Ombudsman upholds complaint which started with a Sipp

A complaint about a pension firm's failings, which began when a transfer to a Sipp was made, has been upheld by the Pensions Ombudsman. Aegon has been told to compensate a client with £1,425 for "protracted and significant annoyance and distress" due to administrative failures.The customer, John Underwood, said he was unable to actively manage his investments in the Aegon Personal Pension Plan for over six months.Problems arose in 2010 when Mr Underwood, whose fund value had reached over £300,000, decided to transfer half the fund to a Sipp.Pensions ombudsman Tony King said: "The complaint should be upheld against Aegon because Mr Underwood lost the opportunity to manage his investments and was caused significant distress and annoyance. Rather than waiver of the penalty, he should receive compensation totalling £1,425."Mr Underwood initially instructed Aegon to transfer £195,000 to Capita, which they did, but he changed his mind and decided to invest with Liverpool Victoria. Despite the transfer, statements and online valuations showed a total fund value of around £330,000, significantly overstating the value of Mr Underwood's investments. {desktop}{/desktop}{mobile}{/mobile} When the transfer was reversed Aegon said it became aware of issues with his plan and took action to correct it. However his plan had to be rebuilt again.Mr Underwood sent a switching instruction to Aegon on 2 March 2011 to move 10% of the cash fund investment split between two equity funds but was told the plan would be offline due to errors, for two weeks. This issue persisted through until the end of July, during which time he made a formal complaint, with problems extending into August.Following these problems Mr Underwood's IFA became involved and asked for compensation, pointing out Aegon had persistently overstated the value of Mr Underwood's investments by as much as £200,000.The adviser told the firm Mr Underwood had "repeatedly been given misinformation about how long the errors would take to rectify" and given "repeated assurances that the situation had been resolved when it had not."Also, he was given incorrect information about the GAD drawdown limits by phone.Mr Underwood rejected an initial £283.83 compensation offer.The Pension Advisory Service got involved, with Aegon then offering Mr Underwood £483.83 and £952.50 for the IFA fees.Mr Underwood said Aegon's administration was "so poor that he was forced to transfer away and feels aggrieved that they should benefit by the amount of the penalties from essentially forcing him to take his business elsewhere".Aegon accepted that were "responsible for the problems with Mr Underwood's plan in 2011" but said that Mr Underwood was not prevented from dealing in the period from March 2011 and September 2011 as it was open to him to request manual valuations and provide switch instructions by phone or fax. They said that the online service was not part of the terms and conditions of the plan.They did not accept Mr Underwood could have avoided at least a proportion of the loss to the value of his fund if he had been able to deal online between March and September.Aegon pointed out that by the time Mr Underwood had decided to transfer out, the issues had been rectified and so the exit penalties were as a result of an investment decision.They waived the exit penalty on the additional amounts due on the first transfer because it came from their error and therefore Mr Underwood had already benefited from receiving an additional £1,724.19.The ombudsman said: "There were many failures by Aegon in this case."I consider that Mr Underwood will have suffered protracted distress and annoyance as a result of the catalogue of failures."

Ombudsman upholds complaint which started with a Sipp

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