Howden Avis 

This morning Daniel , from the Liverpool office, guided me through the long-winded process for registration of our company SSAS on HMRC's Government Gateway website.
It was our third attempt at completing the process via Zoom meetings, the previous ones being curtailed or cancelled due to my lack of knowledge/information and then a family emergency.
I couldn't have done it without Daniel's patience, knowledge and calmness. Thanks again Daniel, top man.

Very poor communication and serious question marks over financial accuracy. I have complained once already and no action has been taken. Their web-site has no link to enable customers to raise a complaint which appears to make it non-compliant.

All of my dealings with this company have been stressful, unhelpful, inefficient and basically incompetent. How is one supposed to trust this company and believe the accuracy of the figures quoted if they can't even answer a simple email request within a sensible time frame?

As an Owner of several businesses, I know only too well how people can either make or break a business. Barnett Waddingham is no different.
We had frustration and aggravation galore until the arrival of Sharon Brown on the Property Team. Under her guidance, Murray Drummond and Nikki Quint have been exceptional and deserve recognition. They have changed my mind on looking for another Provider. Sharon, my gratitude to you and your Team.

This company are a disgrace and need to be investigated.

I am 60 in 5 weeks time and have been planning my retirement very carefully for a long time.

I have been lied to on a couple of occasions by BW - which they have admitted, and despite contacting them regularly over the last 9 months, it appears I will not be getting my pension lump sum and monthly payment starting in September.

This means I have had to scrap my retirement plans, I will need to continue to work full time and not able to pay off my mortgage as I had hoped.

They don't return calls, you are lucky if you get any response from them at all - if you do, it's a standard reply and not specific.

Deplorable company - having worked hard for over 40 years, this company have wrecked what should be an exciting new phase of my life.

DeBeers were an amazing company to work for, why on earth they chose this lot to manage our pensions I have no idea.

My Pension pot was taken over by Barnett Waddingham (without my consent).I tried to transfer my pot out to purchase an annuity but due to their delays 3 months passed with out progress.They then wanted 5% of my pension pot to do another valuation so I said no and waited 12 months for next valuation. When I received the next valuation they had lost 40% of the value of the pension. It took them 5 months, many phone calls, many repeat form fillings in to finally get the transfer done. Appalling company. Avoid at all costs
Plan Numbers as requested 88694298 and 88712402

Excellent communication and assistance from all helpdesk staff, especially Dan Tilling.

I don't usually like social media and review sites to have a moan but it seems to be the only way to get yourself heard so here's my story so far ...

BW are the administrators for my final salary pension scheme benefits and initially I received all my pension option forms in April 2024 - two months prior to my NRD. Their website was easy to navigate and I managed to upload all the relevant documents by the end of April. So far so good. I received a letter from BW dated 14.05.24 confirming that everything was OK and I was pretty much set for my retirement date of 14.06.24.

Imagine my disappointment when my big birthday came and went with no sign of my pension lump sum being paid in and it still hasn't.

It shouldn't be an issue but I have a very small AVC fund with Standard Life, which I planned to take to offset the lump sum from my ex-employer's scheme. I think the disinvestment of my AVC is causing the unnecessary delay but I am very much stuck in the middle of BW and SL who are both stating that they are waiting for information from the other.

Compared to some of the other comments two weeks is not a long time to wait but I am losing interest on that money.

BW didn't mention in their letter of 14.05.24 that there may be a delay in the disinvestment of my AVC but must have known how long the process was taking at that time.

Dare I say it but back in the good old days when I was in pensions admin and everything was done pretty much manually, I don't recall anyone ever receiving their lump sum more than a day or two after their birthday, if at all, and we were sending out cheques by recorded delivery!

It requires someone to take responsibility for breaking the deadlock and moving this forward to its conclusion. The reality is I speak to a different person each time who repeats what the previous person told me. This is unhelpful and causes frustration and adds to the problem rather than diffusing it.

If I've received nothing by the end of July 2024 I'll be contacting the pension ombudsman.

I was contacted by BW for an outstanding pension from the Gas Board (Now National Grid). Sent all documents as requested in February and 4 months later still have not been contacted by them.
My emails get the standard automated reply but nothing else happens.

Lorrain Cowan, was beyond helpful and was eager to help our mutual client.
Great service from start to finish.

The team at Barnett Waddingham are always super friendly and helpful. The combination of a networking event with professional learning from expert James Jones-Tinsley, plus beer and cheese tastings, is a winner.

Very informative structured talk and informal discussions about the latest developments in pensions set in a pleasant, social envirnment.

I attended the 'what’s brewing in pensions' CPD event and as this was my first one, I was pleasantly surprised. The format was very informal which created a very open, honest and creative environment to discuss any challenges and share ideas on how to combat the ever so complex pensions market. I'll definitely be attending again!

DEAR II / BW TRUSTEES

ITS TAKEN ME 8-9 WEEKS FOR ME TO RECEIVE MY MONIES FROM WTW & STANDARD LIFE.

ALL THE MONIES HAD ARRIVED BY MORNING OF 1ST MAY 2024.

IVE BEEN LIAISING WITH ii to SET UP MY LUMP SUM WITHDRAWL

THEY CANNOT DO SO AS BW HAVE NOT SPLIT UP THE FUNDS.

NUMEROUS CALLS & MESSAGES ON THE SECURED MESSAGES -NO ONE SEEMS TO REALISE THE URGENCY

IM DUE TO GO TO HEART PROCEDURE ON MONDAY AND HENCE WHY I NEEDED TO PUT IN WITHDRAWL REQUEST IN TODAY.

ARE ALL PENSION TRUSTEES INEPT?

IT WAS TIME CRITICAL AND HENCE WHY MY WITHDRAWL REQUEST HAD TO PUT IN BY 5PM TODAY.

ii STATE ITS BEEN ESCALATED AND BW ARE NOT PICKING UP PHONE !!

ITS TOTALLY PATHETIC & INEPT ON BW'S PART FOR NOT PICKING UP THE PHONE AND DEALING WITH MY URGENT REQUEST.

I TRIED CALLING BW DIRECTLY - IM NOW TOLD BW OUTSOURCE ii QUERIES TO ANOTHER TEAM

NO WONDER - TOTAL USELESS PATHETIC INEPT SERVICE.

NO ONE REALISES I NEEDED TO GET THIS DONE TODAY DUE TO MY HEALTH.

ILL HAVE NO HESITATION IN TAKING MY MONEY OUT AFTER MY HEART PROCEDURE.

IF THIS IS IS THE WAY BARNET WADDINGHAM DEAL WITH CLIENT'S PENSION - TRUST ME THERE WILL BE A TRANSFER OUT ON YOUR DESKS VERY SOON.

FINANCIAL OMBUDSMAN COPIED IN AS WELL

SOMEONE CALL ME URGENTLY

I have always been a fan of Barnet Waddingham. More recently they have spent alot of resources to improve, speed up and simplify account opening and ongoing administrative processes.

It helps that the team are so great to work with!

Friendly atmosphere and great beer tasting

Great venue, lovely welcome, great history lesson from James 👍

Interesting session as always

I'm trying to get my pension and lump sum but so far it's liking pulling teeth. Too many excuses and logged out of account too many times.

My partner has found it very difficult to use the online service which he has now been told is off line. He has previously send his identity documents via post and his passport wasn't registered on the system yet the council tax bill was???
The email address provided isn't working ether.
This doesn't paint a good picture and instills distrust.

Superb content as always, delivered in a most digestible format