Teachers' Pensions Avis 

This service is completely ineffective. The website and system are incredibly difficult to navigate and lack clarity. Long phone wait times are exacerbated by rude, incapable staff who seem to lack the understanding required to provide explanations. Instead, they simply issue confusing forms that are nearly impossible to complete. It’s a shame this pension service is mandatory; I would opt out in a heartbeat if given the choice.

Absolutely useless. Trying to set up my MFA access and it gives no clear instructions. This means I can't access information about my pension.
MY MONEY THAT I'VE WORKED FOR ALL MY TEACHING CAREER.
Abysmal service.

One of the worst experiences I have ever had! I am still waiting for a response to the letter that I sent them in JANUARY 2026 to sort out a request from JULY 2025 ! I have phoned many times and written. When I wrote, it took at least a month for a response and it was terse and unsympathetic. I complained TWICE in May 2026 that I was still waiting for a response to my January letter and they said that they could see that it hadn't been dealt with and they would "escalate it" but it would take 3 weeks at least. However, every time I rang, the response was "it can take 3 weeks or longer..." OK, try nearly 9 months! It is now nearly September 2026 and still absolutely no response. This was over the issue I wanted sorted the previous July 2025 and then suddenly I couldn't log in to my online account in July, after repeated efforts and failing security every time, despite a few years earlier logging in fine. TPQ: What is your TP number? Me: I don't know, I need to get into my TP account to look and then I can tell you. TP: You need it before you can pass security if you can't give me the correct answers to other questions. What month did you join TP? I can't remember. Endless tries to log in and going round in circles of passwords failing... I wanted to move my benefits to my new employer. I had to go to the department of Education to enable me to get my TP account number, to then be able to go back to TP and pass security and get back in online to my account. I did FINALLY get one really helpful person on the phone who helped me to get back online into my account and he was very patient and helpful.I feel the people answering the phone get the short straw, and I think it's the whole system that isn't fit for purpose. There is no co-ordination, no calls back and a ridiculous waiting time. ABSOLUTELY APPALLING AND UNACCEPTABLE.

Continually let down and cheated out of my entitlement.
I"m battling with cancer and the hospital have told me to avoid stress. Consequently, I can't persue this frustrating situation any longer.
How can anyone in authority allow this situation to continue?

Since I was unable to award zero stars, I have had to award one. Unfortunately TPs has let me down on every front, long call waiting times, unable to perform simple tasks. The familiar ‘I will raise a case,’ statement whichI have heard so many times it is ridiculous.
The icing on the cake was after waiting for 40 mins for my call to be answered, the handler said that he was talking to someone in the back to get it sorted for me and needed to put me on hold. He left me on hold for 46 minutes, then the li e was cut off.
I rang back the next day and was told that there were no notes regarding the previous afternoon’s call and that there was a back room staff - so a blatant lie. I raised a complaint, a day later a manager called and said that he had listened to the call and apologised. After 8 weeks my very simple problem is unresolved!

Impossible to get into touch with anybody. Website never loads so that you can complete forms and get your account data. Seems it’s on purpose …awful!

if I could I would give no stars at all. They are either not qualified to handle the info or totally inept at doing their jobs. I just cannot get a straight , clear answer to my query and their response is so confusing, it seems that they are just not bothered.

Teachers’ Pension sent a ‘Declaration’ form dated early July to be completed within the ‘next 7 working days’. This was not possible as the form arrived 3 weeks later! An attempt was made to complete the declaration via ‘My Pensions Online’ portal however a ‘Multi-factor authentication (MFA)’ had to be set up but despite several attempts to receive a ‘one-time passcode’ by text none came through. Apparently, it’s not possible to receive the passcode to a French mobile number! How are retired teachers, living in France, supposed to know this? There’s no online explanation to that effect or one on how to use the QR code. Consequently, pension suspended. After two telephone calls with very long waiting times and a letter sent by recorded delivery pension still not received despite being told it will be paid. No compensation for loss of income, wasted time and costs sorting out mistakes not of retired teachers making!

Has Kept me hanging on phone in past for up to 1 hour!!! And then no action!!!

Hopeless website and AI bot. Still waiting for CETV info even after months since paying the LARGE fee!

All i want is to talk to someone, not be challenged by AI bot that does not understand english or even keywords i.e. CETV ?

I filled in all my forms back in March this year ready for retirement in August. They say, when you fill the forms in, don’t contact us we will be in touch on your pension date. I took them at their word until the start of this month (August) when I thought I really should have received something. I messaged them - nothing! So I called and was told a secure message had been sent to me (coincidentally whilst I was on that call). The message sent apologised but the customer communications process had been way over the expected time frame. An error on a date id entered the form had been picked up but they had failed to contact me to ask me to fill in another form (the lump sum allowance form that is). So after all this time, they have done nothing. I sent another form special delivery which they received next day, but 3 days later they still haven’t scanned it to my account. The chances of me getting my pension on time are slim to zero. Do not listen to them when they say it’s all in hand- keep checking and keep chasing.

Teachers' Pensions ignoring all correspondence, payment six weeks later and counting

M
Just got to search for your details. Sorry our systems are running quite slow, so I'll try to be quick as I can for you.
[long pause]
Sorry, the system's taking a bit longer than normal. um so I can't even get your details open. Um what's the reason for your call? And while I'm leaving this to load, I'll see if I can help in general terms.

You
In general, this is interesting actually because I was speaking to M on Tuesday and the last thing he said to me was ‘the system just keeps freezing up’. The line’s dropped at your end.

M
Yeah.

You
What are you told to do in those circumstances? Are you told to ring the customer, to move on to the next customer and forget everything you've just been discussing or to deal actively with what the conversation is about? What's their actual procedure there? Because it feels like – this complaint has been going on for 6 weeks now – that nothing gets done.

