THE SITUATION
Mr Jonathan Wadsworth worked at British Coal starting as an apprentice fitter in 1982. He was employed from Oct 1982 to June 1993 and was a member of the Mineworkers Pension Scheme (MPS).
An important point of interest, in this case, is that Mr Wadsworth didn’t transfer his pension – he was approached by an appointed representative of Prudential who said he would benefit from stopping his MPS pension and redirecting premiums to a personal pension with Prudential.
Prudential advised Mr Wadsworth to ‘OPT OUT’ of his MPS, leaving his Mineworkers pension dormant.
When he approached Money and Me Solicitors, he was unsure if he was eligible to claim about the advice or not. But after he saw our Facebook advert, he decided to make an enquiry.
Although he, like every other client we act for, was told that he could manage the claim himself, Mr Wadsworth preferred to appoint us to pursue his claim. He researched our track record and experience as he did not want to take the risk of making an error by managing the claim himself.
OUR APPROACH
After conducting an in-depth investigation, we were confident that Mr Wadsworth should not have been advised to ‘opt out’ and have his contributions redirected into a personal pension with Prudential. The investigation included reviewing three files containing 286 pages of information that we had obtained.
Our Claims Advice Report was forwarded to Mr Wadsworth, confirming what our investigations had uncovered, and how we intended to approach the complaint. He was in full support of Money and Me Solicitors submitting the complaint to Prudential and was pleased with the level of professionalism we afforded him.
THE OUTCOME
A decision was made by Prudential on 27th March 2023 to agree with our findings and take responsibility for his losses.
Although it took a further 6 months to complete the overall process, an offer was received by us for £229,460.19 on 27th September 2023.
It should be noted that the claim had no impact on his personal pension arrangements with Prudential.
Our client was not only delighted with the outcome, but also the way he was treated throughout his dealings with Money and Me Solicitors.
Had he not been prompted by our Facebook advert, Mr Wadsworth confirmed that he would not have made any enquiries into reviewing the advice he had received all those years before.
Mr. Wadsworth said, “I had no idea how much I was entitled to and now I can retire early because of receiving the compensation.” – Mr Wadsworth
