Transferring pension

[Oggy]

Folks

I have built up a substantial contribution pension through previous employment administered by pension company Barnett Waddingham (BW). I have now decided to transfer the funds from BW to my existing AJ Bell SIPP account - principally as BW does not do drawdown, the fund choice from AJBell is so much greater, and their fees so much less. Both myself and AJBell have completed BWs own specific transfer forms, I have completed yet another form basically saying I have done my research and understand the risks and I have also discussed with BWs staff. It has now been 5 weeks since the initial request and nothing has been done. They trot out some old pony about diligence - which I understand - but I get the impression BW are deliberately stalling - so they can claim the fees for as long as possible perhaps? Is this a reasonable supposition or am I being unfair? I previously transferred old pensions from Scottish Widows and Standard Life into AJ Bell. No problems at all and both took a matter of days. Any ideas how to get the transfer moving would be warmly welcome.

[jaizan]

Write them a nice little e-mail, pointing out that it's time they transferred the money.
And if they don't get it done promptly, you will raise a formal complaint.
Financial service companies like to avoid formal complaints.

[Oggy]

Write them a nice little e-mail, pointing out that it's time they transferred the money.
And if they don't get it done promptly, you will raise a formal complaint.
Financial service companies like to avoid formal complaints.

Well quite. I'll give them another week or so. I am also assuming that I have the final say, although they seem to think they do - or their trustees do - if they "feel" both of the government guidelines are not met. They seem to think that the second criteria has not been met - i.e. there is reason to believe that there are potential indicators of pension scam activity - which is clearly nonsense given that I am already with AJ Bell and AJ Bell are extremely well known and they have all the documentation.

[BullDog]

Don't let it lie. I had similar issues transferring a pension pot from Mercers. Probably the most useless company I ever dealt with. After weeks and weeks of stalling and lame excuses from Mercers, it eventually emerged that they had lost all the paperwork sent to them. Fortunately, Interactive Investor were very helpful and did everything again for me. I hope your experience works out better with them than mine was with Mercers, but I would be very proactive about it.

[Gersemi]

Write them a nice little e-mail, pointing out that it's time they transferred the money.
And if they don't get it done promptly, you will raise a formal complaint.
Financial service companies like to avoid formal complaints.

Well quite. I'll give them another week or so. I am also assuming that I have the final say, although they seem to think they do - or their trustees do - if they "feel" both of the government guidelines are not met. They seem to think that the second criteria has not been met - i.e. there is reason to believe that there are potential indicators of pension scam activity - which is clearly nonsense given that I am already with AJ Bell and AJ Bell are extremely well known and they have all the documentation.

Why wait another week? Do it now. As you say AJ Bell are very well known, so suggestion of scam activity are nonsense. Presumably they are able to check they are sending the money to the correct company. Any more delay is pointless.