Help please - Freind's Life stopped payments whilst i was away - now ignore me

[cliveshep]

I moved from the UK 6 months ago and my son's UK address is now mine for pensions and banking matters. I have notified everyone.

 

Back in January Friend's Life with whom I have a small annuity pension wrote requiring I signed a form for them as an "anti-fraud measure" but my son didn't open it assuming it was simply junk mail so it never got signed. The January and February payments went through as usual but the March one did not.

 

Not realising why not I e-mailed them (Friend's Life) asking them to make the payment. Then I spoke to my son who found the letter. So I got the letter signed and he posted it, and I followed up with another email, which has thus far been ignored. Then I sent another e-mail, and copied it to the CEO Andy Briggs - no response. Now it has only been 2 weeks but when you stop someone's pension you stop their life - their is nothing else especially if they live abroad.

 

Incidentally Friend's Life have not been notified I moved abroad, it is none of their business and when I spoke to them about it some 6 months ago I would have had to send them my passport in proof - totally unacceptable as I was using it. They are or were content with a UK address although I made it clear when e-mailing that I was overseas "on holiday". I have e-mailed them as a thread, ie containing all previous e-mails, telling them that their form has been found, signed and posted (a week ago now) but still no response.

 

I read somewhere that complaints take them 8 weeks to answer - when the complaint is about their non-payment of a pension payment which is part of a contract between us - they took my money years ago on condition that they made monthly payments when I retired - one doesn't want to wait 8 weeks to even get started. Does anyone have any ideas how to move this on or any leverage to apply when I'm the other side of the world?

 

Thanks all.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Andyorch
Paragraphs

[AndyOrch]

Hi cliveshep and Welcome to CAG

 

I have moved your thread to the Pensions Forum.

 

Regards

 

Andy

[honeybee13]

I read somewhere that complaints take them 8 weeks to answer - when the complaint is about their non-payment of a pension payment which is part of a contract between us - they took my money years ago on condition that they made monthly payments when I retired - one doesn't want to wait 8 weeks to even get started. Does anyone have any ideas how to move this on or any leverage to apply when I'm the other side of the world?

 

Hello there.

 

Complaints don't have to take 8 weeks, that's the length of time you would need to wait before you can involve the ombudsman service, if you can't reach a solution with Friends Life. It may not come to that.

 

Are you able to ring them from where you are, say with a cheap phone card or via Skype?

 

I'm not up to date on money-laundering, but it could be that your moving has sparked something. I know someone else who has moved abroad and the bank are asking for a certified copy of their passport or paper driving licence.

 

If they turn out to be right, are you able to send them a certified copy of your passport? Nobody would expect you to send the original, but people like notaries and embassy officials can certify copies for you.

 

HB

[cliveshep]

As far as I am aware they have no idea I don't live in the UK, I'm not publicising it. They have the address change, indeed 4 months after they were notified passed before they wrote to it. Our mistake was in relying on a 21 yr old youth to check the mail - which he didn't. Later this year we are changing to my daughter's address because she is more responsible. I am thinking about calling them from where I am, just need to check call charges or I'll go broke! I already have certified copies of everything including passport, it is a requirement for living here and getting a residence book and driving licences but as I say they have no reason to know I am absent, they only need the UK bank account to pay into and to respond to their own form in the post and answer mails.

[honeybee13]

Hello again.

 

I'm sorry, when you said everyone had been notified, I thought you meant about you leaving the UK rather than them knowing your son's address.

 

Is there a reason that you didn't tell people you'd moved abroad? As long as you have a UK bank account, I'm not sure how much difference it makes.

 

HB

[cliveshep]

The UK Government are far too nosy and maybe I'm paranoid but I feel the less they know the better. I want the last years of my life to be peacful so I have given my son's address as my own to the Bank, the Pension Service, and Friend's Life and that's it. For all the rest I'm off tha radar and intend to stay that way. I've spent 55 years working, retired at just under 70, they've all had enough of my life and I want some for myself now. Only yesterday I was chatting to an Australian Businessman - he says that the perception in Oz is that the UK is a restrictive and nosy Nanny State and even in an EU full of petty regulations the UK is perceived as being the worst. I thought "wow", they've got that right! Of course, if you are Syrian it's heaven, but I'm not Syrian.