Howden Avis 

Very poor customer service Bristol office , six requests for access to online account details via phone, email, online site, no response after four weeks..
The matter has now been resolved although the letters arrived 16 days after generation.

Follow up on my previous review got sent yet another form only this time I'd to make an appointment with a place called pension wise that will take place on the 13th of July. Not holding out much hope with this phone interview. If you want to look them up on this sight the reviews for this place is not very favourable.
I would recommend if any employer thinks anything of their employees do not let this place deal with their pensions this is an absolute joke of a firm

Despite my father passing away in April, I am still waiting for the funeral payment from his pension fund 10 weeks on. The whole process is fraught with incomprehensible slowness and poor communication that it is difficult to understand why. 2 weeks ago after multiple phone calls and other communications I spoke to a lady who said the payment would be processed by the end of last week as they had all the relevant documents to do so. This has yet to materialise. This is shameful behaviour at a time when we are struggling with grief trying to deal with my fathers estate. Why this money cannot be transferred at the time when it is most needed and tick off one less stressful activity for people is beyond belief. My father would have been dismayed with the total lack of professional and courteous behaviour.

Don't expect your money quickly, nobody seems to know what there doing. My retirement day is today and I'm still fighting for my money. Very poor service.

Hardly anyone responds to queries. I am moving providers because of the terrible service.

I transferred my SIPP to Barnet Waddingham (BW) because my previous provider did not allow certain investments. BW is diabolically bad and treats client service as an annoying inconvenience to be dispensed with. On 16th February, I received notice from Interactive Investor that it would cease providing its Pension Trading Account service and thus clients were to transfer their accounts elsewhere. After many attempts, I managed to get hold of my BW relationship manager, MC. He assured me that he would find an alternative PTA provider and would email me to let me know. That, as always in the past, never happened. MC is a disgrace to his profession. After waiting for several weeks, I contacted BW again and was put through to someone who assured me that he would come back with the information I needed. I also asked for a change of relationship manager because MC was absolutely useless. The person I spoke with agreed to pass my message to his superiors. It has been 1.5 months now and nothing has happened. Today, I tried calling BW again but, of course, their robot informed me that all the agents were tied up… This happens all the time. If you’re looking for a SIPP provider, the last firm you should go to should be BW. It is pathetic beyond belief and specialises in adding insult to injury - a true disgrace to its industry.

UPDATE: Since BW replied to this review promising to get in touch, I have heard nothing from them. Pathetic! Avoid Barnet Waddingham like the plague!

Can’t get the money due from my pension. They don’t want to pay out, they tell me that I have had other payments from other pensions so I do not qualify. These other pensions have been checked and verified by them ( lies and codswallop!!). Hard to get to speak to anyone, often it feels like they’ve put the phone down.
Unprofessional and seemingly rather dodgy.
I feel that this company needs further investigation

I managed to speak to someone around 10 days ago and needed further information. I have been calling every day since then and left messages, been transferred through, been cut off, been told he will call me back and nothing. They obviously dont need the business. Going to look for another SIPP provider.

My father died in August after a brief stint in a care home with my mother. We are yet to receive any form of widows pension from his ex British Steel pension because of these Muppets. It is one excuse after another and the last message was that they were so sorry and it was waiting for a letter to be authorised, well sorry doesn't pay care home bill for mum, now seeking legal advice.

Feels like Barnett Waddignham is being run as a spare-time business by a bloke who has lost interest.

Any requests gets an automatic answer that warns of delays in responding (seemingly unchanged since the depths of Covid). No hope of a prompt and substantive acknowledgment, let alone prompt action.

I lodged a formal complaint about this repeated unresponsiveness, and got no response. Rang them, and spoke to a receptionist who, after 13 minutes, had to admit that she could find nobody to handle what was now a complaint about a complaint. I gave them a full working day in which to make contact if I wasn't to go to the Ombudsdman - and they responded in two working days.

But that was a rare exception: a subsequent application for a drawdown payment has gone unacknowledged, so I am going to have to waste time chasing to see if they have received and actioned it, as time is running out at the end of the tax year.

If you aren't already a customer, do think very carefully about whether you want to sign up to this level of service.

[FOLLOWUP NOTE 9 March - it is perhaps telling that Barnett Waddingham were substantially quicker to respond to the above review than they have recently been in responding to my requests to them as a customer!]