M
Um if a call drops for any reason, we don't unfortunately do callbacks unless the query’s relating to a bereavement.

You
Right, so what happens to the things that have been discussed during the call? Do they get acted on or do you just forget about the whole conversation?

M
So unless anything was done, so we don't actually take any actions on a person's records, we, if anything, any sort of action needs taking, depending on what aspect it's relating to, we would raise, uh, a request with a relative team. So if a request has been logged with the relevant team before the system crashes, that relevant team would then deal with it in the background. But if nothing's been raised, then nothing would get done, unfortunately.

You
All right, this is great. I'm about to refer everything to the Pensions Ombudsman. I did email you on Monday morning so you had 48 hours to resolve all this. I gave you the good grace of speaking on Tuesday evening and saying, look, enough is enough now. What are you going to do about it? The call then dropped in that conversation. We did establish in that conversation that I should have been paid on the 4th of July. Two authorisation chases have since been raised and M said, “it seems as though nothing has happened”. So you're putting all these requests through. Your internal teams are completely ignoring them. And I think it's time for the Pension Ombudsman to come in and actually sort things out because it's an absolute disgrace. And all through this, I've been asking to speak to somebody who could actually help, and like you said, you just say, oh, we can only refer you. We can only put in requests. We can only do this and that. We won't actually let you speak to somebody who's dealing with it.

M
Yeah, unfortunately, these internal teams don't deal directly with people, they leave it to us, the people that can't actually do anything, unfortunately. So I can only apologise for the experience you've had so far.

You
Right. So we've got a complaint that went in on the 3rd of July. Not been not been dealt with. Everything that I've, every time I've contacted you, secure messages, emails, all been ignored, and you say this is just like standard procedure at the Teachers Pensions these days.

M
Yeah, so,

You
Wow.

M
essentially, the, the standards that are in place is all the work that gets carried out, regarding any aspect of a pension, is dealt with by background teams that don't unfortunately deal directly with the callers. um So when you phone up and you speak to advisors like myself or it was it M, you say, you spoke to the other day any advisor you speak to, we are, we are actually limited to what we can do in the sense that if something needs to be done, regarding a pension all we can do is log that with the relevant team, and we are then relying on them to do their job, and

You
Well, they're not doing their job.

M
Ahem.

You
They're not doing their job because they're ignoring their own, your statutory procedures for dealing with complaints and not responding within 10 days to contacts on the secure messages. They're not doing their job. I need to speak to somebody now who's actually going to sort this out, or it's going to be a Pensions Ombudsman’s thing, and they're going to come down on you like a ton of bricks. And deservedly so.

M
Yeah. Yeah, so in that case, you're, you would need take it to the Ombudsman then because there's no one you can speak to that will sort it out today.

I’ve been locked out of my online account. Nobody will answer the phone. New administrator recently taken over, tata, nuff said. Refuse to deal with formal complaint, totally ignore their own procedure. Just emailed my mp, with a bit of luck he’ll gee em up

Couldn’t log in because MFA passcode never arrived on my phone. Wasted my life and nothing achieved. Failed security questions on telephone but was not allowed to be told which one I had got wrong. Probably the one regarding “When did you start work?” All I could remember was Easter 1995. But was Easter April or March? Or perhaps I said a wrong number in my Teachers reference number. You only get one chance! So still not able to log in.

Just a heads-up so people don't waste any more of their time: the new login system won't work with Apple computers. They know.

Absolutely appalling service. I was notified by TP in March 2024 in a strongly worded final demand that I had not responded to their demand for repayment for an overpayment of my pension amounting to £3100. Apparently, this overpayment of approximately £16 pcm had continued from my first pension payment in 2007! It only "came to the attention of TP" in 2024!
When I queried this, I eventually received an acknowledgment and apology, six months later, for the fact that they had not sent any previous communication about the overpayment! However they consistently failed to answer any questions I raised in a clear, concise manner. In fact, one response was so poorly constructed that an NASUWT representative formally stated that the response was "a badly worded and unclear secure message that makes little real sense!"
TP can rigorously check my pension payments over 16+years to demand repayment due to their incompetence, yet cannot find the time to deal with the many pension matters surrounding retirement or bereavement for current members.
And Capita, as a reward for this level of appalling service, are awarded the contract for the Civil Service Pension scheme, where they have already successfully demonstrated their total incompetence and disregard for members!
My complaint is still unresolved and is now with the DfE!

Holding on for 1 hour. Got very unhelpful operator who said I invalidated the security process by telling my husband his last amount in bank because he could not see the bank statement when I logged in. Unable to log in usual way due to the new authentication app process and cannot provide a mobile number on account because cannot get past the pin. I just want them to provide a confirmation letter for our file.

Very poor service. No response from any of the communication channels.
I see their Trustpilot overall review score is very low. They obviously don't care.

This pension scheme DOES NOT WANT TO PAY OUT. Their systems are actually obstructive. It's no surprise that the amount of unclaimed pensions runs into billions of pounds. They do not want you to get your money! I have been trying to get mine for a month now....and am so, so angry.
Their call centre lines are permanently jammed and queues are at least half an hour, even if you ring when they open.

For the second time I have requested a passcode to log in and nothing has been sent. This is a very sloppy and inefficient organization which is at times impossible to communicate with. Lousy service.

I wouldn’t even give them a star if I could. Waste of space. I think they all work from home and don’t answer any calls or online chats. They decided to change how you log into the site without telling anyone and now lots of teachers can’t access their personal information and pension details. All employees should loose their jobs. Not fit for purpose. They are being paid to sit at home and do nothing.