Registration document but that was resolved on 11th November. The original complaint has been reopened but was assigned to a different Complaint Manager as the one I'd been dealing with (David) was on holiday. However despite numerous, repeated phone calls no one ever calls back. I've now succeeded in getting the complaint reassigned back to David and spoken to him today and he was extremely apologetic and is trying to progress things, with a promise to call back on Monday.

Part of my complaint now is around the Complaints Team!

The Customer Service team are also unhelpful - "it's being processed" is about as much information as I can get out of them. 

I'm going to be raising with the Financial Ombudsman Service but just curious if others had similar (or better) experience.

There are few things more frustrating than a sense of banging your head on a wall - and not have having calls returned, especially when promises have been made, must be well towards the top of that particular league!

Rather than letting yourself get so wound up (easier said than done...), take a step back. You submitted the forms on 5 November, so the delay is hardly 'massive' - just very annoying. FOS aren't going to be interested unless it drags on for many months, so why put yourself through the hoop of complaining to them? If you accept that you will just need to be patient, for the reasons expounded by dunstonh, you could save yourself a lot of grief.

YorksNick

Marcon said:

YorksNick said:

There's a few posts on here from a few years ago about Clerical Medical's poor service but I just wondered if I'm the only one having issues currently. I'm a trustee of some bonds from my late mother's estate and trying to get a partial encashment. I have already had one complaint upheld as the initial enquiries about how to submit a partial encashment was handled very badly. I was told it would be "10 working days" but the encashment form was submitted on 5th November and still not paid. They've stalled once saying there was a discrepancy on the Trust Registration document but that was resolved on 11th November. The original complaint has been reopened but was assigned to a different Complaint Manager as the one I'd been dealing with (David) was on holiday. However despite numerous, repeated phone calls no one ever calls back. I've now succeeded in getting the complaint reassigned back to David and spoken to him today and he was extremely apologetic and is trying to progress things, with a promise to call back on Monday.

Part of my complaint now is around the Complaints Team!

The Customer Service team are also unhelpful - "it's being processed" is about as much information as I can get out of them. 

I'm going to be raising with the Financial Ombudsman Service but just curious if others had similar (or better) experience.

There are few things more frustrating than a sense of banging your head on a wall - and not have having calls returned, especially when promises have been made, must be well towards the top of that particular league!

Rather than letting yourself get so wound up (easier said than done...), take a step back. You submitted the forms on 5 November, so the delay is hardly 'massive' - just very annoying. FOS aren't going to be interested unless it drags on for many months, so why put yourself through the hoop of complaining to them? If you accept that you will just need to be patient, for the reasons expounded by dunstonh, you could save yourself a lot of grief.

I understand your sentiment Marcon but unfortunately I'm dealing with this as a trustee and the partial encashment was requested for one of the beneficiaries to allow them to meet financial commitments. 

Marcon

YorksNick said:

Marcon said:

YorksNick said:

There's a few posts on here from a few years ago about Clerical Medical's poor service but I just wondered if I'm the only one having issues currently. I'm a trustee of some bonds from my late mother's estate and trying to get a partial encashment. I have already had one complaint upheld as the initial enquiries about how to submit a partial encashment was handled very badly. I was told it would be "10 working days" but the encashment form was submitted on 5th November and still not paid. They've stalled once saying there was a discrepancy on the Trust Registration document but that was resolved on 11th November. The original complaint has been reopened but was assigned to a different Complaint Manager as the one I'd been dealing with (David) was on holiday. However despite numerous, repeated phone calls no one ever calls back. I've now succeeded in getting the complaint reassigned back to David and spoken to him today and he was extremely apologetic and is trying to progress things, with a promise to call back on Monday.

Part of my complaint now is around the Complaints Team!

The Customer Service team are also unhelpful - "it's being processed" is about as much information as I can get out of them. 

I'm going to be raising with the Financial Ombudsman Service but just curious if others had similar (or better) experience.