My husband is taking early retirement due to my poor health and contacted his occupational pension provider back in June to ask for a pension forecast for retiring in January 2023. He was told that this would be sent to him in the next 10 days. He was then informed that Barnett Waddingham had been appointed as new Trustees and would be responsible for providing this. He made numerous calls between August and December which resulted in nothing other than excuses, lies and downright incompetence. This ranged from “we have not yet received the records” to “I am working on it at this moment and it will be in the post tomorrow” Needless to say it didn’t arrive and funnily enough they were working on it every time he phoned, which ended up being on a weekly basis! The forecast eventually arrived in December too late for him to take retirement in January due to a three month notice period. He called them in early January stating that he wished to retire in April to be told that they had to reissue the forecast and paperwork. He expressed concern that it would take so long again and was assured this would not be the case and that it would be done quickly. On the basis of this he handed his notice in at work. We are now at the end of Feb and not surprisingly still no forecast or paperwork to claim his pension. He has been calling weekly again all through February and getting the same pack of lies on every occasion as he got last year. We are now in a position where he is five weeks from retirement date with nothing in place for his pension and absolutely no confidence whatsoever that he has any hope in hell of getting it on his retirement date. This is totally unacceptable that their failures are risking leaving their pensioners with no employment, no income and no lump sum to pay off a mortgage! I really cannot find the words to express how worrying and upsetting this is and it is not the appalling service that anyone should have to suffer at the hands of what is supposed to be a professional organisation trusted with managing huge Company Pension Funds. We could not have avoided the situation we find ourselves in but for anyone considering dealing with this organisation in any shape or form all I can say is AVOID

Abysmal service from this company as a pension scheme administrator - who seem determined to do absolutely everything possible to stop clients accessing their own pension benefits. 4 Months and counting now!!

I and my fellow SIPP investors have experienced endless problems with this company over many years. the majority now revolve around bullying communication from its Property Team which constantly tries to devise ludicrous scams to force us onto its own block property insurance, despite our properties all having perfectly adequate insurance cover. they are clearly on some sort of incentive deal with their insurer. We've complained bitterly but they just won't behave. We are going to have to refer the issue to the FCA for the second time.
I have also recently tried to correspond with Barnett Waddingham about a share trading account I have within my SIPP. This is quite an important issue. I wrote on the 3rd March to the mystery standard email address we are provided with (they don't provide an actual account manager contact) and received a standard response suggesting I'd receive a proper response within 5 to 10 days. It's now the 27th March and I haven't heard a peep. I just can't get a service out of these people.

Awful service after our mother passed away in October. Now the end of January and this company seem to put everything in the way of paying out towards her funeral cost. Still no payment received, just another letter via snail mail during postal strikes asking for national insurance details, after 3 months!!

I wanted to retrieve my log in details for a pension and would like to praise Lewis of the Glasgow office for his patience while I followed his instructions.

National Grid Pension Scheme
We are trying to transfer our pension from National Grid to a SSAS
We were advised this process would take 3 months.
We are currently at month 20.
We have rung BW every week for the last 4 months and getting no where
In this time our pension has dropped from £410k to £350k
It is frozen for 5 more months, if it isn’t completed in this time, with the current market it will drop to £220k.
This is a loss of £190k due to BW incompetence, passing us pilar to post with a severe lack of attention to detail (requesting documents numerous times we have already sent in.), lack of customer service (taking out details to call us back and not getting back to us)
We thought we were at the final hurdle number 30, when they request evidence that I am employed and paying into a pension through the Ltd company we have set up for the SSAS… but the company hasn’t even traded yet as we haven’t had the funds into the SSAS, we have explained this 4 times within the last 5 months, they understand, then weeks later send another request.
We have multiple stories like this from the last two years.
Avoid (if you can) at all costs.
Meanwhile we will be back in the phone daily now to try save our £140k drop before it’s too late.

Can anyone advise how you raise a complaint with Barnett Waddingham. My contact regarding my pension has been less than satisfactory but I’m unable to find a complaints process on the website.
They advise action has been taken then nearly 3 weeks later advice no action was taken, no good to me when I’m in need of my pension.

I have had nothing but a fantastic experience with Barnett Waddingham in my several years of being with them. Top notch service and people who really do care about their clients! Smashing.

Have been with BW for more than 15yrs and all was good until about two years ago. Because they have grown so much they have centralised activities which mean you no longer seem to be able to contact your client manager----after more than 18months with no contact from new client manager. My wife transferred her funds to BW and the whole process was messed up and although granted compensation by Fin Ombudsman never received an apology from BW. Now we are trying to move our funds elsewhere and they are proving awkward and difficult with no replies to emails. Even their cental office could not get anyone at Cheltenham office to answer this morning--hence my posting this review. They seem no longer interested in individuals but just keen on getting large group funds transferred. Sad demise of a once excellent provider!!

I have had superb support in managing a complex SSAS, from a very knowledgeable team at Barnett Waddingham. Not only are they technically skilled but the whole team is friendly and a pleasure to deal with.