The Pensions Ombudsman Reviews 

The initial representative from the Ombudsman was useless, simply wanting to waive the issue away siding with the advisors despite more and more info to the contrary. That guy left and the next did swiftly take action on the matter.
BUT the teams at the Ombudsman are simply too busy to properly read the facts, take account of them and remember them so then make vague ambiguous decisions which they state are final even though they miss out highly relevant details and as such don't make sense and remain incomplete. And once the decision is made, they abandon you to take up the fight alone again to get anything they said you deserve. Think carefully before bothering. That said the validation of being judged right and the enjoyment of the hassle for the faulty party and of them being publicly named and shamed gives immense satisfaction.

Awful. Just stuck together with the people you complain about. No help. Don't waste your time.

Lorraine has solved this mess!

Lorraine has resolved numerous issues I have experienced with my pension with Phoenix.

I raised my complaints with phoenix but was never able to speak with the person who was handling my complaint. The complaint handler did not acknowledge my emails.
She was never available when I called and never responded to messages I left asking for her to call me.
Previous to this when calling the telephone number on the letters I received from Phoenix, I was advised via recorded messages that the number was no longer in use. This happened many times. Lorraine was brilliant and from the very first phone call I felt finally that someone was listening and was confident that she would find a resolution ... and she did! Thank you Lorraine. You are a star!

I cannot praise the gentleman I spoke to highly enough. I explained what was happening with our pension and he gave me sound, solid advice whereby I was able to talk to our pension company in their language. By mentioning the Ombudsman not only did we get a phone call back but a compensation cheque for their appalling behaviour. They tell me that our payment has been processed and may take 10 days to get to our account so let’s see - but well done to the man I spoke to!

Agreed to progress my case with their Early Resolution Team and today they emailed to say it will take about 11 months before it'll be allocated to a specialist. So in other words, even longer than 11 months and they have the front to call this 'early resolution'? Come on, what a joke of an organisation.

15 month wait for an initial investigation. The pension providers have it made with these guys on the case, no wonder their service is generally terrible.

Just the same as the Teachers Pension scheme every excuse under the sun not to even look at your case.
Total waste of time and another organization that is simply not fit for purpose.

Not fit for purpose .
A total waste of time .
After spending six months and the Senior Case Assessor
asking me to call to clarify me complaint.
I have left ten messages on his answer pho and still not
had a return call.
How this system work 10am - 2PM ?

Had a pension with Aptia but the management of the fund was in transition to another fund management company during which I asked for a statement from Aptia to retire early 2025.
Statement received and decided to apply to retire. The new fund management company contacted me to advise that the last Aptia quote was overstated by 22-25%.
At this point I’d finished work.
The variance was not due to market fluctuations but due to an error by Aptia.
The stupid rules of the pointless ombudsman state that the new company managing the fund take on all liabilities.
So in effect Aptia could be careless, negligent or even malicious with their quote knowing that they were passing the issue to the new fund management company.
So, why do you have this damaging rule which allows puts fund managers and pension members to be exposed in this way?

Three years and still waiting for my complaint to be assigned. When I pointed this out, I was accused of having an abusive tone! Maybe their attitude is part of the problem but certainly the Pension Ombudsman is no longer fit for purpose and unscrupulous businesses know this and appear to have complete disregard for them (and the FOS).

I submitted a complaint about one of my former employers (formerly known as St Martha's School, Hadley Wood) when I discovered last year that they had not paid over 3 years worth of pension contributions into my TPS for my employment between 2014 and 2017. I naively put my trust in the school, especially because it was a Catholic school, so did not check the contributions on the TPS. I did not think at that time that the bursar's department were either doing something illegal or were completely incompetent. I contacted various organisations when I found the problem, including a company that dealt with the school's finances in the past and the company that bought the school/took over in 2017 but was batted between pillar and post. Similarly, the Sisters who ran the school have since moved away/sold the convent they had in Potters Bar. I therefore put in a complaint to the Pensions Ombudsman in October 2025. Since last year, and after emails where they asked for more and more information (despite me providing a whole array of things from the start), I received the outcome for my case which deeply upset me. Whilst I understand that there is a time limit for investigating such matters (although they have the authority to investigate beyond this time frame in exceptional circumstances) the case worker's decision was a tirade of victim blaming. My case assessor, Ms Waheed, repeatedly stated that I had not checked my pension and that they would not be investigating. It took over five months for them to tell me this! Unfortunately, the fact that I made an error in not checking does not eradicate the fact that I still have missing pension contributions for over three years or that an organisation has acted inappropriately. In effect, this was not an investigation of the distressing missing pension contributions but rather a scrutiny of the information I supplied. My advice to anyone is to check your pension contributions regularly, keep your pay slips and most importantly, don't expect the Pensions Ombudsman to stand up for every day people.

