Reply to Rennuz I have never replied to Aviva for payment because as there was an on going complaint with them and the Ombudsman, nothing with them was settled and because of that, I presumed as Aviva had never mentioned anything to do with deferment, that they would naturally move my pension sideways until the Ombudsman's decision. As this took 16 months to resolve, why would I think after all this time that they would not back date it? I spoke to a lady on Friday from Aviva, who said that they had sent me a letter in December 2010 seven months prior to my Pension date and 4 months prior to the first Retirement Illustration, mentioning something about deferment, but I never received that letter. Now it does seem very strange that they should do this if I hadn't queried anything about my pension until I received the first illustration. Do they have so many complaints about pensions that they automatically send this letter? Anyway the lady that I spoke to, is having to speak to someone further up the chain. I told her that I never receive a letter from them and I certain didn't sign to agree to deferment. She is coming back to me on Monday or Tuesday.

Hello everyone, I just want to say thanks to everyone and try to answer all the questions that were asked. Yes it was a 32 plan. I left my employment in England in October 1987 but did not start my pension with Norwich Union until 11th April 1988. I say this because during my dealings with the Ombudsman Adjudicator it was highlighted that because I left my employment in 1987 the laws towards the entitled options that were originally offered would not be given as the laws changed in April 1988, and so I wasn’t entitled to them, but as this wasn’t my case as it took NU until the above date to arrange the starting date I thought that I had a case. This I continued to bring up with them but eventually it fizzled out as not important. Yes a GMP policy is important if you really feel the financial markets have done so badly that the company your dealing with has to suffer as well. But my feeling is that Aviva and all the banks during this time had to tighten there belts but I do not believe any of the banks during the term 2000-2011 have ever given 0% on investors money. My main argument is if this money was frozen all this time how on earth would it ever reach the GMP value. Yes I did eventually get my case seen by the Financial Ombudsman and as I said the decision was past in favour of Aviva. I have accepted that decision because I have no money to fight, but just feel it worth passing on in case there were others like me that really feel some type of fraud has been carried out. My real complaint now is that they are once again trying something, which I really do think is dishonest. This is about Deferring Payments. I have never received any letter asking me to tick or box or even mentioning deferment. I have never sent them any letters apart from letters of complaint since I received their first Illustration in May 2011. I have kept all there letters since this time and there doesn’t appear anything written about deferment. If they have sent me anything it certainly didn’t arrive here. Surely in any case they cannot just assumed some thing without a signature from the person involved. JJC

Please Help I am very new to forums and do no if this Thread is in the correct place. What does CAG stand for ? I was due a pension from Aviva 16 months ago, but as I had made a complaint to the Ombudsman about the way in which Aviva had operated during the time I had invested my "bought out option" with them and what their Retirement Illustration offer was then, I have not been able to receive that pension because it was in the hands of the Ombudsman. My original complaint to the Ombudsman was that for the final eleven years of the policy with Aviva they basically froze the interest given each year on the policy, saying that because of poor market conditions the interest for that year would be 0%, but that the final bonuses would still hopefully be possible. I went on believing that nothing could be wrong as I assumed that as they had not mentioned anywhere in all their communications with me over those years that I had not surpassed the GMP value that I would not be granted all the options that were originally offered to me at the beginning of the policy. The policy had a GMP value (Guaranteed Minimum Pension) of over £100,000, which they had conveniently not mentioned until their final letter to me in August 2011. In this letter they for the first also mentioned that they had forgotten to in include final bonuses in their original offer, and that they had also sent me £150 for international telephone calls made by me during the initial period of trying to resolve these queries with them, which they again had conveniently mentioned knowing now that the Ombudsman was now involved. In this letter they had also adjusted the Yearly Pension payment by an increase of £59, which at the time I thought was due to them omitting to include the final bonuses in their original quote. But it was only when I had received their latest illustration did I eventually understand what they were doing. (This I will mention in the next paragraph). To return to the GMP value and what it means or what I found out it means during my discussions with many different Aviva employees after they had sent me their original Illustration was that if you do not reach this magical GMP value you were not entitled to there original offer, which meant that you would loose rights to the options that were otherwise available, i.e. no yearly increase due to RPI; no tax free cash sum; no enhanced benefits and no guaranteed period. What I continue to wonder, but cannot prove, is if the policy had been deliberately kept frozen so that I couldn’t get the options which were otherwise available to me. Especially when you check the inflation rate for those years and understand that things were not that bad in the financial markets and that Aviva during this period was handing out large sums to their top management. I have just received from Aviva there latest Retirement Illustration and again they are still trying to overcome their pay commitment to me for the last 16 months by making out that I have agreed to have my pension deferred and yet I have signed no papers agreeing that I wanted this to happen. This deferred payment increase works out that it would take me nearly 14 years to retrieve the back dated payment, which is due to me. The reason why I could work out what they had done was because of having received their 2nd Illustration in August 2011. It was quite easy then to work out the maths and see that it wasn’t the Final Bonuses that had increased my Yearly Pension then by £59 but they had already deferred it. First of all they should have asked me if I wanted my pension deferred, (who in their right mind would do that, and have to wait so long to retrieve it). I’m sure you would agree that nobody has the hindsight to understand how long he or she have left on this earth. Secondly if anybody has dealt with the Ombudsman they will understand that due their heavy workload it takes time for each complaint to be resolved whether the result is positive or negative and surely I cannot be penalized for that. Unfortunately the Ombudsman could not find any fault with Aviva. I even tried phoning Aviva yesterday (now you have to imagine that this is an International call and that I did explain this to the person that I eventually got to talk to), well first of all it took over ten minutes for anyone to answer, the usual thing you have to wait for an operator to become available. I was then passed from one person then the next, then I was told to wait as I had asked to speak to the person who had sent me the letter in August 2011. The woman came back said that he no longer worked in that office, and so I tried the explain what I was phoning for, she then said again to wait while she speak to the persons who had drawn up the Retirement Illustration (now you can imagine my frustration as I’m paying for the phone call, nearly 30 minutes had passed) when she came back again she started to blind me with words that I really did not understand but gist of which was that Aviva had sent me a letter as early as 2010 and if I hadn’t replied to that letter it was assumed by them that I wanted deferment. I told her that I have never received this letter and that in any case if the 1st Illustration was only sent to me in May of 2011 how on earth would I agree to something I haven’t seen. By this time I must admit I was getting a little angry and so she tried to pass me again to some other person and that’s when I suggested she should get that person to ring me back as I didn’t want to loose anymore money on the phone call. She said that it could take as much as 48 hours for somebody to come back to me. This was agreed and so I hung-up. I was so frustrated after that that I called out for help on the Internet and this site was the first that I checked. It said that there were many complaints against Aviva and so I wondered if there was anybody out there who knows where I stand. I also wondered why, if there were so many complaints against this company, why there is not someone in government trying to control or amend what these large companies are doing. Surely there has to be something that can be done to help individuals’. I believe that the government is again trying to encourage people to take out these “bought out pension options”, as it was when I left my company in 1988, and I bet you that Aviva will be one of the first companies to encourage people to join their pension schemes. I just wonder what these people will have to face maybe in 20-30 years from now. Finally I’m sorry for anybody who may read this as it is very long but then I wasn’t sure how else to tell it. I just hope and pray that if there is nothing I can do, then at least some that do read it will think twice before signing up with these big companies that seem to have all the answers and little mercy for those who have had their money tied up with them for many years, i.e. they take it, they make use of it and then when it’s time for you to want to use it------AH BUT!!!