A sorry Old Mutual Retirement Annuity (RA) saga

A sorry Old Mutual Retirement Annuity (RA) saga

The current amount remaining in my RA has been around R50 000 since January 2019. This is, as per contract, and as per my wishes, the moment that I want them to pay out the lump sum, having drawn down the rest of the policy over the past five years. But, rather than acquiesce and oblige, we’ve been engaged in an arm-wrestle match for the past two years and even more intensely, since January 2019. For the past month I’ve been trying to access “MyPortfolio” on the Old Mutual website to confirm the balance, as it must have gone below R 50 000 by now, but guess what, the three times I checked “MyPortfolio” the landing page has been changed so that I cannot access it. But wait; there is more! … (as they say in the TV-ads). I placed two complaints on the website. First time, no reaction. 2nd time, on 5 April 2019, Nazeem Lee informs me per email that I HAVE NO ACTIVE POLICY!!!!!!Whatttt??? So, there is R50k left, which they don’t want to pay out. And, in the meantime, the agent continues to earn a commission.

So, what on earth is going on in this company? The one hand knows not what the other is doing! Where is Nathaneal Hamilton (the agent) who gets a commission every month from MY retirement funds? Presumably, the reason why I suddenly cannot access “MyPortfolio”, is that once the final lump sum of R50k is paid out, commissions and administration fees stop. The bottom line is this: Institutions regard our money as their money. The minute you want the money to which you are legally entitled, they find ways to prevent you from accessing it. Moreover, no one has informed me of this arrangement - none of the myriad people there has done so. It is always someone else. Some efficiency, that. The particular agent, Nathaneal Hamilton, who earns the commission from my retirement funds, has been missing in action.

And, as this arm wrestle continues, I keep on receiving more and more adverts of more and more products and services. But no solution on the current impasse. True to form, Old Mutual’s main focus is on hawking products and services, and not focusing on customer service. (I shall post another article later on the woeful “performance” of 2.8% over 10 years). It’s like the Momentum saga where they refused to pay Mrs. Ganas out when her husband was ******ed, but then they found that, because he had a pre-existing medical condition on his records, they summarily refused to pay out her claim (initially, anyway – Mrs. Ganas used Twitter to focus their minds). Like Momentum Old Mutual is now finding loopholes not to pay out my lump sum, as per contract and my request for the past two years.