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The backstory to this is that the pension company I work at used to sell policies with guaranteed annuities back in the eighties. Basically, if you were lucky enough to invest in one of these, you'll get back about five times your investment in fund value and twice the pension of any other company (which is why nowhere sells them any more).
One old man called up to ask about his pension and ended up speaking to me (and taking my name which is where it all went wrong). He got a quote and then, once it arrived, called to complain about me. Apparently we (or in his mind, I) didn't offer enough tax free cash (HMRC limits are that you can take 25% of your fund as tax free cash once you start the pension paying). Because of the guarantee, he felt that his fund value should be twice what it was, as with his other pensions, so clearly we were stealing his extra fund value and tax free money.
Complaints dealt with him, I ended up having to send a transfer quote and a new retirement quote (with the same values but still, had to send one) and he phoned up every single day for four weeks to moan at me about it. He was planning to transfer to another pension company to "teach you a lesson about stealing my money", and every single time he called after the first week, he asked if we'd got the forms yet. He kept telling me that I was lying when I said they'd not been received, then suddenly stopped calling, sent in his pension forms and took an annuity from us.
I was slightly baffled by this, although happy to not deal with him any more, and managed to get an explanation from complaints. Apparently he'd managed to find a fraudulent pension company and was trying to move his money to them because they'd found a "loophole" to let him take it all tax-free. Yep, didn't end well when he found out and he was too embarassed to call again to ask about anything.
Seriously though, why did he think I was lying about the forms? It's not like I wanted to keep him as a customer and, to be honest, if he'd actually been defrauded I'd probably still be laughing. It's slightly mean, but he kept boasting about how he planned to buy a jaguar with the money he'd get.
One old man called up to ask about his pension and ended up speaking to me (and taking my name which is where it all went wrong). He got a quote and then, once it arrived, called to complain about me. Apparently we (or in his mind, I) didn't offer enough tax free cash (HMRC limits are that you can take 25% of your fund as tax free cash once you start the pension paying). Because of the guarantee, he felt that his fund value should be twice what it was, as with his other pensions, so clearly we were stealing his extra fund value and tax free money.
Complaints dealt with him, I ended up having to send a transfer quote and a new retirement quote (with the same values but still, had to send one) and he phoned up every single day for four weeks to moan at me about it. He was planning to transfer to another pension company to "teach you a lesson about stealing my money", and every single time he called after the first week, he asked if we'd got the forms yet. He kept telling me that I was lying when I said they'd not been received, then suddenly stopped calling, sent in his pension forms and took an annuity from us.
I was slightly baffled by this, although happy to not deal with him any more, and managed to get an explanation from complaints. Apparently he'd managed to find a fraudulent pension company and was trying to move his money to them because they'd found a "loophole" to let him take it all tax-free. Yep, didn't end well when he found out and he was too embarassed to call again to ask about anything.
Seriously though, why did he think I was lying about the forms? It's not like I wanted to keep him as a customer and, to be honest, if he'd actually been defrauded I'd probably still be laughing. It's slightly mean, but he kept boasting about how he planned to buy a jaguar with the money he'd get.
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