Kathryn Tattum: All they told me when I rang up is there is a backlog. The system is so overwhelmed no one is taking responsibility
Savers who fell foul of the state pension top-ups system have accused the Government of encouraging them to make unnecessary payments, then failing to help find and refund their cash.
Untold sums of top-ups cash could be sitting in Government coffers, instead of being repaid to people who are still in the dark about what
Kate Phillips: Handed over £11,500 and nine months later was still waiting for state pension top-ups to be processed
Frustrated savers are continuing to complain of state pension top-ups chaos as the Government readies a new online service for launch by early April.
The Department for Work and Pension and HMRC must put enough staff in place to make sure the whole system does not ‘fall over’ under a new surge of top-up purchases, warns former Pensions Minister Steve Webb.
Ian Taylor: Paid £5,700 in July but was still chasing up his payment five months later
Desperately worried savers are contacting us in droves about huge state pension top-up payments that have gone missing for up to a year.
We highlight ELEVEN cases today of This is Money readers in despair over lost money.
Their tales reveal administrative turmoil in the system run jointly by HMRC and the Department for Work and Pensions.
Retired firefighter Ian Taylor, 65, pictured right,
Susan Ryan: I find it ludicrous that I would pay £824 and don’t get a receipt, acknowledgment, letter, nothing
People who spent big sums on state pension top-ups are angry their cash has apparently gone missing and they can’t get answers out of HMRC or the Department for Work and Pensions.
Opposition politicians have called the top-ups system ‘utterly shambolic’ and condemned government failures to accurately record state pension entitlement as ‘an insulting failure of basic competence’.
Susan Ryan, pictured
