Are pension scheme administrators Treating Customers Fairly?

As an authorised IFA in the Defined Benefit pension advice area, it has become customary to expect administrators to offer a sub-standard service.

Many of them do not respond to requests until ten working days have passed. Others have limited phone call service, so insist on emails.

Others have no phone service at all and insist you contact them via their hub.

Our latest example is an administrator where we have an urgent CETV deadline.

We emailed the transfer form required to secure the CETV to them ten working days before the deadline.

We have emailed them four times with no response, and we have called three times, and, on each call, we were cut off.

No answer machine message, no sorry we can’t take your call just cut off!

In another example, the administrators insist that the client call another IFA to obtain the transfer pack! But the client doesn’t want to use the IFA the scheme has appointed!

The administrators seem to fail to comprehend that the customer has appointed the IFA to act on their behalf. We are the customer requesting a response, and this is the service delivery they are getting.

It is NOT treating the customer fairly, but there appears to be no sense of internal regulation or want to do better.