Nucleus Avis 

I've recently transferred from James Hay due to their merger with Nucleus, and wished to withdraw a 5-figure sum from my ISA. Nucleus said I had not signed the online form when I clearly, and verifiably, had. Following my written complaint, I received two acknowledgements, but after almost 4 weeks, no response. The online platform appears to me overly complex and not at all intuitive. With no transfer yet being in sight, Nucleus has caused me significant distress. Chris

My experience in dealing with Nucleus has been one of the worst I have ever had and am still having. In the past 3 weeks I have made 7 (lengthy) phone calls, totalling around three and a half hours, with 6 different customer service staff (David, Damien, Phoebe, Megan and yesterday Andrew) and I have not been able to make any progress whatsoever with my query.
Over the past few months since my dad passed away, whilst dealing with his Nucleus (formerly James Hay) Modular ISIPP, I have endured total incompetence, nonsensical bureaucracy, ignored emails, unfulfilled promised call backs, 'admin' errors and misinformation.
After months of form filling, with letters and forms being posted to the 10 beneficiaries, 5 of which live in Canada (rather than sending them via email) taking weeks to arrive, then insisting that one of the forms was not sent back, when in fact they had mistakenly uploaded it onto an existing beneficiary account and all of our emails asking Nucleus to waive the 14 day cooling off period being ignored, we eventually got to the stage where they confirmed that they had everything they required and that the plan could be surrendered on 5th March. David confirmed this to me during a call on 2nd March, stating that the process to pay out to all 10 beneficiaries bank accounts would take 2-3 days.
I'd heard nothing by 10th March, when I spoke to Damien, who confirmed the tax position to me and said the payouts were being dealt with.
On 12th March I spoke with Phoebe who confirmed the payments hadn't been processed yet, but promised to put an "escalation" on them which would speed up the process. Still nothing so I rang again on 18th March and spoke to Megan who couldn't help me but would ask Phoebe to call me back. Phoebe apologised that the payment still hadn't been processed but she didn't know why. I asked to be put through to the claims team to speak with them directly, but she refused stating that the back office team didn't speak with customers. Instead she said she would raise a "manager call back" to get the issue resolved. I waited all day for the manager's call, but it never happened, nor the next day or the day after that. By 23rd March I still hadn't heard anything! So I called again, this time I was on the call for 1 hour and 6 minutes! I spoke with Andrew who confirmed that the escalation and the manager call back had been raised. He put me on hold whilst he spoke to the manager who it had been assigned to, "Emma". He said that Emma hadn't received an update on the payment processing, so it was pointless putting me through to her, even though I asked him to. So, I insisted he put me through to another manager. On hold again, then he came back saying he had tried several managers, including his own, but none of them were in a position to take my call! I asked him if he worked in the same building as the claims team, which he did. So I suggested he put me on hold and go and speak with one of the claim team and get an answer as what the delay was on paying out to the beneficiaries. He refused on the basis that "I don't know anyone in the claims team"! Unbelievable!! I asked him again stating that it didn't matter if he know them, but he refused! I asked if they had backlogs and if he was receiving similar calls to mine, which he said no! Yet Phoebe, a few days earlier said they did have backlogs when I spoke to her!
I then requested that Andrew raise a formal complaint on my behalf, which he said he would. He said that Nucleus have an obligation to send a reply to all formal complaints within 5 working days. He also said that he would email the claims team and ask them to email me with an explanation and a target completion date.
So here I am, 19 days past the cooling off period, when the monies from my late father's pension balance should have been paid out to his family and I have little confidence that anything will happen in the near future. Over 900 one star reviews speaks volumes.
It's rather ironic that one of the messages that is played to you when on hold states that, "As this may be a difficult time for you, we will give you extra support, please let us know what we can do to make things easier" what a joke! Shame on you Nucleus.

If you claim your pension from the trustee never know when your getting it. Any queries with your account they will just stop payments without notification. Absolute rubbish

Appalling customer service and processing of payments since James Hay became Nucleus.
My monthly pension payment has failed to arrive, so i had to manually request a payment from them.
Phone calls takes 20mins+ to answer
Secure messages have gone unanswered for over 2 weeksn now, and counting!!

They keep sending me emails asking for a review here we go.

Quite basic platform. All the advisors I used use Nucleus so it’s meh.

Nucleus need to come into the 21st century. Their system is stuck in the 20th century despite "upgrading" their platform recently. My SIPP account has been split between Nucleus and EQI, and to park some cash in a simple money market account. I need to sell it from EQI to Nucleus, then tell Nucleus to invest it in said money market account, a process which takes around a week, during which my money is earning no interest.I advised Nucleus to make a transfer on Wed 25th . today, Friday 27 I called EQI to see what was happening with the transfer( a call which took 29 minutes). They told me , categorically, they had no knowledge of this transfer and I should contact Nucleus. At Nucleus, after 20 plus minutes on hold, a very helpful person called Phoebe, told me where I needed to look on their site to chart the "progress" of my transfer and I saw that, 2 days later although it had been "authorised", it was still just "pending", which explained why EQI knew nothing about it. So I will be lucky if this cash is with Nucleus and available for investment before the middle of next week. When I decide to reverse the process, after the current period of volatility, it will no doubt take just as long.
Unless there is a major improvement in their systems, beginning with an acceptance that currently they are unfit for this day and age, my account will be migrating to another provider.

I have spoken to three people at Nucleus over the past two weeks; Alan, Cameron and Roisin.