The reviews are right and I should have known better!!!. Waited almost three years for my case to be "investigated" to be advised taht even if they found in my favour they could not impose the decisiion on the Pension Provider (Zurich) anyway . Zurich unsurprisingly did not offer to settle at a figure appropriate to the distress and inconvernience caused so I have been forced to accept the derisory offer they made three years ago.
The Ombudsman system is broken. It needs closing down and a fair and more timely system introduced. The Pension companies know if they push you towards the Ombudsman they can delay things for years and then get away with the derisory offer they made in the first place.
A shambles.

Even when I told them the company is heading toward liqudation, they still insist on waiting 11 months which by that time, they're now in liqudation.

Completely useless, and explain why so many companies out there can get away with pension theft such as The Hackney Peddler.

A terrible organisation, impossible to claim to online form didn’t work. Obstructive, refusing to adjudicate on complaints that fall well into their jurastiction. Grim !

Every time I provided the information they asked for they sent another email asking for something else, what a waste of time this organisation is. If you are thinking of using them don't believe they will automatically be on your side. I gave up in the end and the pension provider continues to get away with an awful service to they pension members. My case had issue with the pension provider had been going on since Jan 2025. I got no help whatsoever from the Pension Ombudsman!

If you have a complaint against a pension provider, what you’re likely to find is that dealing with the Pension Ombudsman is at least as annoying if not more annoying than your original problem.

Case in point is the delayed communication and avoidance of dealing with problems head on. They will continually push you back to follow complaint processes of the pension provider, but have no recourse should the provider be ignoring your contact.

All of this will leave you realising that this is a toothless organisation, if you were to continue the metaphor further you’d say it was a decrepit, moth eaten and squalid entity.

Hopefully you get the picture, if you’re so inclined and can afford it, perhaps go legal straight away and save yourself the trouble of dealing with them.

Absolutely failure this organisation called Pension Ombudsman, should not exist because of services are below standards. Agents giving false tine frames year after year. It’s just not acceptable Do Not Use Pension Ombudsman services get a lawyer instead on no win no fee bases.

Forwarded a complaint to the Ombudsman over 3 years ago now and only recently received a decision. I even had to make a complaint about the Ombudsman to the PHSO due to their incompetence.
If you think you are going to get an impartial decision think again. Funnily enough they do not readily provide stats on percentage of cases they rule in favour of either party. I investigated and found that in over 70% of cases they rule in favour of the pension companies.
In my letter, I was warned that I had to treat the information contained as confidential and should not discuss with anyone else. Its quite ironic therefore that a confidential letter was issued to an address I moved from 2 years ago and they knew this. I would of thought any organisation sending such information should consider reporting themselves to the Information Commissioners office for breach of DPA. But not this one!!!

They take literally years to come to a decision and then side with the pension provider.

I complained over 3 years ago to the Financial Ombudsman as directed by the pensions company involved, 2 months later the FO said they didn’t deal with this type of complaint so I had to repeat it all to the Pensions Ombudsman. It is possibly worth noting that the FO charge the ‘offending’ company £650 if they proceed with the complaint but if they uphold your complaint will probably palm you off with £500 compensation which seems something of an imbalance.

The PO then picked up the case and took almost 3 years to inexplicably decide that there was no case to answer - when I read the adjudication I realised why as it is the most incompetent and incomplete piece of work I have seen in a long time. This was endorsed by the investigator’s manager and the PO himself which makes them complicit.

A complete waste of time - I would advise anyone to ask themselves whether they want to invest their own time & energy in this way. If everyone stops complaining hopefully they will be disbanded and we may get a worthwhile replacement.