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Surprise!

XFool
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Surprise!

#24184

Postby XFool » January 18th, 2017, 5:03 pm

While I doubt I am going to live long enough to find out how the government's 'Pensioner Freedom' policy eventually pans out, there are already the first signs of the (expected by me) wailing and gnashing of teeth related to at least one related aspect of the government's new policies:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pens ... rayal.html

My apologies if this is felt to be OT on this board but there is no Pensions Policy Issues board on LMF.

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Re: Surprise!

#24186

Postby swill453 » January 18th, 2017, 5:12 pm

There's no accounting for stupidity.

As soon as the prospect of a secondary annuity market was mooted, commentators were saying that people wouldn't get much from cashing them in.

To take out loans on the prospect* was just daft.

* - if they really did, and aren't just blaming it after the event.

Scott.

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Re: Surprise!

#24192

Postby XFool » January 18th, 2017, 5:30 pm

Yes, I agree with you. But that is really my point. Some people will do these foolish things when it comes to finance. They will do the same foolish things with Pensioner Freedom. Eventually there will be a similar, but doubtless greater, wailing and gnashing of teeth. - "How can a heartless government stand by and let this wheelchair bound 90 yo pensioner with failing health run out of his meagre lifetime pension savings..." etc.

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Re: Surprise!

#76401

Postby XFool » August 22nd, 2017, 10:12 pm

It's still going well, Pension 'Freedom'.

So much so that now the government is taking an interest by banning cold calling:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news ... sions.html

Though if they really are "rogue firms" will they take much notice?

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Re: Surprise!

#78395

Postby Bink333 » September 1st, 2017, 10:55 am

I recently someone who seems to have his name on a 'scammers list' and recently (since this rule was announced) received a call. He is still endeavouring to get his pension money back from the people that took it. He did thios after the Panorama programme exposed them:- https://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/former-adviser/

DAK if there is any guidance about whom he is supposed to report it to?

Or, is this just one of those toothless attempts to paper over an exceedingly large embarrassing crack*?



*The Crack.

Scammers establish you have a pension they can easily transfer to an occupational arrangement. They open a limited company for you, then open a SSAS for you, open a SSAS bank account for you, and then help you transfer your fund (minus their adviser fee). It is now no longer under the FCA regulation but rather that of the Occupational Pension Scheme Regulator, and SSAS arrangements have plenty of 'freedom' for business owners (to use the funds responsibly - or take fines and personal responsibility for abuse).

The scammers then arrange for the money to be transferred into an arrangement which they claim will provide substantial returns, with a confidence tricking interest payment paid on monies held as cash in the SSAS bank account before it is sent offshore.

Those operating the scam then hide behind a corporate entity based in a different regulatory regime (such as Gibraltar) and claim in their sales call to have regulatory approval on their investment (which they don't - although they may have briefly held approval in Gibraltar for something with a similar name.

Police here claim to have no power to assist, despite it looking like a pretty clear-cut fraud case.

The FCA is powerless.

The pensions regulator has no teeth.

The scammers are not even based in an offshore boiler room, using UK based offices to make these calls from.

So, this regulation is announced. I'd be very very surprised if they paid a blind bit of notice, and even more surprised if they were fined successfully, and even more surprised if the cost of these fines if they were successfully imposed did anything other than encourage them to set up the call centre outside the UK.

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Re: Surprise!

#136328

Postby XFool » May 2nd, 2018, 2:08 pm

Interest-only mortgage crisis: Retired couple Len and Val never missed a mortgage payment - but now they face losing their home

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mort ... -home.html

OK, why mention this on here? Because this looks as good as any to me as a foretaste of the kind of headlines that will be seen in future when some of those 'Pension Freedom' pensions go tits up.

"This 87 year old man with Alzheimer's left with no pension since his pension fund ran out. Why is the government letting this happen?" etc.

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Re: Surprise!

#136365

Postby swill453 » May 2nd, 2018, 4:17 pm

XFool wrote:Interest-only mortgage crisis: Retired couple Len and Val never missed a mortgage payment - but now they face losing their home

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mort ... -home.html

OK, why mention this on here? Because this looks as good as any to me as a foretaste of the kind of headlines that will be seen in future when some of those 'Pension Freedom' pensions go tits up.

Not sure it's particularly related to pension freedoms. It shows stupidity on all sides, for example Santander letting them extend their mortgage by £40,000 interest-only at age 65 without (apparently) ensuring they had some prayer of paying it off at the end of the term.

Scott.

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Re: Surprise!

#136409

Postby XFool » May 2nd, 2018, 6:15 pm

swill453 wrote:
XFool wrote:Interest-only mortgage crisis: Retired couple Len and Val never missed a mortgage payment - but now they face losing their home

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mort ... -home.html

OK, why mention this on here? Because this looks as good as any to me as a foretaste of the kind of headlines that will be seen in future when some of those 'Pension Freedom' pensions go tits up.

Not sure it's particularly related to pension freedoms. It shows stupidity on all sides, for example Santander letting them extend their mortgage by £40,000 interest-only at age 65 without (apparently) ensuring they had some prayer of paying it off at the end of the term.

I don't think you have taken the point...

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Re: Surprise!

#136446

Postby mearnsfool » May 2nd, 2018, 8:38 pm

XFool wrote:Interest-only mortgage crisis: Retired couple Len and Val never missed a mortgage payment - but now they face losing their home

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mort ... -home.html

OK, why mention this on here? Because this looks as good as any to me as a foretaste of the kind of headlines that will be seen in future when some of those 'Pension Freedom' pensions go tits up.

