Prudential Plc

The Prudential need to hang their professional heads in shame. They have caused financial and personal stress due to the inept handling of the payment of my lump sum AVC, which in turn is holding up the payment of my Local Government Pension and lump sum. The communication is appalling, speaking to a call centre, who pass messages on, don't ring you back, complaining doesn't help. They have the market for the Local Government Pension AVC scheme up, so they can get away with the most appalling levels of customer service, they don't care at all for the distress of their customers.

Utterly useless. They sent the same email twice two minutes apart. They said they send out forms which they didn't, they take an age to get back to you, they can't facilitate a simple pension contribution increase. Utterly utterly useless.

Wish I could have given them 0 stars

Tried to withdraw and endowment policy after almost 25 years of paying it. I've been passed from pillar to post for the past 6 weeks without it being resolved. The Prudential have lied, mismanaged my request beyond any level I have ever experienced. They've told me they've lost documents, haven't received information - almost every trick in the book not to payout my endowment policy that I need as a deposit for a new property. If you have a policy with the Prudential, I would suggest you consider moving it to another provider and make sure you have loads of time to start the process!

I was appalled and saddened to read the experiences here regarding Prudential.It made me extremely concerned that my Husband wasn't going to receive his pension lump sum that he'd been paying into for 36 years.
He was told he would require the services of an alloted Financial Adviser before the sum could be released. How very fortunate was he that the Financial Adviser was Donna Bailey.
Donna has been so professional, engaging, friendly and above all honest. She has integrity and takes great personal pride in assisting her clients.I highly recommend Donna and only wish others here could have been fortunate to receive her advice and hard work.
Donna liased with Supervisor Diane Faulkner so thanks go to her also.
Thank you so much Donna for your care.It appears that others need to learn from your example.

Very disappointed on behalf of my father. He has a bond with the Pru - but to get it paid out is proving impossible. First, they want to get the original copy of the LPA that allows me to manage his affairs. Everyone else requires a code rather than the original. Even worse, they require two forms of identification - but he has no passport or license (being 94 and not having traveled for many years). So, I suppose we will not be able to get his money out! Shocking. Also, they are late replying to any enquiries. A very greedy company.

Things have only got worse since my father died. I am trying to deal with my fathers estate. Here is an example of an incomprehensible electronic message they sent me: "To enable us to deal with the claim, please forward Mr Stanley Charles Ernest Whitehead's death certificate in the enclosed envelope. We’ll then return this to you together with the policy valuation and confirmation of our requirements. Please make sure the images you send are high quality, unobstructed, uncropped and are full document pages. The details on the images you send must match the account details. We'll accept copies of birth, marriage and death certificates as evidence for actions such as a change of name, policy changes or making a claim. However, please be aware that Crown Copyright legislation states we should receive originals. Kind regards, Anand Shekhar Prubond Surrenders"

For starters, they talk about an "enclosed envelope" in an electronic message. Then they are completely unclear about whether they want the original death certificate (which hasn't been released) or not (because I am making a claim). Rubbish

Have been waiting over 6 months for my brothers money to be paid, this company is an absolute joke.
I would not recommend anyone to invest in this company.
My next step is the pensions ombudsman.

Very much the same as others here, waiting for my AVC pension since September. Given a host of excuses and lies, told twice the money would be paid on specific dates! No money and no reason, they are truly appalling, inept! I will be pursuing the Ombudsman and taking legal action immediately as they are fraudulently withholding money which is rightfully mine. What I would urge everyone to do who has a grievance is asking via a Subject Access Request for all GDPR data they hold on you. It's your legal right and they are obligated within a time frame to send you all correspondence they hold on you, including all internal communications. This will aid you with your claim and ensures complete transparency.

My mother has a bond with this company which was put into trust some time ago. There have been some issues over the trust, but ultimately they were rectified by a solicitor, and the trust closed. Prudential have now been refusing to pay out for over 3 years, despite there being overwhelming evidence to show the trust was in order and closed.

My mother has since died without getting her money, and I am now having to resort to the financial ombudsman.

SHAMEFUL!!!!

Shocking company. My husband cashed in his pension but it hasn't been sent to him. They blame IT errors and can't say when he will receive it. It's littery pension theft. We are going to take legal action against this awful company

Another month gone by and still no satisfaction from Prudential, THIS ONGOING SAGA , my pension due for payment 1st July 2023, still being investigated ? what are they investigating the only thing to investigate is why they have not paid out the proper annuity?
The second pension was due for payment 1st January,2024, and guess what they are still investigating the only common fact they do not pay out, Do they not think i actually need this money to live on ? no they do not care about the customers once the contributions are finished. I should be retired in pretty good financial health but Prudential do not bother to pay out, but they do have some amazing excuses why they cannot pay, Meanwhile I am left living on just over £300-00 per month .
I truly wish I had never taken out 2 Prudential pensions 37 and 38 years ago.
A TOTALLY USELESS COMPANY AVOID AT ALL COSTS

Contacted Prudential about withdrawing my pension....first thing that happened was....they said my pension didn't exist, I then spent hours on the phone trying to sort that mess out, letters that took weeks to be sent out, more pointless phone calls, hurdle after hurdle...have to admit that dealing with this company has been a complete disaster.....and I really pity any older person/pensioner trying to access their pension will be treated the same....shocking.

