Have You Been Mis-Sold Your Pension?

Suspicious about the safety of your pension? Your concern is genuine. Cases of mis-sold pensions have been on the rise. This statement is in accordance to the findings of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme who claim that mis-sold pensions have led to compensation payouts of over £40m in 2018. This article will give you an insight into the signs that indicate cases of a mis-sold pension.

Inexperienced Advisors

Financial advice is important to consumers due to their lack of sufficient knowledge in the field of finance to strongly make crucial money decisions. Therefore, seeking guidance from an experienced advisor is usually the safest move. The best products are selected by good financial advisors through the application of their years of experience as well as their financial education.

If you choose a product by following the directions given by your advisor and discover they weren’t qualified as they said they were, that should be a sign of a mis-sold pension.

Explanation of the Terms and Conditions

The terms and conditions should be vividly explained to you by your financial advisor. If not then that should be a sign of a mis-sold pension. It is careless to take out a financial product without understanding the small print in its entirety. A good financial adviser should select the most important parts of the terms and conditions before handing you a copy in full to read on your own.

Awareness of Pension Charges and Fees

Financial advisers sometimes push pension holders to purchase particular kinds of pension without informing them of the inclusive fees and charges. This misconduct results in cases of mis-sold pensions.

Encouragement To Transfer Money From a Workplace Pension into Other Schemes

Sometimes workers are ill-advised to move money from their workplace pension into a separate pension scheme. Despite this cases varying, it may be a situation where the employees would have been better off keeping their money in their employer’s pension scheme. In most cases civil servants are usually the victims of this type of mis-sold pension.

Selection of Risky Pensions

Some pensions are naturally risky. This are only suitable for the tolerant. If you are keen on stability and protection of your money then this is not the investment you would favour. In cases where your financial advisor pointed out such a product for you without informing you of the risks, then this could be considered as mis–selling.

If you have fallen victim to a case of mis-sold pensions in consideration to the signs explained above, there is a way out; consider pursuing a compensation claim.

You should consult a specialist firm and present your Self Invested Personal Pension statement so that they can assess it and point out the issues in your investment. Through this process they will also be able to tell you if you are eligible to pursue a claim as well as take care of the claim process. However, you can raise a complaint on your own if you so wish and have the experience.

In case the complaint is not dealt with to your contentment, wait for thirteen weeks before you raise it with the Financial Ombudsman Service ( FOS ). At this point the firm can be ordered by the FOS to provide you with compensation. The FOS is used without any apparent charges.

Pension holders have six years from the date they transfer their pension to make a claim. This duration is crucial as there are strict time limits put in place. In case you surpass this period, there’s still a window to raise a complaint with the FOS within a three year period.