Nest Pensions

Darrebe

In December 2024 my wife director/owner of our company wrongly/mistakenly ( as we are new business owners) paid from our business account a £5000 pension contribution which shows on her dashboard as a personal contribution. She has made contact several times excess of 20 to Nest. As the contribution should have been made personally and not through the business. 

Nest requested a bank statement to prove this transaction, and they would pay this back due to the mistake. We provided this statement. My wife is continually ringing and being transferred to a customer service facility outside of the country we believe. They keep advising a manager will contact us back. We never receive a call back. On two occasions in the early days we did receive a call back they advised they will pay the money back as we are correct it can’t be through the business account and all calls are recorded. This has now been going on since December 2024 and to date they keep illegally retaining the monies. 

We are not receiving any customer service other than a continuous runaround, the whole situation has got us feeling dejected and feeling hopeless. I have a disability defined under the equalities act 2010 and they have caused severe injury to feelings. We have no option now other than report them to the TPR and The Pensions Ombudsman as we have asked to raise a formal complaint to Nest’s policy and procedures and they are not even carrying out this complaint which is within our rights. 

Further update 17/5/25 No contact received from Nest again. My wife rings spends endless time on the phone. Makes another complaint. We advised someone will call us back. My wife is regularly in customers homes and can’t always answer her phone. She has noticed 2 rings and call ceases with no message left. We suspect this is Nest but can’t prove this. No resolution to this ongoing saga and the money £5000 is still not been paid into the account. Nest have email addresses and have our banking details which you have advised on several occasions Nest are repaying this money as of recorded calls. Why 5 month on have you still not done this action. Why is there any need for further calls???? Why are will continuously ringing, ringing ringing. I had a reply on a review stating they have rang back with no reply. We’ll surely if you don’t receive an answer as to many reasons, Could be driving, could be in a medical appointment, could be in a customers home on business, could be unable to get the phone as for example in the shower, surely a customer service this manager/team should continuing to ring until an answer is received. 

Please can you help I’m now exhausted, dejected and now mentally broken. 

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Darrebe said:

In December 2024 my wife director/owner of our company wrongly/mistakenly ( as we are new business owners) paid from our business account a £5000 pension contribution which shows on her dashboard as a personal contribution. She has made contact several times excess of 20 to Nest. As the contribution should have been made personally and not through the business. 

Nest requested a bank statement to prove this transaction, and they would pay this back due to the mistake. We provided this statement. My wife is continually ringing and being transferred to a customer service facility outside of the country we believe. They keep advising a manager will contact us back. We never receive a call back. On two occasions in the early days we did receive a call back they advised they will pay the money back as we are correct it can’t be through the business account and all calls are recorded. This has now been going on since December 2024 and to date they keep illegally retaining the monies. 

We are not receiving any customer service other than a continuous runaround, the whole situation has got us feeling dejected and feeling hopeless. I have a disability defined under the equalities act 2010 and they have caused severe injury to feelings. We have no option now other than report them to the TPR and The Pensions Ombudsman as we have asked to raise a formal complaint to Nest’s policy and procedures and they are not even carrying out this complaint which is within our rights. 

Further update 17/5/25 No contact received from Nest again. My wife rings spends endless time on the phone. Makes another complaint. We advised someone will call us back. My wife is regularly in customers homes and can’t always answer her phone. She has noticed 2 rings and call ceases with no message left. We suspect this is Nest but can’t prove this. No resolution to this ongoing saga and the money £5000 is still not been paid into the account. Nest have email addresses and have our banking details which you have advised on several occasions Nest are repaying this money as of recorded calls. Why 5 month on have you still not done this action. Why is there any need for further calls???? Why are will continuously ringing, ringing ringing. I had a reply on a review stating they have rang back with no reply. We’ll surely if you don’t receive an answer as to many reasons, Could be driving, could be in a medical appointment, could be in a customers home on business, could be unable to get the phone as for example in the shower, surely a customer service this manager/team should continuing to ring until an answer is received. 

Please can you help I’m now exhausted, dejected and now mentally broken. 

Given the bit highlighted in bold could you possibly expand on exactly what your particular issue is 🤔

JoeCrystal

I am very confused. I would have thought that paying into a pension scheme as an employer would make the most sense anyway. Anyway, as the employer, have you set "Manage payment sources" properly for the refund? Have you checked  https://www.nestpensions.org.uk/schemeweb/helpcentre/contributions.html for example. Keep strictly to facts and details only. On that note, why even choose NEST in the first place, considering they charged 1.8% on all employees' contributions?

Darrebe

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

Darrebe said:

In December 2024 my wife director/owner of our company wrongly/mistakenly ( as we are new business owners) paid from our business account a £5000 pension contribution which shows on her dashboard as a personal contribution. She has made contact several times excess of 20 to Nest. As the contribution should have been made personally and not through the business. 

Nest requested a bank statement to prove this transaction, and they would pay this back due to the mistake. We provided this statement. My wife is continually ringing and being transferred to a customer service facility outside of the country we believe. They keep advising a manager will contact us back. We never receive a call back. On two occasions in the early days we did receive a call back they advised they will pay the money back as we are correct it can’t be through the business account and all calls are recorded. This has now been going on since December 2024 and to date they keep illegally retaining the monies. 

