“…a guy come round about the mortgage originally and then they said well we can get a pension review…”
Mr B was contacted by Cherish Wealth Management who were acting as appointed representative of Shah Wealth Management to review his current mortgage situation initially and was then offered a pension review.
“They told me to go into a SIPP, then obviously Cherish Wealth Management went bust.”
Mr B was advised to transfer three of his personal into a SIPP with Novia and then invest into a variety of high risk, unregulated investments. When Cherish Wealth Management collapsed it only added insult to injury to Mr B’s situation.
“I’m not really financially minded if you know what I mean. This is when you guys came on board and sorted it all out”
Mis-sold pension experts GetClaimsAdvice got involved with Mr B’s and he was provided with a dedicated case manger, Alex to assist him in making a claim. Cherish had already folded by the time Alex and Mr B were working together so the only option was to claim with the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) rather than go directly to the firm.
“Alex rang me a couple of times to let me know how it was going and then a couple of letters I think and just said it’s still going ahead”
Alex stayed in constant contact with Mr B and provided him with regular updates as and when she received them just to let him know that we were still actively working on his case. “Service was brilliant that I got from you”.
“They said it could be anything up to 6-8 months, it was more like 3 months… …It was quicker than I expected”
The FSCS has paid out over £20.4 million in mis-sold pension claims against Cherish Wealth Management and received over 1,973 complaints. Mr B’s complaint took around 3 months from submission to decision and he was awarded £35,677.49.
“Then to be honest with you, I had another one a few months ago or about 3 grand or something like that I think.”
Alex’s work wasn’t finished, and after one of his other investments also ran into difficulty she was able to also assist Mr B in claiming another £4,698.13
“It came at a good time because there was a few debts here …”
When he found out that he was being awarded the money he only had one thing on his mind “I think I went out for a beer. I might have had a couple…”. Mr B was able to put the money to good use and clear some debt but is keeping hold of the rest of the money for now.