"This 87 year old man with Alzheimer's left with no pension since his pension fund ran out. Why is the government letting this happen?" etc.


Seems obvious to me. The Treasury need more income. They were getting little tax off annuities every year as the annual payment was small.

Governments only look at the next few years as they will be out of office by then and they wanted to get money for the next election to give tax give a ways.

Get the punters to take out a large lump sum out of their pension and the Treasury will get a lot more tax up front.

They were not worried about.

1 The problems the stupid punters would run into after they were out of office.

2 The reduced tax income in years to come as another party or other politicians will be in office then.

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Re: Surprise!

#136469

Postby Alaric » May 2nd, 2018, 10:56 pm

mearnsfool wrote:Seems obvious to me. The Treasury need more income. They were getting little tax off annuities every year as the annual payment was small.


Annuities being guaranteed requires the insurer to invest in bonds, the returns on which are pitifully small following QE. Investment in equities can generate higher returns at the cost of increased risk. Equity based annuities are complicated and in any event got a bad press with the near failure of Equitable Life. Hence drawdown as a mechanism where pensioners can take a higher risk to gain higher returns.

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Re: Surprise!

#137250

Postby XFool » May 6th, 2018, 1:07 pm

Oh dear!

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pens ... ctims.html

How could this possibly happen? After all, people who saved over all that time into a pension MUST know what they are doing - so we were told.

And these people aren't even senile...

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Re: Surprise!

#230877

Postby XFool » June 19th, 2019, 10:36 pm

Oops!

'Sleepwalking into mega mis-selling scandal': Advisers tell savers with final salary pensions to ditch them at a concerning rate, watchdog warns

● Two in three savers who get financial advice about final salary pensions are told to abandon them
● FCA says too much advice is 'still not of an acceptable standard'.
● Advisers meant to start from the standpoint that transferring out is 'not suitable'


This is Money

Imagine my surprise! :o

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Re: Surprise!

#230884

Postby Alaric » June 19th, 2019, 11:26 pm

XFool wrote:● Advisers meant to start from the standpoint that transferring out is 'not suitable'[/i]


That might actually be FCA rubbish. You can give up guaranteed benefits and receive a transfer value based on an assumed 2% rate of return. If you can accept the volatility and default risk on equities , you can reinvest the transfer value to attempt to achieve a 6% return. That's quids in for those who know what they are doing. The missing link is that no-one has been really been able to design a watertight product at a retail level which can combine longevity insurance with self managed equity returns.

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Re: Surprise!

#233377

Postby XFool » July 2nd, 2019, 12:52 pm

'Pension Freedom' concerns mount:

A stock market crash could force pension investors to slash withdrawals or risk their pot running dry, study warns

This is Money

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Re: Surprise!

#233386

Postby Dod101 » July 2nd, 2019, 1:02 pm

I know nothing about This is Money but it sounds like the equivalent of the Daily Mail or is it the only paper posters subscribe to?

Dod

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Re: Surprise!

#233388

Postby mc2fool » July 2nd, 2019, 1:09 pm

Dod101 wrote:I know nothing about This is Money but it sounds like the equivalent of the Daily Mail or is it the only paper posters subscribe to?

"This is Money is part of the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday & Metro media group" http://www.thisismoney.co.uk (scroll to the very bottom)

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Re: Surprise!

#233389

Postby PinkDalek » July 2nd, 2019, 1:12 pm

Dod101 wrote:I know nothing about This is Money but it sounds like the equivalent of the Daily Mail or is it the only paper posters subscribe to?


From the page previously linked This is Money is part of the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday & Metro media group and Financial Website of the Year.

Other than that readily ascertainable information, I’ve no idea who “subscribes”.

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Re: Surprise!

#233397

Postby Dod101 » July 2nd, 2019, 1:33 pm

I promise you I did not know that but it is very much its style (not that I read the Daily Mail you understand, but my wife did)

I would therefore take all the utterances of This is Money with a pinch of salt. There may of course be something in it but I thought I read somewhere that people were being rather more circumspect in using the pension freedoms than might have been expected.

Dod

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Re: Surprise!

#233403

Postby Itsallaguess » July 2nd, 2019, 2:05 pm

Dod101 wrote:
I would therefore take all the utterances of This is Money with a pinch of salt. There may of course be something in it but I thought I read somewhere that people were being rather more circumspect in using the pension freedoms than might have been expected.


The 'shock-horror' aspect of the story seems to hinge on this section -

But Age UK hones in on an estimated 90,000 retirees, whom the FCA says are withdrawing eight per cent or more a year from their pots, and the charity believes could run the risk of running out of money in a market downturn unless they cut the amount they are taking out.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-7200785/Market-crash-force-pension-investors-slash-withdrawals.html

which of course can take no account of retirees actual plans (how would they know?), or future prospects in relation to state-pension timing etc.

I know of many draw-down retirees who are simply using some of their ex-company-pension pot to plug the gap between early-retirement and state-pension age, and in those situations I would imagine that there is likely to be little need for a lower 'conservational' rate of withdrawal, as they will have other funds to become available later in life.

Of course, people 'need protecting from themselves' nowadays, so this level of reporting doesn't surprise me in the slightest....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

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Re: Surprise!

#233412

Postby Dod101 » July 2nd, 2019, 2:20 pm

I think the real scandal if there is to be one is that not enough credence has been given to the value of the inhouse pension which is being bought out. A pension for life,inflation proofed which most are I think and maybe with a widow's pension thrown in is an extremely valuable benefit and since many of the pension funds are actuarially in deficit they cannot all be being generous with the capital payouts.

Dod


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