slow pension admin

northernstar007

hi all can anyone help

im 57 and have a db pension with avc's

i signed all the paper work off end of jan to start claiming my private pension for start of the new tax year

i dont have a passport so i had to send a copy of my driving licence and 2 bill inc bank statement

the id is now still the hold up ive been on the phone to them and there keep saying next week next week, well today i had enough and put my foot down politely saying now i wish to put a formal complaint in

the girl said i will do this id check myself (heard that before), she said lastweek it was with someone and dont quote me on this i should have my funds of this week, is what she said same lass on the phone

i said can you give me a date for my funds and she said she couldnt, i also said its going to take at least 10 days to sell the avc she said yes that will delay it

can someone now tell me what to do now im just banging my head against a brick wall

i'm losing money on interest and also wanting to put my funds in isa and 12month fixed rate bond for the remainder i,m worried i might lose the rate i am seeing now

do i keep pestering them EVERYDAY

and the admin is hyman robertson

btw it has been signed off by my ex employer

flaneurs_lobster

Think you mean Hymans Robertson?

Did you make a formal complaint? Was it acknowledged as such?

northernstar007

i did tell the girl on the phone i wanted to put a formal complaint in

JoeCrystal

Do it properly then, Write the letter and mark it as formal complaint. Merely telling someone that you want to make a formal complaint does not make it a complaint. Also, stop pestering them every day, it is unfair on the poor call staffs considering it is likely to be out of their hands anyway.

northernstar007

also a soft money laundering check was done on my credit file in feb so they already have that

JoeCrystal

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81965436#Comment_81965436

And? What are precisely the reason for delays? I assume you already wrote the letter clearly outline your complaint and sent it. Have the original paperworks gave you any ideas on official numbers of days or weeks to claim such pension? It is only three months since you sent the paperworks after all.

flaneurs_lobster

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81965448#Comment_81965448

Unfortunately @JoeCrystal makes a good point, my experience (of a couple of years ago) and many others here since is that getting a pension into payment is often taking over three months from first contact to cash in bank.

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81965460#Comment_81965460

Over 6 months for me !

Veloflyer

I'll second the above posts - albeit a slightly different tack. I wanted to transfer my work pension into a SIPP, basically due to the high fees, poor performance and poor choice of funds. The administrators of said pension took 10 months to transfer - despite me completing the pension consultation, all the paperwork, everything else they asked for and the SIPP folk all being primed and ready within the first month. Truly despicable behaviour. Only when threatened with the regulator, the ombudsman and my MP did they finally release the money. I have a strong suspicion they were stalling to gain as much fees as possible.

PensionsStuff

How long did you send in the last thing they needed in any back and forth with your ID?

It changes things for example if you sent your first forms in January, and 2 weeks later the extra documents they asked for, vs if you only sent them two weeks ago, as its very typical to have a 10-15 working day lead time for administrators to review documents, and that's at the best of times.

It seems that (if they are telling the truth) some movement should be made with the ID stage today based on them saying they'll work on it themselves, so it would follow e.g. tomorrow you should be able to be told by them that's now done.. and then your AVC disinvested if not already done so, which can be anywhere from a few days to 4 weeks and maybe more depending on the AVC provider and their timescales.

Brie

Part of the problem may well be that this is a very busy time of year for anyone in finance. Lots of people have good reason to start pensions or drawdown or whatever either side of the tax year and that puts a burden on the pension admins. That said I'm wondering why the AVC portion can't be set aside and the normal bit of DB pension can't go in to payment while the AVCs are being sorted. Maybe that's just me being logical.

Any chance this is Capita? They have form for dealing with pension glacially slowly particular with one (all?) of the teacher schemes. That said every pension admin company has it's issues. I had 3 work pensions with WTW and only one of them was dealt with in under 3 months. Same company but 3 different teams dealing with different rules makes it difficult.