I am 67 and retired. About 20 years ago I consolidated my company pensions into a self-invested personal pension (Sipp). My financial adviser at the time steered me to use a Sipp platform now called Embark Pensions to administer the fund.

In mid-November I instructed Embark that I wished to make my first full tax-free withdrawal. A month later it has still to even look at my account let alone authorise the release of the funds.

There is just the one phone number to ring, the customer services team, and the response is always the same: “We’ve been exceptionally busy because of the budget and we’ll get to your account at some point.”

The company T&Cs specifically say that such a process should take no more than ten working days. It never returns phone calls, when you get through, staff will not escalate the call nor put you through to the drawdown team, who do not answer emails. I am worried about my money. Please can you help hurry them along as we need this cash?
Alasdair, Edinburgh

Holly Thomas writes

Like many others last autumn, you were concerned that Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, would use the budget in November to tinker with pensions and withdraw your right to take tax-free lump sums from pension savings.

After retiring from your busy role as a hospital director, you wanted to use the money to enjoy life, including having big family holidays with your grown-up children and helping your daughter to buy her first home.

Your communications with Embark were fruitless, but with my involvement things moved quickly.

Embark said that the delay was related to the paperwork and was not your fault. Regulations require anyone who doesn’t have the help of a financial adviser to read and sign a document that spells out what to avoid when it comes to taking money out of a pension. The idea is that it will help savers to make an informed decision. One warning is about withdrawing the whole pot at once and so paying a lot of tax, another is about scam pension investment schemes. Embark discovered that it hadn’t provided you with clear information about this.

The paperwork is now sorted and your tax-free lump sum of £126,445.48 is in your bank account. Embark agreed to waive administration fees of £132 and pay you compensation of £848.63.

With changes coming in April 2027 meaning that pensions will no longer be exempt from inheritance tax, you have decided that spending your hard-earned retirement savings on special experiences with your loved ones is the way forward, rather than leaving them at the mercy of the taxman.

You are planning trips to southern California and Mexico, and the Seychelles, as well as a new car for your wife. You said: “We save all of our lives to have money when we stop work. Getting hold of that money wasn’t easy. I’m very grateful for your help in making this happen.”

Embark said: “We didn’t have all the information required to process this payment, but we did not provide clear information when we should have, and for that we are sorry.”

• How to make your retirement dream a reality

The rest of the money from the lump sum payment has been invested, and you plan to use the income from those investments until you need to dig into your remaining taxable pension savings.

There is no industry standard on how long a company should take to release pension funds after you put in a request. Once a request has been made for some or all of a pension’s tax-free cash then it can take anywhere between two and four weeks for the funds to arrive.

Some firms may set a timescale, but delays often occur, so this should serve as a cautionary tale to allow plenty of time for payments and to have a savings buffer where possible to plug the gap if necessary. If you are left waiting too long, there’s the option of a formal complaint where you can claim loss of interest. Approach the Financial Ombudsman Service for help if your pensions firm is not responding.

‘I’m a pensioner and I’m paying £92 a month for broadband’

I am struggling with the cost of living and rising bills and decided to seek a reduction in my BT broadband and phone service, which is now costing me £92 a month. As a 73-year-old pensioner I simply cannot afford this.

Knowing that BT and EE are part of the same group I went to an EE shop where I was offered a significant reduction of about £40 if I agreed to switch to EE and “upgrade” to fibre broadband, at no charge. An installation date was fixed and the appointment went ahead. But the connection is far worse and on the next billing date my account was still debited with £92 instead of £54.99. I have also had an email telling me to return equipment or face charges of £50 and £75 — even though I already confirmed there is no equipment to return.

I have called several times and I’m getting nowhere. In a long phone conversation today EE confirmed that an unexplained “system’ problem is behind this. For a communication company it seems surprisingly ineffective, despite bragging in recorded messages of being “the UK’s best” service. It must be joking.
Ian, Bournemouth

• How much you can expect bills to go up this year

Holly Thomas writes

When household bills are rising it usually pays to speak to the company to see where savings can be made, as you discovered when you found a deal that would save you almost £450 over the year.

You told me that you already pay for three EE mobile phone contracts for other family members, so you were hopeful that it was worth switching to the company for your broadband and landline as well.

When you complained that your service was worse and that you were still being billed at the higher rate EE promised to call you back. Three times you waited in during the two-hour window that you were given but no one called. This is inexcusable.

You complained about this and were offered a £20 credit on your bill, then had an email saying that your complaint was closed. Your internet service was still poor, the technical problems were unresolved and your bills were still wrong.

I gave EE a grilling and it looked into your problems quickly but said there was an issue with your landline that needed to be resolved. After some more pressure from me, you had a call to say that these issues had been sorted out.

EE then confirmed that it had amended your bills to £54.99 a month, refunded the extra you were charged and also refunded your first bill in full to acknowledge your less than satisfactory experience. It also confirmed that you don’t need to return any BT equipment.

EE also told you that your system was still connected to your old Hybrid Connect — a backup gadget that automatically connects your home broadband to the 4G mobile network if your service fails. You were told to unplug this and reboot your system, which seems to have done the trick, although why the engineer who came to install your new service didn’t do this in the first place, it would not say.

While switches from one supplier to another often don’t run smoothly, it’s important not to be put off. The most recent data from the regulator Ofcom shows that 36 per cent of those who take combined broadband and landline deals were out of contract at the end of June 2024. They were paying 18 per cent more on average than customers on contracts. The 32 per cent who were out of contract on combined broadband, landline and TV deals paid 16 per cent more than in-contract customers.

Ofcom’s One Touch Switch rules, introduced in September 2024, mean that when switching, you only need to speak to your new company, which should handle the whole transfer for you.

Timing is everything, so wait until your contract is about to end or has already expired so that you do not have to pay to quit your deal and you have more bargaining power.

£229,137— the amount Your Money Matters has won back for readers so far this year

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