Groundhog Day at Barclays?

Paul worked for Barclays between 1985-1990 and if I hadn't already been aware of why he left them to work for Chase Manhattan then I would have discovered the secret while disposing of his mountain of papers. 


When we left Birmingham for Poole, so that he could take the job with Barclays I had to give up my job. I absolutely loved my job and suffered greatly when we moved, but Paul needed to move and he promised that we wouldn't move again until I wanted to. He kept his promise. When Barclays told him he was being moved north to Manchester he made it clear that this was not something he would do without my support.

(At that time, 1990 I was in fact paying more than half the bills!)

In June 2015 my darling husband asked for clarification of the wording of a Barclay’s letter sent to him which stated;

“I am only able to proceed with a transfer if the receiving scheme is a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme”

Paul believed that under the UK pensions legislation and Barclays scheme he was able to transfer to a UK pension scheme. He complained.

Barclays subsequently wrote that a transfer to a UK scheme was in fact acceptable and that the statement they had made was false. They also they confirmed that the passport image and information he had provided had been accepted as sufficient identification, this letter concluded;

“Please let me know if you wish us to send you the relevant transfer forms for transferring your benefits to a UK pension arrangement.”

He asked for the forms but they were never sent. He was sent a link to a non-functioning website.

On 30^th January 2016 he realised that he needed to get these things organised quickly, he wrote to advise that as his brain tumour had become acute he now wanted to proceed as quickly as possible with the transfer to Equitable Life UK. He asked for the relevant forms to be sent to him. He included the earlier correspondence in his request.

He did not receive any response.

He went into hospital on 8^th February and it was only when he returned home in March that a follow-up email was sent.

This follow-up email, sent 26^th March included once again the full text of his previous request asking for the forms to transfer to a UK fund, plus a copy of Barclay’s earlier statement that forms for a transfer to a UK provider could be sent on request.

He also asked for confirmation that his January email had been received.

A response was received on 4^th April but there was no confirmation that the earlier email had been received, further personal identification information was required before they could action any request. For some reason Barclays could not send out blank forms without some serious checking on who wanted them! The personal information requested was sent the following day, 5^th April.

Subsequent documentation from The Barclays Team indicate that they logged Paul Matthews’ request as being received on 5^th April 2016.

He died on 14^th April, still distressed that he had failed to transfer the Barclays pension to Equitable Life. During the last few weeks of his life he worried unnecessarily about my security and I made him a promise that I would get the very best I could from his pensions. 

This mattered to him. A lot.

On 28^th April I telephoned the Barclays Team to ask when some form of response might be anticipated. I was not asking for any confidential details, just some indication that they were actually attending to the matter. They stated that no comment was possible unless I was an authorised financial advisor. I asked them if they were aware that Mr Matthews had a brain tumour that affected his capacity to speak and that all I wanted was confirmation a response would soon be sent. Their attitude was so unpleasant, the phrase "We are not prepared to discuss anything with a spouse" was used, so I felt no obligation to tell them that he had died.

On the 12^th May a letter dated 10^th May was emailed to Paul.

If I hadn’t been weeping already it would certainly have been cause for tears. After waiting so long for a reply one might have expected that The Barclays Team at Willis Towers Watson could have read through the emails that had been exchanged before writing their response.

But no, their letter commenced with the statement;

“I am only able to proceed with a transfer if the receiving scheme is a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme”

Groundhog Day at Barclays?

They also included an illustration of the value of the pension. If it was transferred it was worth £112,565, but if the man holding this pension pot died (which of course he inconveniently did) then the pension payable to the spouse is £850 per year. Which means I’d have to live an awfully long time to get any value from that!

Barclays did say, “Please accept our apologies for the delay in providing you with the requested information.”

So that’s OK then, they were good enough to apologise.

For those not familiar with the changes in how pension pots are being dealt with I’ll explain briefly. If the money had been transferred to Equitable Life the whole amount could have passed to me tax free. But now the option on offer is that Barclays will graciously grant me an annual pension of something around 134th the value of Paul's cash. 

Thank God I had my own pensions is all I can say.

My next challenge is something called a New York stock trade account, where parts of the Chase Manhattan funds reside, allegedly.