I called Prudential on the 21.10.24 and was left holding on for over 30 minutes, in the end I hung up. I then tried contacting them by online chat, they initially responded and said that they would help me. However, they then proceeded to cut me off after 90 seconds whilst I was still writing my reply!! I am 70 years old with arthritic fingers so cannot type at the speed of light.
I then tried calling them again and finally got to speak to someone after ten minutes.
I explained that I was thinking about, in advance of the Budget, cashing in one of my Pension Plans under Drawdown and taking the 25% Tax Free lump sum and leaving the remaining 75% still invested. I was then informed that my Pension Plans did not allow this as they had been taken out prior to 2015, when the law changed. Why then have I been repeatedly informed by Prudential that one of my options is Drawdown? Every Pension Planning Brochure clearly states this, at no point have I ever been informed that this was not an option!
I was then informed that in order to obtain the Drawdown option I would have to transfer my Pensions into another Plan that would allow this. I was then told that I would need to speak to one of Prudential's Financial Advisor about this, this initial consultation would be free of charge, I agreed to this and was told that someone would call me within 48 hours. Well here we are nearly 72 hours later and no call!!
On something that is so important as your Pension it is a dreadful way to treat your customers. I have been with Prudential for 39 years, with hindsight, it seems like things started to go wrong when they became part of M&G Wealth. Reading the reviews here on Trustpilot they are pretty damming and not even the courtesy of any replies from Prudential. Now looking at trying to transfer my Pension to another provider.

I transferred all of my money out of this failing company before they go under. No surprise the ombudsman forced them to pay me for the lost interest plus £150 compensation.

Please write to Lucy Andrews asap at "The Times" who is investigating this. email address below.
'lucy(dot)andrew @thetimes.co.uk'

Have a small pot of monies with this shower under an AVC scheme. Unfortunately due to legal conditions they cannot tell me where these funds are even after repeated requests from my main pension provider to release these funds to them so I can get paid.

Continued obstacles in place to stop paying out what is in effect my money. The private pension business is a total nightmare. Waited 6 months for transfer of separate pension from ReAssure to Aviva and now this debacle.

Site seems to be down for essential maintenance more than it is accessible, very poor service.

Disgusting company communication is terrible. We have tried to cash my father’s pension in who passed away earlier this year. Instead of them sending one letter stating what they need from us as a family to pay out they sent one every week. After sending in all the evidence they needed we rang to see if we could find out what was happening with the payout. They told us that a decision would be made by a certain date which confused us as what decision has to be made for us to receive our fathers money? So we left it until deadline to contact them back for them to ask for more evidence they wouldn’t tell us what they needed and we would receive a letter. One week later we received the letter only for the letter asking us to send in what we had already sent in luckily we sent these tracked and signed delivery which they received and signed for. So back on the phone again to ask what has happened every time they answered and we asked what was happening as we sent them signed delivery they put the phone down this happened several times. We managed to speak to someone who looked into it and they actually said yes we have received everything it is down to the bereavement team you will hear from them by a certain date of their decision. Well today was deadline and have not heard anything so another phone call was made for them to say another letter is being sent out I then asked what this letter is asking for they said they need a copy of my fathers will which we had already sent signed delivery. Their response was they have received it and for us to wait another 16days for a decision. We have now been waiting for this since May 2024 it also states on their website that the average time for a payout is 8weeks. Absolutely disgusting company avoid these at all costs!!

Just tried to claim on a policy I have had with the Pru for 40 years only to be told no can do the excess exceeds the value - Question why have they taken my money all this time for a policy they had no intention of honouring. Beware - sharp practice at play here.

Dreadful company. 3 to 5 business days does not mean 3 to 4 weeks, called 11 times and still not released my payment.
Underhand company.
My solicitors are now dealing with this.

Absolute ridiculous joke of a company . My husband has been trying for 5 months to get HIS OWN MONEY from his pension . Been fobbed off time and time again first the letters were returned which is rubbish . Then the id was blurred which is wasn’t . Then the bank account was incorrect . Again rubbish . The payment was apparently authorised a week ago . It wasn’t . Another load of rubbish today about the bank account being updated . Another 5 days wait .. which will be fruitless . How do you get your money off these crooks ??? Any help gratefully received !