We are not receiving any customer service other than a continuous runaround, the whole situation has got us feeling dejected and feeling hopeless. I have a disability defined under the equalities act 2010 and they have caused severe injury to feelings. We have no option now other than report them to the TPR and The Pensions Ombudsman as we have asked to raise a formal complaint to Nest’s policy and procedures and they are not even carrying out this complaint which is within our rights. 

Further update 17/5/25 No contact received from Nest again. My wife rings spends endless time on the phone. Makes another complaint. We advised someone will call us back. My wife is regularly in customers homes and can’t always answer her phone. She has noticed 2 rings and call ceases with no message left. We suspect this is Nest but can’t prove this. No resolution to this ongoing saga and the money £5000 is still not been paid into the account. Nest have email addresses and have our banking details which you have advised on several occasions Nest are repaying this money as of recorded calls. Why 5 month on have you still not done this action. Why is there any need for further calls???? Why are will continuously ringing, ringing ringing. I had a reply on a review stating they have rang back with no reply. We’ll surely if you don’t receive an answer as to many reasons, Could be driving, could be in a medical appointment, could be in a customers home on business, could be unable to get the phone as for example in the shower, surely a customer service this manager/team should continuing to ring until an answer is received. 

Please can you help I’m now exhausted, dejected and now mentally broken. 

Given the bit highlighted in bold could you possibly expand on exactly what your particular issue is 🤔

We have been waiting for them to repay the £5000 back into the business account since December and Nest advised they would and to date they have not!

Marcon

Darrebe said:

In December 2024 my wife director/owner of our company wrongly/mistakenly ( as we are new business owners) paid from our business account a £5000 pension contribution which shows on her dashboard as a personal contribution. She has made contact several times excess of 20 to Nest. As the contribution should have been made personally and not through the business. 


Please can you help I’m now exhausted, dejected and now mentally broken. 

There's a very easy way to correct this and your accountant should have been able to assist (I hope as new business owners you have an accountant...?).

Your wife wanted to make a £5,000 personal contribution and on NEST's dashboard this shows as a personal contribution. So that's fine - that's what she wanted and the tax treatment will be correct (ie NEST will add tax relief at basic rate to her 'pot'), given it is shown as a personal contribution.

All she needs to do is reimburse the business, surely? It can either be done as a simple book entry, or she can physically pay your company £5,000 by bank transfer from her personal account to the company's bank account.

dunstonh

In December 2024 my wife director/owner of our company wrongly/mistakenly ( as we are new business owners) paid from our business account a £5000 pension contribution which shows on her dashboard as a personal contribution. She has made contact several times excess of 20 to Nest. As the contribution should have been made personally and not through the business. 

A - why are you using NEST?    You are not subject to auto-enrollment requirements.   Typically, you would use an individual pension and not an auto-enrolment scheme. (quality, charges, functionality etc being better with individual schemes)
B - why would you be making personal contributions and not business?
C - You need to clarify.  You say it was made personally and should have been a personal contribution but was paid via the business.   Noting point B, why don't you just do a contra entry from the person account to reimburse the business?

 Why 5 month on have you still not done this action. Why is there any need for further calls?

Nest are probably wondering why you didn't do a contra entry, as the pension contribution was correct for your intention (even if your intention was unusual for a shareholding director). It is just a source of funds issue, which you would correct yourself.

Darrebe

I’m confused how you’re confused. We have been waiting for nest to repay the £5000 wrongly paid back to us. They advised they would 2024 and to date they still haven’t it’s pretty skmple

dunstonh

Darrebe said:

I’m confused how you’re confused. We have been waiting for nest to repay the £5000 wrongly paid back to us. They advised they would 2024 and to date they still haven’t it’s pretty skmple

What you needed to do was simple.  A contra entry to the business from the personal account.
What you are asking Nest to do is far more complicated and unnecessary.

And that is putting aside why you would want to pay a personal contribution to the pension instead of a business contribution, which is the norm with shareholding directors.  There is the odd rare scenario where individual contributions are best but the vast majority of cases, business contributions are best.

Marcon

Darrebe said:

I’m confused how you’re confused. We have been waiting for nest to repay the £5000 wrongly paid back to us. They advised they would 2024 and to date they still haven’t it’s pretty skmple

Have you read my post above, or dunstonh's, telling you exactly what you need to do to correct the situation?

NEST doesn't need to do anything. You do.

Darrebe

Awe well next because the business name is the same as my wife’s…personal and business account they are then locking her out so we cannot do it ourselves

Marcon

Darrebe said:

Awe well next because the business name is the same as my wife’s…personal and business account they are then locking her out so we cannot do it ourselves

Nothing unusual about that. If you have a limited company then it will have its own bank account and that account will have different details from your wife's personal account (including the word 'ltd' in its name - you've said in your first post that she's a director, so the structure of your business must be a limited company - or is it??).

But if that is the problem you seem to believe, just do a book entry (if you don't know what that means, ask your accountant) in the company's books of account, as dunstonh and I have both explained above. That'll resolve the issue instantly and doesn't involve any action from NEST or any involvement from anyone's bank account.

Darrebe said:

In December 2024 my wife director/owner of our company wrongly/mistakenly ( as we are new business owners) paid from our business account a £5000 pension contribution which shows on her dashboard as a personal contribution. She has made contact several times excess of 20 to Nest. As the contribution should have been made personally and not through the business. 

Being a new business owner, you might also like to brush up on the responsibilities of a company director: https://www.gov.uk/browse/business/limited-company. Some errors can have very serious consequences, and pleading that you didn't know what you were doing isn't going to cut it.