Super Useless Service: AXForbes Pensions

Better known perhaps as just AXForbes... Note that not all detail is listed below... I also need to add that the company involved, where my friend was an employee, also was not very helpful in guiding him through the process. I am assisting a friend who retired on 31/12/2024, to manage his things and hopefully in the end receive his chosen pension, as due to fund rules, he is not allowed to stay with AXForbes. Contact was made early in October with AXForbes, but documentation was only supp**** by the end of October '24. I even called them to discuss, but the immediate perception was that they would like to be the middle man to place his pension elsewhere as well, and only after I almost demanded it, quotes from other companies was supp**** later. At that stage I actually informed the person that we are investigating his options and that we are talking to other people as well. At the beginning of December '24 he was offered a 3 month contract after his retirement, and we thought great - we have enough time as AXForbes has advised the process will take about 4 - 6 weeks. What then should have happened is that a pension defer request should have been submitted to AXForbes. This was done on 30/01/2025, but I believe there was some lack of communication, mostly by Altron HR. The guidance thing I mentioned, but HR was included in this mail. As this was sent to numerous AXForbes departments, because we were not sure, at least three acknowledgements were received. We were told that feedback will be given regularly - but no feedback was actually received. A week later, on 06 February '25, the request to move his funds to his choice, we actually received feedback advising that AXForbes is already aware, as they received the request on 30/01, which made us believe as they now had two forms, they will manage the request as one. Last week, Monday/Tuesday, we asked the broker on feedback, but when the broker called in as well as the broker from the new pension company, were told that they do communicate regularly with the client (my friend), but they can't tell them anything, but will inform my friend, They did however state that we don't have to worry, as we are now in week 4 of the process that takes 4 - 6 weeks. We then sent several mails to AXForbes last week, to try and get a status report with estimate milestone dates going forward. Each mail received an automated response, one meant for September 2024, however a whilke later, some of our follow ups was answered, but totally indirectly. e.g. Your request was forwarded to the fund manager to investigate. Then some mails came back with some form of answer, but the original and real questions were never answered. The last mail received, advised a bit on the process, touch perhaps only two of many milestones. but then added a few things where I totally lost it!!! this was on 28/02/2025 - more than a month after the first set of documents and just over three weeks after the 2nd set of documents were supp****. As per this feedback - the 4 - 6 weeks' timeframe will ONLY starts when his portfolio is disinvested, which basically will happen during the 2nd half of March, as they only obtain unit pricing by the middle of each month, which will then be 15/03. The net result of this feedback is that for 4 weeks the documentation was with AXForbes and according to me, NOTHING was actually done. NOTHING will be done, before 15/03 - another 2 weeks waisted, meanwhile, AXForbes doesn't feel a thing for the client, who need his 1st pension by the end of March 2025. AXforbes promise of 4 - 6 weeks then got a new meaning, which in my eyes means AXForbes are indeed not open to their clients and Communication to clients is very rare and almost never focused at the questions asked. This is proof of their disrespect to their clients and their wishes - totally shameless behavior - indeed very much unprofessional - the worst I have ever seen and I have been through 4 similar previous cases, very recently (last month - finalized within less than 3 weeks, 1st pension in the bank, docs submitted on 05/02...) This in essence means that my friend might only receive his 1st pension by the end of May '25, but I know the new supplier will resolve their bit in 2 to 3 days - part of my last experience, money also moved from A to B) He did a budget for the Lump sum requested, trying not to tap to much into his total funds, to stretch his pension, however, because of this lack of service from AXForbes, he will now have to use this money to survive during April and May '25, perhaps even June '25 - Proof that AXForbes do not care at all about their clients, especially when they go on retirement. My opinion, where we will be at 6+ weeks op 15/03, is that in reality, this will only end 6 weeks later, however, if 4 - 6 weeks has actually becomes 8 - 12 weeks, then adding the process to transfer his money to the new supplier, will probably take another 4 - 6 weeks, hence we will probably end up at 12 - 18 weeks, which is 3 to 4 1/2 months - then June is not so farfetched at all!!!! He should have asked R50K more because of that, to get less pension, due to this totally unacceptable way af work, playing around with people's life's, giving him even less per month in the future as well... I am so glad my own funds, also with AXForbes a while ago, was moved away a couple of years before I went on retirement. The experience I had then, with the other company, where I also had to purchase elsewhere, was totally the opposite as what we are experiencing at AXForbes during the last couple of weeks. This is also the only company that I have engaged with, that only gets pricing to disinvest once a month, which perhaps this proof how far away AXForbes actually is from the real marketplace, where selling of units happens at least on a daily basis (workdays) and is not limit to one price per month for this, which could be to the client's benefit, or not, depending on the markets, but that is also true for every day of the week as well... Personally, I will not advise any friend to ever invest anything with or via AXForbes, but for my friend's sake, I hope and trust AXForbes will get themselves sorted, to ensure that this money is transferred to the new supplier, at least 7 work days before the end of Marxh, as perhaps then we still will get his pension sorted before the end of March 2025. Thank you very much. JH van Vollenhoven