At 58 years old, Eddie Buglass had been using his Scottish widow’s pension irregularly for two years.
Originally from Newcastle upon Tyne, he had moved to The Hague in the Netherlands and was working at Swedish furniture giant Ikea.
Last May he asked for a further £8,000 to be paid into his bank account to make an investment.
But what should have been a simple transaction turned into a situation that, for many divorced people, would be a total nightmare.
The father-of-three initially received confirmation from Scottish Widows that payment would be made within two weeks. However, unlike before, the money never appeared in his account.
Latest blunder: Scottish Widows sent £8,000 of client’s pension to ex-wife after failing to cancel old joint account (file image)
Eddie repeatedly called Scottish Widows but was told the transfer had been made and despite telling them he had not received it, he was unable to find out what had happened.
During a phone call, a staff member told Eddie that the money had been sent to one of his accounts. He says, ‘That’s when he clicked.’ I realized that the money could have gone to my ex-wife’s account.
The account in question was a joint bank account that Eddie and his then-wife had used while they were married. After the separation, she maintained sole control of the account and her name was removed.
The account had previously been registered on Eddie’s Scottish Widows profile. He had asked for it to be removed long before this move, but perhaps that wasn’t the case.
A company spokesperson says its records “did not contain any instructions sent by Mr. Buglass to confirm that the joint account was now in the sole name of his ex-wife.”
Exasperated by Scottish Widows’ lack of help, Eddie took matters into his own hands and called his former partner. “It’s lucky that we get along, because then I was able to call her to ask if she had received any unusual payments,” he says.
“She was collecting several of her own pension funds at the same time, so money was coming in left, right and centre.
“When he saw it, at first he thought it was one of his pensions, but after I explained what had happened he realized it was mine.”
Eddie’s ex-wife confirmed she had received the money eight weeks after he ordered the payment to be made.
She agreed to transfer it directly to Eddie’s account, which she received at the end of July, almost three months after she first requested the money.
Eddie acknowledges that the confusion could have easily turned into a protracted battle if they weren’t on good terms. “She could have denied him or run away and gone on vacation with him,” she adds. Martyn James, a leading consumer rights campaigner, says: “This is a big mistake by Scottish Widows and could easily have turned out to be messy.” “It absolutely should have never happened.”
James identified several major errors in the way Scottish widows acted, all of which had a high potential for creating complications.
The first error (making the payment to the wrong account) should not have happened as the name on the Scottish Widows policy and the name on the recipient’s bank account did not match.
Sloppy Widows: Customers have been caught up in a series of disastrous data breaches at Scottish Widows that have exposed their personal data and left their savings at risk.
The second mistake was not locating the money itself, James says. “There should be no reason for Eddie to have to contact his ex-wife at any point,” he says. ‘It shouldn’t have become his problem. ‘Scottish Widows knew where he had gone and should have asked the receiving bank to return it.’
Scottish Widows should also have made a second payment to transfer the full amount to Eddie’s bank account while they attempted to recover the incorrect transaction, James adds.
By sending £8,000 to Eddie’s ex-wife’s account, the payment gives her the information that he has a pension with them and that he has a certain amount.
With this information, she could have said, for example, that Eddie had promised her that money in the divorce and it was pending, so she wanted to keep it.
“In that case, it may be difficult for the company to recover the money and it would have been a court matter, which in itself is a nightmare,” he says.
Scottish widows may also have had to pay court fees.
Mr James adds: “If she turned around and said that you told me you had no money and that I would sue you, the company could be held liable.”
Similarly, the ex-partner could claim that their confidentiality has been breached since Eddie now has her banking information and knows that she still uses that account, she says. “Everything becomes very complicated and confusing.”
Eddie has received £633.13 from Scottish Widows in compensation to acknowledge the initial error and the time needed to correct it, as well as to cover the costs and interest of international calls.
A Scottish Widows spokesperson says: “We regret that Mr Buglass’s withdrawal request was entered into a previous account of his in error and could have been resolved immediately if we had gone over the details more clearly when we first spoke to him.
“We made a payment in October to acknowledge the time it took to get to the bottom of the matter, which he accepted and we updated his details.”
Last week, Money Mail revealed that customers were caught up in a series of disastrous data breaches at Scottish Widows that exposed customers’ personal data and left their savings at risk.
In the worst case seen by this newspaper, a reader’s pension was stolen after Scottish Widows sent all the details needed to collect it to a stranger.
Mark Radin, who has helped hundreds of frustrated Scottish Widows customers resolve their complaints through a Facebook group he created called the Scottish Widows Complaint Platform, says Eddie’s case is symptomatic of their customer service problems.
“The negligence of Scottish widows in the management of Mr Buglass’s pension is very common and extremely worrying,” he says.
“I strongly recommend all Scottish widow investors monitor the growth and transactions of their pension funds.”
Scottish Widows said it would not respond to this particular case, but a spokesperson said: “We take our data protection responsibilities seriously and regret that in the individual cases raised by Money Mail we have shared some information with the wrong customers for mistake”. “We are working hard behind the scenes to ensure this does not happen again.”
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