I took out a pension with Lloyds in the 90s. I moved countries so stopped paying into it, a fact that I’m very relieved about. A few months ago, just before my 60th birthday, I started the process of withdrawing the funds. It was s painful process with lots of repetition and red tape but I finally got to the last step, which involved supplying banking details. I was told I’d have the money in 10 days, right before Xmas. On the 11th day, I called to be told they were running behind. On the 13th day, they said that it was actually 10 working days. A couloir of days later, I was told that it could take longer because I was overseas. On day 26, I got a call from them stating they needed a bank statement for the bank account I’d provided. They said they’d emailed this request. No, they hadn’t. I provided the requested information only to be told 4 working days later that it wasn’t in the right format. They needed me full name (not just the initial for jr middle name and address. Well, my bank didn’t produce the statement or confirmation latter in exactly this way. With Xmas and New Yeats, it took me two weeks to get them to create a custom letter. I provided this to SW two weeks ago and am still waiting on a response. When I send an email, I get a message back saying that it’s been rejected. The phone queues are so long that I run out if airtime before getting through. Their numbers aren’t toll free and each call costs me a month of local calls. I live in a third world country where so much doesn’t work. Still SW takes the cake for outdated technologies, incompetence and, worse of all, a callous disregard for their clients. It’s shocking that they’re allowed to take money from people.