Pension contact, is it legit

mattswife

dunstonh said:

Albermarle said:

dunstonh said:

Utmost took on the legacy book of Equitable once the guarantee issues were all sorted out and after the non-guaranteed side was sold elsewhere.

You couldn't cash in a pension until 2016 unless it was a trivial pension.

Is it the case that pension providers are obliged to try and contact/trace clients they have had no contact with for years? Or do some do it as the 'right thing to do '?

They are required to trace people.  Typically, they accelerate efforts closer to the scheme age or state pension age.  And then go into overdrive when getting closer to 75.     They spend a fortune on professional tracing but tend to start on the lower cost methods earlier before eventually using the higher cost methods.

i dont remember why i thought to cash it in, there must have been a statement through, i was no longer working for them. Anyway, i cashed it it, i remember having to visit the company to sign the paperwork. I had assumed that taking the money out (about £3k) would have closed the pension and that was that.

You couldn't cash in a pension at that time unless it was under triviality or the small pots rule.  Triviality would not apply, and £3k would be too high for small pots (it had a £2k limit), and you didn't need to travel to Aylesbury (Eq's life office) to do so.   You had to be age 60 or older as well.

However, you couldn't use small pots for a protected rights fund.  Only ordinary rights (non-protected rights as it's called today) could use small pots.

So, there are some anomalies in what you are saying but also a possible reason why they are contacting you.
a) was it actually a pension you cashed in and not a savings endowment? (Eq Life had those and sales agents back in the 80s to early 90s would sometimes set these up instead of pensions but refer to them as a pension - many times, I have had someone ask me to look at their pension only for me to find out it is an endowment)
b) if it was a pension, does it pay you any income?  (thinking you may have taken the 25% with the rest used for annuity payment)
c) If you had protected rights or funds built up under the contested guarantees then these could well be what they are trying to contact you about.

youve totally lost me now.

it wasnt a savings thing, i hadnt put anything into it myself, i went to the company i used to work for to sign paperwork not to equitable. they gave me a cheque and i bought a car with it so i was definitely given money. It was about 20 years ago so i would have been under 30 years old when all this occurred.

They addressed it to my old married name but to my new address, where i have never been known as that name. 

i might do as suggested and phone them and see whats occurring.  

Marcon

OP - to sum up, the consensus is that yes it's genuine; and worth replying to find out exactly what if anything Utmost are holding on your behalf.

Bit of a mystery what you could have 'cashed in'....but what matters is what you might find now.

mattswife

thanks all, i will update when i get more info

dunstonh

it wasnt a savings thing, i hadnt put anything into it myself, i went to the company i used to work for to sign paperwork not to equitable. they gave me a cheque and i bought a car with it so i was definitely given money. It was about 20 years ago so i would have been under 30 years old when all this occurred.

You certainly couldn't cash a pension whilst in your 30s.   The only exception would have been short service with an employer scheme giving a refund.

So, my gut feeling is that you are thinking of something else rather than the ex Equitable life pension.    And this mailing is about the Eq Life pension (which Utmost took on).

They addressed it to my old married name but to my new address, where i have never been known as that name. 

As I mentioned earlier, they use cheaper tracing methods initially and see how they get on and its only if they get no luck that they then use more expensive methods.  Plus, they haven't officially seen a marriage certificate yet. So, they would likely retain your old address.

There is nothing unusual going on here. It is genuine

mattswife

dunstonh said:

it wasnt a savings thing, i hadnt put anything into it myself, i went to the company i used to work for to sign paperwork not to equitable. they gave me a cheque and i bought a car with it so i was definitely given money. It was about 20 years ago so i would have been under 30 years old when all this occurred.

You certainly couldn't cash a pension whilst in your 30s.   The only exception would have been short service with an employer scheme giving a refund.

So, my gut feeling is that you are thinking of something else rather than the ex Equitable life pension.    And this mailing is about the Eq Life pension (which Utmost took on).

They addressed it to my old married name but to my new address, where i have never been known as that name. 

As I mentioned earlier, they use cheaper tracing methods initially and see how they get on and its only if they get no luck that they then use more expensive methods.  Plus, they haven't officially seen a marriage certificate yet. So, they would likely retain your old address.

There is nothing unusual going on here. It is genuine

thanks for the reassurance over the tracing.

I dont know what to tell you! i never had anything else that it could be! i saw the pensions lady at he place i used to work and cashed in the pension, i figured it was fine because i was embarking on a career that had (what i was lead to believe at the time) a good pension that i was paying in to. There was no other product or scheme. I had worked there probably 5 years, i never paid anything in from my wage as i didnt earn when i started to pay anything extra, i was 18 and bought a house, i earned about £7k a year, leaving on probably £20k as id worked my way up. 

Im probably just a name on a list that needs to be closed off because i have nothing with them, like an empty account. Although youd think theyd just say that, i guess they have to establish you are who you are before disclosing you have an empty account lol.

LHW99

Just to throw in a thought, as I don't have any knowledge:

I left a job early on, after a fairly short time, and couldn't keep the pension as it was. I did get a refund of money (not a lot, but nice at the time), and a very small residual pension was taken out for me (GMP - or something else?). That small pension went from one company to another over the years, I was never able to transfer it anywhere even after A-day and other changes, and in the end it provided me with the grand sum of £100 (or £6pa) when I reached retirement age.

Maybe something similar happened with yours?

mattswife

LHW99 said:

Just to throw in a thought, as I don't have any knowledge:

I left a job early on, after a fairly short time, and couldn't keep the pension as it was. I did get a refund of money (not a lot, but nice at the time), and a very small residual pension was taken out for me (GMP - or something else?). That small pension went from one company to another over the years, I was never able to transfer it anywhere even after A-day and other changes, and in the end it provided me with the grand sum of £100 (or £6pa) when I reached retirement age.

Maybe something similar happened with yours?

thanks! this sounds like the most likely.  It really does seem to have aligned with yours! I will endeavour not to spend it all at once on retirement