How many years can you go back for a Pension claim?
To make a successful Pension claim you will need to establish if the Pension was sold correctly in the first place.
We have successfully been able to locate information as far back as into the late 1980s and early 1990s so there is no question of how far back you need to go. It is possible, regardless of which provider is involved, to go back however far the facility was taken out in the first place.
Can I Claim my Pension from the early 1990s?
We have successfully obtained refunds for our clients from as far back as the late 1980s. We certainly do not, however, suggest or guarantee any form of success regarding any Pension claim that we look after. The main reason why we do not guarantee success is that it is very difficult to do so against aggressive, large institutions. This is why we work purely on a no win no fee basis.
Information is key to the success of running a Pension claim. We therefore have to be persistent in our approach when contacting the firms to establish if the Pension was sold correctly. This does tend to be the largest challenge in relation to any particular claim.
The Pension providers have a number of tactics that they use in order to avoid looking at claims. The first one that we have to counter is one where they are unable to locate a client’s details. We are always more than persistent and will always contact them on a number of occasions with whatever information is available (but mainly with a name, address and date of birth) so that they can establish and locate that information.
Stop Making Excuses and look at your Pension.
If you have had any Pension facilities in the past, regardless of whether you have any paperwork you must establish if you had a Pension and whether it was sold correctly.
We have a large number of clients, many of whom we represent now who we see on a regular basis coming in with no idea if they ever had a Pension which was not right for them and which we are obtaining refunds for on their behalf.
We cannot guarantee success, however. It does however show that there are people out there who are exactly the same as yourself and who ultimately, have received refunds – some of which have been considerable!
Why is claiming Pensions still Negative?
Claims management companies have not helped themselves with regards to the mis-sale of Pensions.
Putting it bluntly – that would be a ridiculous attitude to have and one that has been sown into people’s mindsets by the bad behaviour of claims companies in the past. However, it is mainly by the Pension provider’s ability to be able to manipulate the Press in making Pension claims negative, rather than positive.
The answer, therefore, is that they would like to put a lot of weight behind it and use whatever skills that they have (which they are doing) effectively.
How much (by way of a refund) would I get if I had a Mis-sold Pension?
This is always very difficult to understand and establish if you had a missold pension.
The simplest way of dealing with it is to firstly find out about the pension and if we can look at obtaining a refund. The refund is calculated on the amount of Pension lost, possible value loss, the interest that was (or would be) charged on the Pension that was paid at the prevailing rate of the facility that you had (basically if the interest that you were being charged was 20% the interest calculated on your refund would be 20% on the pension that you had paid). This is compounded up until the time when the refund is made. On top of this the providers also have to pay a compensatory interest rate of 8% on both the interest and the pension calculated. These figures can be considerable and vary in calculation.
How do I know if I was mis-sold Pension?
The simple answer is that we don’t know which needs to be established.
Pensions can be a fantastic but expensive product and it should have been detailed and discussed with you and you should have had a full understanding of having that product in the first place. If you did not have this, or are unsure of your Pension rights, then there is a reasonable chance that it was mis-sold.