Monday, August 13, 2018

Pissed off or pensioned off?

I booked a Pension Wise appointment to discuss my future pension needs. Now, Pension Wise ask for details of your existing pension providers, which can amount to quite a list if you've worked for decades and changed employers. It also means you get to listen to a lot of Four Seasons and other hold muzak as - no matter what time of day you call - Aviva and NOW pensions always have high call volumes. In Aviva's case they also have an IT dept that can't seem to find its arse with both hands; over a year ago I queried why my policy wasn't on the customer website, and was told it soon would be. Well, the grunts in the 'turn it off and on again' cupboard obviously didn't get the message, because the policy (and I would hazard a guess mine's far from the only one) still hasn't made it online. The government wants us to save for retirement, and there's a lot of money sloshing around the pension pots managed by these companies; it would be nice if they invested some of their no-doubt hard earned bonuses/commissions on maintaining the close customer links and relationships they're blurb prattles on about.

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