There are few things more frustrating than a sense of banging your head on a wall - and not have having calls returned, especially when promises have been made, must be well towards the top of that particular league!

Rather than letting yourself get so wound up (easier said than done...), take a step back. You submitted the forms on 5 November, so the delay is hardly 'massive' - just very annoying. FOS aren't going to be interested unless it drags on for many months, so why put yourself through the hoop of complaining to them? If you accept that you will just need to be patient, for the reasons expounded by dunstonh, you could save yourself a lot of grief.

I understand your sentiment Marcon but unfortunately I'm dealing with this as a trustee and the partial encashment was requested for one of the beneficiaries to allow them to meet financial commitments. 

Ah...I see your problem. Have you ensured that Clerical Medical know this with no possibility they could 'overlook' your role?

essexgirl1955

I have been dealing passively with Clerical Medical for over 30 years now but actively for one year. I live overseas but have an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA) in the UK whom I have delegated as my rep with Clerical Medical, but who they routinely ignore, preferring to send correspondence, forms etc to me (in California) via the postal service, and usually without sufficient postage paid, so that docs take weeks and weeks to reach me. I'm assuming that someone in the mail room doesn't understand that my address in the USA is another country and requires airmail rates. So that's my first complaint... (They rarely email and when they do it requires multiple layers of passwords.)

I've had this account since 1991, long before we moved to the USA. It's an old (legacy) pension from a job I had back in the 1980s, and when I left that job (when I had my first child) I was urged to take my money out of the company pension plan and put it into a private fund. (There was a lot of that going on back then. Businesses were panicking about the expensive company pension schemes  they saw themselves being tied up in.) So I did just that, investing in what is now CM (I think they still called themselves Scottish Widows back then but quite honestly it was so long ago I can't really remember.) All I can say is that it seemed like a good idea at the time..

Then some years later we moved here. I updated all my data with CM over the years, addresses etc, and nothing much happened for 25 years except an annual update on the fund's worth. I just left it chugging along, slowly increasing. It wasn't spectacular but it seemed reliable. I had jobs here, started 401ks and IRAs (various types of USA pension plans) and - luckily - saved a lot more for retirement than I had in the UK. (I'm a dual citizen.)

Fast forward to the start of 2023 when I retired. I started investigating getting access to the old fund I had in the UK. I appointed my IFA, and on advice decided to transfer from CM to a SIPP with another firm. Then began a year of paperwork back and forth across half the world - usually as I said above, taking weeks and weeks to arrive, sometimes crossing each other in the mail, when someone in the mail room has actually paid airmail rates. So I'd get mailings referring to other mailings that had not yet arrived. CM would send me more forms; I'd scan them and forward to my IFA in the UK whom they have by-passed, he calls them, they send more forms, to me, I scan etc etc. You get the idea?

Finally early in 2024 we got to the stage where CM wanted me to have a phone interview with the UK MoneyHelper phone line which I gather is to ensure that people don't get scammed. Fair enough. I was assured this was a last step. I set that up and spoke at length to a very nice man who told me all about pension scams, and made sure that I'm not investing in a truffle farm in Australia (apparently that really has happened.) Anyway, that completed I sent all the paperwork back to CM (US Priority International Mail - cost me an arm and a leg but only took 4 days to get there) AND via email so that we had 'belt and braces.' I followed up with a phone call, and I know they have it all.

My UK SIPP told me they'd have the money from CM in 10 days. After 10 days when nothing happened, I emailed the SIPP directly, and they told me that CM say it will be another 10 days. That was 3 weeks ago. Still no sign of the money from CM.

Then late last week a large envelope arrived in the mail from CM. (It took 3 weeks to get here.) It states 'We hear you'd like to transfer your pension overseas' and it asks for details of the QROPS scheme I'm transferring to. It contained a bunch of forms, which are duplicates of forms I completed last year. Basically it was documentation to start the process, not complete it. It was as if CM have invented a regressive Time Machine, like the whole of the last year never happened.

