Money payments that they thought they were going to get as a reward for working hard and saving are dwindling quickly and disappearing even faster. Companies raided pension schemes long ago to keep going and they have never replaced the money.
I can remember going for an interview to sell pension plans when they came out. We were told that private plans were okay for bread and butter earning of commissions but the big commission earners were the company pension plans. I would get a commission for every one who joined up as well as a big one for starting the plan off. This gave anyone the reason d' etre to say that these schemes would pay out for hang gliding naked never mind anything else. many, many sales persons figured out that by the time these things were due to pay out that they would either be retired or dead so they mis sold like anything! A huge enquiry took place later but nothing much happened. Who can prove what X said to Y over a few beers ?
The sales pitch that I was told to use was to show the company bosses that their payments were corporation tax deductible but they would be the scheme runners. So they could do anything that they voted for with their contributions and those of the employees. So why not have the pension plan invest in their ailing companies to shore them up ! They voted and they robbed as the mugs paid in from every wage packet !!! Thus they got their money back out. They got a tax break for putting it in and could charge a fee for running the fund. What a brilliant robbery scheme which actually was legal !!!
A member of my own family 'sold' one of these things to my Mother to be a 21st birthday gift to me. She made the payments on family visits and he pocketed the money !!!! A lot of that went on as the sales people figured out that the pension company would be responsible for their actions as they were only agents of the companies.
He got a commission too for starting it up. I was marked in the records as 'default' and that was that. Later it was decided that the plan must run for a year before agents got paid so they paid the premiums on bogus plans and then defaulted on them to get the big commission! In any case they would all be long gone when payment was demanded or non payment investigated. I was told that ex service persons made the best agents as they just obeyed and were used to taking orders from above. They could be told any rubbish which they regurgitated to their client. This made them look bad and not the company !!
I didn't sign up by the way !! I thought then as I do now that pension schemes were and are legalised robbery. I should say as a caveat that not all pension scheme operators are crooks but just look at the short fall in most company pension funds and then show me a few who are honest !! They are out there somewhere.
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