Email to both Jonathan Asher (Legal & General) and Philip Sutton (The Trustee Corporation Ltd) 22 October 2011
Dear Jonathan Asher
Thank you for the Trustees update statement which I received 21 October 2011.
However, rather than call you to express my concern I think that an email is more apt as I can publish this for others to view.
To say I was upset by your comment that you sent the original update letter to an address gleaned from an email dated 6 July 2011 is something of an understatement! Whatever possessed your company to ignore the held members data over an email? Surely the whole idea of any data integrity checking would be to validate the data rather than ignoring it and using other means! How many other members were written to at addresses other than those held in your data files? If mine was the only one, then WHY?!
This just highlights further the incompetence of Legal & General in handling the whole sorry episode. Why on earth would a company of your supposed standing issue this sort of letter to an email address when all along the given reasons for delays have been stated to be due in no short measure to data validations.
I would have thought it was glaringly obvious that any & all members addresses should be taken from your collated data, obviously this is not the case – or do you just please yourselves about which things to send to which individuals, and further to this pick & choose where to send them?
Before you answer this, I am aware of at least two more people who are still awaiting their updates.
Mr Xxxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx (and possibly his partner – formerly Ms X Xxxxxxx) and Mrs Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxxx. Please check your records to see if these also were sent to other addresses than the ones you hold on file.
As the previous data integrity checks carried out have highlighted issues which you have consistently failed to resolve, I suggest to you that you are being negligent in your handling of the members information, so you can probably appreciate the members’ concerns over these delays (and possibly their doubts about your competence in handling their assets too!).
It is often mentioned in these communications that there is no financial loss to members in this, can you guarantee that the Parent Company is also suffering no financial loss over the time taken (and expenses accrued) for you and The Trustee Corporation to get your acts together?
My next action in all of this will now be to write to the president of Toyoda Gosei (Japan) to express the member’s displeasure over the whole handling of this pension closure. I know that they were very concerned over the closure of the company to ensure there was no adverse publicity. The Japanese do not like to lose face as I’m sure you are aware. It would be a major issue for them if this was to become an item of media attention.
Any communication with the parent company will be made available to both Legal & General and The Trustee Corporation.
One other point that I have not commented on before, but which I think needs to be raised – if just for clarification, is over the closure date of the company (and hence the scheme winding up). In all of your communications to date there is mention that “On 15 December 2008 the Company entered into members’ voluntary liquidation (a solvent winding up process) and the Scheme closed”. Where is this date taken from? I was employed by the Company up until & including 19th December 2008 (along with a number of others) and as far as I am aware this was the closure date! I know it is only a matter of five days, but again a data discrepancy nonetheless!