After emailing back and forth with my IFA (who has dealt with CM for several clients and is just as frustrated as I am) I called CM this morning. I explained  that I am NOT transferring to a QROPS but a SIPP, that I have completed discharge forms, that I have indeed completed and returned every scrap of documentation they have sent me over the past year, that I have completed my 'MoneyHelper' interview and sent back all my paperwork - both via email AND regular mail - that I have done EVERYTHING - everything - they've asked, and after the phone agent had several discussions with colleagues while I was on hold, she said that what they actually want from me is the bank details of the SIPP so they can send the money. I directed her to my IFA who has had all this in his files for many months - after confirming that CM do indeed have my IFA's contact information, and the documentation I signed making him my representative in the UK.

I will now wait (another 10 days?) to see if anything happens. I'm just glad I'm not relying on this UK fund for my day to day existence. This excruciatingly, mind numbingly, awful level of incompetence from CM leaves me wondering how they stay in business? How do companies like this still manage to exist in 2024? Clearly there is no communication between departments, the mail room is possibly staffed by people who can't read, they rarely use email, letters come from multiple people - never the same name twice - there is duplication of effort, they ignore clear instruction... the list is endless.

The phone agent today asked me if I'd like to register a complaint? I said 'yes.'

dunstonh

 they've asked, and after the phone agent had several discussions with colleagues while I was on hold, she said that what they actually want from me is the bank details of the SIPP so they can send the money.

That isn't for you to provide.  The receiving scheme provides that.  Indeed, the receiving scheme drives the process.    i.e. you start the application with them and they provide details to CM.  Most mainstream schemes use Origo (so no discharge forms required) and its all pretty simple.  CM are not slow in that respect.

However, you are a US citizen.  So, that means you are unlikely to be using the mainstream (neither your IFA is likely to be mainstream or your SIPP provider as they they don't like US citizens).   Non-mainstream providers are less likely to use Origo, which means it reverts to the old fashioned way.    But the receiving scheme should still be in control.    Did you send the discharge forms to CM or did you give them to the receiving scheme? (it should have been the receiving scheme).

You are niche individual and they don't employ people with the skills to do this.   As your IFA is a rare beast that deals with US citizens, you would think they would know more about these things and they would control the process.  That is, after all, what you are paying them for.    CM are not particularly bad with pension transfers but it is clear that there is some miscommunication going on and I wonder if its down to the transfer process not being applied correctly.  Your niche circumstances certainly don't help but they shouldn't be an issue from the CM side.

essexgirl1955

They routinely ignore my IFA and send documents to me as described above, which I then have to scan and send to him. I can't believe my circumstances are that niche - there are hundreds of thousands of UK/USA dual citizens living in the USA. OK granted not all are with CM, but I cannot believe that the circumstances are that unusual.

dunstonh

They routinely ignore my IFA and send documents to me as described above,

Is your IFA appointed on the policy as the agent.  If yes, then they would normally include them.  If the have the IFA noted but not as agent, then they will bypass the IFA.

Is it actually an IFA?  That may seem daft to ask but over half of people using an FA think they are using an IFA.   An FA cant be appointed an agent on plans and would just be noted.  Again, that would result tin the FA being bypassed.

 there are hundreds of thousands of UK/USA dual citizens living in the USA. OK granted not all are with CM, but I cannot believe that the circumstances are that unusual.

However, most will hold their product until maturity and transactions involving those hundreds of thousands will be tiny by comparison.    Then spread that tiny number across all the providers (and CM is a small player), and the occurrences are even lighter.

Which provider are you transferring to?    if they use origo then this really should be a relatively simple case (origo to origo doesn't even need discharge forms).

essexgirl1955

Just an update... yesterday (March 27th 2024) I received a letter from CM. It was dated 1 February 2024 and it advised me to get in touch with MoneyHelper by March 7th 2024 or they won't transfer my pension. So this has taken almost TWO months to reach me and once again it had insufficient postage.