I spoke at length to Alan and Roisin, both of whom were understanding and patient, and excellent in guiding me through the new platform and obtaining a payment. Two of the most overlooked skills in service organisations are the need for empathy and patience in order to gain a genuine understanding of a person's issue in order to be able to achieve a successful resolution/ outcome. Alan and Roisin excelled at this, as has everyone I have ever spoken to at Nucleus/ James Hay over the years.

Cameron I was disconnected from due to poor network signal, but he called me back immediately without my having to request. That's excellent service.

We asked Nucleus to perform some complex investment changes in a limited time frame. Anna Sacco rose to the occasion magnificently, carrying out all the required actions with considerable speed and efficiency.
This confirms my view that Nucleus is the most efficient platform and justifies my continuing to recommend them to clients.

I have experienced truly unacceptable service from Nucleus Financial in relation to my mother’s pension account.

I am acting under a valid Lasting Power of Attorney, which had previously been correctly registered when the policy was held with James Hay. Despite this, I have been forced to go through the unnecessary and time-consuming process of re-registering the LPA after the account transferred to Nucleus—something that should never have been required.

Following the recent death of my father, my mother has been left in urgent need of funds to cover essential care costs. In February, we requested a withdrawal of a lump sum. Weeks later, the request still shows as “placed” with absolutely no progress, no communication, and no explanation. On my last call to them, they refused to speak with me as my LPA had apparently still not been processed, despite sending it weeks ago and not really having to do this in the first place given it was formally registered by James Hay. When I asked the advisor if I could politely speak with someone more senior about this I was repeatedly told that no one was available, despite the fact it was confirmed I was speaking with the Nucleus/James Hay head office in Salisbury.

This is not just poor administration—it is a complete failure to support a vulnerable customer at a critical time. The lack of urgency, transparency, and basic customer care is shocking.

To make matters worse, I submitted a formal complaint directly to Nucleus and have received no response whatsoever. Ignoring a complaint of this seriousness only reinforces my view that this organisation has little regard for its customers or their circumstances.

Dealings with James Hay used to be a breeze. This merger seems to be a disaster. I would strongly caution anyone considering using Nucleus Financial. When you need them most, they are simply not there.

I can only agree with all the negative comments on here. After many years of James Hay, mostly excellent service, since the system 'upgrade' it's been nothing short of a shambles.
I realised early on that things were not right after being told I needed to place a trade to simply move my money between eqi and nucleus. Which then took 4 weeks to process! But the final nail in the coffin was not being paid my pension on time. Luckily I had other funds, but not one message from Nucleus in recognition of things going wrong or any indication of things getting better.
So ive decided to move away to another provider. We are now over 3 weeks in and Nucleus haven't even acknowledged the transfer request from the new pension provider.
I raised a complaint a few weeks ago but I suspect it will end up at the ombudsman if Nucleus try and charge me my annual drawdown fee and eqi fee in April (which im pretty sure they will and maybe why they are not answering transfer requests).

I agree with Caroline's review of March 16th. Very disappointing service spent many hours trying to arrange for a pension to be transferred to the Nucleus platform and my main pension company. My secure message about this sent 2 days ago has not been answered and a similar email to the address on the website remains unanswered too. I tried telephoning, but after nearly fifteen minutes gave up. Very disappointing service bearing in mind. I have been with James hay and my pension company for over 20 years.

Utterly useless with no responsibility for the activities of Curtis Banks

Amazing service from the very lovely and helpful Roisin O`Neill at Nucleus. I was confused about how to log in to the new portal as was getting nowhere since the move from James Hay. Not only did Roisin talk me through what to do, she stayed on the call and talked me through each stage. When I wanted to sell a fund she directed to me how to do this, she was truly epic and a credit to Nucleus. Please feedback to her manager how customer-centric she is. Thanks for making something confusing very easy. Ray

Sadly having to leave Nucleus as I have moved to the USA. They have been excellent in handling my modest portfolio over the last ten years and I will miss their hands- on style and helpful customer services team.

Struggling to get lump sum payment. It's taken over 6 weeks to get a payment from them. Each time the person says they can't see a problem and promise to call back - but no-one ever does. Really poor customer services. And their secure messages don't work

Some staff were very helpful, others lacked knowledge

Tried to withdraw money from my James Hay pension and whole process was made as difficult as possible took weeks very poor service and communication .Now moving to another company.
Spread the word …..

Overall the service was good, if a bit slow and disjointed. Customer service differed a little depending on who was serving you, in some cases the calls lacked clarity which was frustrating when trying to ask important questions and seek key information. Sometimes it wasn't possible to get through to a finance specialist so I wasn't always confident I was getting the right information from the agent when asking very specific questions

A special mention can be made to Elvan Scott, a very helpful and polite customer service agent who did an excellent job in answering some important questions towards the end of the process. After the call I was left feeling a lot more assured and confident things were in the right place, well done to her!

For my own family's case of processing all the information required to manage the proceeds of an inherited pension, the company did well to communicate when required to every stakeholder involved. This was a tricky task given the amount of beneficiaries there were. James Hay continue to be supportive during calls regarding any questions or issues around the service. I am now a customer of the Nucleas platform so I assume I am still in the hands of James Hay as an entity but with the combined efforts of the Nucleas team and the new online system, so far so good with that relationship.

Good morning Nucleus Financial. Being an ex CEO I have pleasure in complementing your Company . There was a problem in my meeting a date for the completion of my pension withdrawal . Two of your lady employees , Maria and Dawn, handled the problem with ease , effeciency ,and politeness .
It is a pleasure doing business with your Company for over 20 years and thank you Maria and Dawn for your excellent help .
Best wishes
Paul Mcintosh

Simple well explained details of how to set up account and login and references in emails made things easy for a not so competent user. Good service excellent