"Beyond terrible"

Beyond terrible. The years of anguish this company has caused my family is outrageous. Two Pensions Ombusdman complaints in the past and a Financial Ombudsman complaint currently running. At present the SIPP beneficiaries are waiting for a reply of ANY sort to our instructions. No advisor I have spoken to recently will touch them with a barge pole, which makes a mockery of the supposed ambitions of their newish commercial Director. They do not deserve to be in business. Shameful.

"I have a SIPP with them and have found…"

I have a SIPP with them and have found James Hay to be painfully slow to act on any instructions.Their usual response is not to act on any instruction,but ask for more form filling.You can spend months filling out forms and achieve nothing.I am in the process of a partial transfer and I have found the new SIPP provider refreshingly efficient.God help anyone who has to deal with James Hay.

"My late father made substantial…"

My late father made substantial investments in pension with James Hay via his financial advisors. The trouble we have had withdrawing the funds is ridiculous and is causing great distress to my mother. They continually keep moving the goalposts. I believe they were once a good complany to deal with which is why my father was advised to invest with them. I would advise anyone reading this not to go near them.

"Painful nightmare"

If it was possible to write a review with a negative star then this would reach many, many negative stars. All we can say is to repeat what others say: AVOID. The money appeared miraculously with my new fund manager the day after I submitted a report to the Financial Ombudsman. 18 months of incompetence and neglect, damaging health, finances and detracting from our ability to run our business. Do they care? They've offered a bottle of wine to apologise.

"AVOID AT ALL COSTS"

AVOID AT ALL COSTS. I have been trying to transfer out to HL for the last 2 months. Getting absolutely nowhere.

Passed from pillar to post. No ownership by anyone, always passing the buck. They do not call you back and when you log a secure message on their portal it can take up to 2 weeks to get a reply.

This firm should be closed down.

"AVOID AT ALL COSTS."

I work for a financial adviser and deal with James Hay on a regular basis - or should I say try to deal with them. They are appalling just like all the other recent reviews on this website. They used to be good about 4 years ago but now they are beyond dreadful. The staff are obviously under pressure but next to useless as they no longer care. It must come from the management downwards. Any decent management would have seen these reviews months ago and done something about it.
If you are trying to transfer out good luck - it is taking literally months. They do not reply to messages via their online facility for days on end, they never return a call if you leave a message. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

"Totally Incompetent"

My work set up my pensions with James Hay and all I can say is they are the most incompetent and useless pension administrator I have ever dealt with. Customer service is non existent, it takes days to reply and then they tell you incorrect information and you go around in circles. I have expressed my concern to the company but they always dismiss any constructive feedback. Read these reviews or google they are consistently bad and I can assure you it is for a reason. How they ever win business in the first place is a mystery to me.

"Absolutely Awful Customer Service"

Shocking Company when it comes to customer service! Everything takes a very long time, emails hardly ever get dealt with and you have to chase and chase and chase to get things done - it really is like getting blood from a stone!

"100% 1 star reviews - Wow! Here's another."

100% 1 star reviews. Wow! Here's another.

I too have been suffering James Hay - for 15 years. I have been paying about £1,000 a year for them to make a single tax reclaim on a single investment. Once they got 5 years behind on this, and they have never yet managed it without my reminder. Things are getting worse now. I made a decision to invest £300,000 in mid November in a unit trust run by a well known firm on their list. 7 weeks later we are still not there. It took 2 weeks to get the necessary on-line account set up because they send access codes through Royal Mail. The money transfer from my previous investment got lost at their end, and even after they found it, it took 4 days to be posted to my account. Throughout I have had to listen to the slowest moving telephone auto-answerer in history, drawing everything out like a pious funeral director, and on every one of 20 calls explaining that 'we are currently experiencing heavy call volumes. etc etc.' I hate dealing with JH and I hate waiting 4 days for their message response service after I have called.

Anyway - I guess I am not really writing this for JH. They are past repair. The important point is for government. When you create these tax avoiding pension schemes, and wrap them up in their turgid rules, you raise huge barriers to entry. There are almost no competitors for JH (I used to use Suffolk Life and they were just as bad) because it is all so rulebound. All the businesses offering SIPPs are dreadful because your regulations insulate them from competition. Would that it were possible for a 3 man band to set up in competition. Alas, it is not. That is the root cause of the awfulness of JH.

"Incompetence and zero customer service"

Took over 4 months to transfer my SIPP out of James Hay, following cock up after cock up. Total and complete incompetence, and communication is next to zero. If you ring them and someone answers in less than 1 hour congratulations. Avoid at all costs. Official complaint remains unanswered and am now escalating to the Pensions Ombudsman.