This is the 3rd letter they have sent exhorting me to talk to MoneyHelper. Not only did I talk to MoneyHelper on February 14th, I sent all the necessary paperwork back both via email and US Mail International Priority (which cost me an arm and a leg) and I followed up with a phone call a week later where they confirmed that they have it all. 

I take on board all your comments above about IFAs (mine has done this UK/USA transfer for many other dual citizens with a variety of pension companies), about Origo, about my apparent uniqueness... etc.

What I cannot excuse is the blatant inefficiency of CM's administration, which can't check my file before sending letters to me, which duplicates effort over and over again, and can't even send a letter out via airmail - or email. Two months for a communication to arrive by mail is totally inexcusable - especially when I have asked them repeatedly to email me. Just to reiterate, I'm not in Antarctica, I'm in California and they are in Scotland, and both places have (reasonabl)y modern infrastructure. 

And, when I first signed up with my IFA, he asked me which company my pension was with? Then he added - without any prompting - "I hope it's not Clerical Medical!" His face fell and I could hear him groan when I said "Well actually... yes it is." He said 'I hope you're not in a hurry...'

dunstonh

Just an update... yesterday (March 27th 2024) I received a letter from CM. It was dated 1 February 2024 and it advised me to get in touch with MoneyHelper by March 7th 2024 or they won't transfer my pension. So this has taken almost TWO months to reach me and once again it had insufficient postage.

That tells us that your transfer has triggered a higher amber flag or red flag, and they are following the prescribed requirements.  The refusal to transfer indicates a red flag.

That is not unexpected if your receiving scheme is a SIPP and with a niche or non-mainstream player.    A SIPP itself automatically triggers the overseas investment flag by default.    And whilst the big players doing Orgio to Origo transfers will use discretion, that tends not to happen with minor players.

Your IFA should be aware of the system and the actual flags that have been triggered and why.  So, they can explain that to you more (the flow chart is available to them)

This is the 3rd letter they have sent exhorting me to talk to MoneyHelper. Not only did I talk to MoneyHelper on February 14th, I sent all the necessary paperwork back both via email and US Mail International Priority (which cost me an arm and a leg) and I followed up with a phone call a week later where they confirmed that they have it all. 

Was that moneyhelper on the anti-fraud side or the pension options side?   it has to be the anti-fraud/scam side. 

What I cannot excuse is the blatant inefficiency of CM's administration, which can't check my file before sending letters to me, which duplicates effort over and over again, and can't even send a letter out via airmail - or email. Two months for a communication to arrive by mail is totally inexcusable - especially when I have asked them repeatedly to email me. Just to reiterate, I'm not in Antarctica, I'm in California and they are in Scotland, and both places have (reasonabl)y modern infrastructure. 

The anti-fraud measures introduced in November 2021 have created issues if you fall foul of them.  It is a right pain in the neck but they cannot communicate via third parties in that process (in case the third party is the scammer as was very often the case).  So, they have to come to you and CM is not set up to communicate via email.  Even with IFAs, they send out very little via email.

Ever since Lloyd Bank took over CM and then closed it down for new business and transferred the servicing to SW (which outsources), the service has been poor.  There has been some investment of late, but it's mostly on the business side and selectively on the legacy side, but you are never going to see modern servicing levels on a legacy plan.

And, when I first signed up with my IFA, he asked me which company my pension was with? Then he added - without any prompting - "I hope it's not Clerical Medical!" His face fell and I could hear him groan when I said "Well actually... yes it is." He said 'I hope you're not in a hurry...'

CM transfers via Origo are not bad. You haven't mentioned the name of the receiving scheme, but the fact that discharge forms are required suggests non-origo. If your IFA is using non-origo providers, then they would know that it is going to be an issue, especially given your circumstances.