Cornmarket: Service and recourse to Ombudsman

Westbound

Registered User
Messages
81
Hi

My wife went with Cornmarket - in restrospect it seems an expensive mistake as we have had no value for the €800 odd euros paid. We thought it would be worth as they said they were sorting out her back years. However, 3 years down the line we have not heard about this, the lfirst and last thing was a 2 hour consultation with the consultant who never sent us any of the information requested.

Has anyone else any experience of this, as I will be asking for the fee to be refunded to the execution only level. What are my chances, even if I threaten to contact the Ombudsman?

I work in the industry and the levels of fees here are quite astonishing espcially when you consider that 12,000 nurses are paying. Everyone seems to be dipping their hand into this pork barrel. For example, the Irish Life investment only Consensus fund has no bid offer spread. I cannot see why Cornmarket are offering an insured product for this scheme, where a scheme of this size would have a hell of alot of leverage re charges on an investment only basis and a different administrator? That's just for starters....
 
Re: AVC:husband Local Authority with Marsh: wife nurse with Cornmarket; charges etc?

I doubt Cornmarket would be able to handle the legal & administrative work involved in running a self-admin scheme (my opinion is purely based on the astonishingly bad service they seem to be providing according to comments on this website)...and why would they bother when they seem to have such a lucrative arrangement in place and are getting away with it.
 
Its up to the health board to sort out buying back your years. Contact the superannuation dept and see at what stage they are at. It not unusual for it to take up to three years as its now compulsory for anyone in a permanent position to buy back any training and temporary health board years, and thus there is a huge backlog.

If 12,000 nurses already have AVCs then obviously Cornmarket are doing quite a good job. When you look at the big picture I personally don't think this is an unreasonable amount to pay. A cornmarket consultant came out to my sister at 8pm in the evening as it was the only time that suited her with her children etc. Don't think many brokers would have done this.

Also, did you get tax relief on the fee? If it was paid out of salary than you would. If you went to a fee based broker they could charge up to 400 with no tax relief, which is the same thing, but they wouldn't have the expertise thats required with Nurses superann rules.

And I work in the industry too, and have looked into targeting public sector employee with the clarification of the PRSA AVC situation, but the amount of knowledge in relation to the rules and regulations of superann for each individual sector is vast.

I know a lot of people will disagree with me re the comments on the site but I would personally rather pay the fee and be safe in the knowlege that my long term investment was being looked after by specialists in their field.
 
Also, did you get tax relief on the fee? If it was paid out of salary than you would. If you went to a fee based broker they could charge up to 400 with no tax relief, which is the same thing, but they wouldn't have the expertise thats required with Nurses superann rules.

And I work in the industry too, and have looked into targeting public sector employee with the clarification of the PRSA AVC situation, but the amount of knowledge in relation to the rules and regulations of superann for each individual sector is vast.

I know a lot of people will disagree with me re the comments on the site but I would personally rather pay the fee and be safe in the knowlege that my long term investment was being looked after by specialists in their field.

  1. The fee is not charged separately - it is taken from the person's fund so there is no additional tax relief other than the fact that it is coming out of the pension fund, I have never heard this made out like it is a good thing usually people dislike hidden fees!
  2. The knowledge required to set-up a Defind Contribution AVC arrangement for someone is standard pension consultant knowledge, it is certainly not nuclear physics.
 
"usually people dislike hidden fees!"
Who said the fee was hidden? Just because it comes out of the contributions this does not mean it is 'hidden'.

And I'll stand by my point that if the fee is paid from contributions out of salary you get tax relief. 400e net upfront is exactly the same as paying 800 out of the fund. (Either way you look at it your down 400 net)
"Standard pension consultant knowledge, it is certainly not nuclear physics."
Sorry mate, like i said I've looked into this and it certainly is NOT 'standard pension consultant knowledge' as you describe. I know a lot of brokerages who have steered clear of this area because of the expertise required. If it was that simple everyone would be doing it - and that simply is not the case. (Which is pretty clear if Conrmarket already have 12,000 nurses with AVC's)
 
  • Any fee that is not invoiced separately and comes as a percentage of someone's contribution is not transparent and is not fair
  • The fee comes out of their fund, they do not get tax relief on it they get tax relief on their pension contribution ONLY
  • It is standard pension consultant knowledge - it may be beyond the brokers that you deal with
 
  • Any fee that is not invoiced separately and comes as a percentage of someone's contribution is not transparent and is not fair
  • The fee comes out of their fund, they do not get tax relief on it they get tax relief on their pension contribution ONLY
  • It is standard pension consultant knowledge - it may be beyond the brokers that you deal with

the fee is clearly outlined in there TOB and this is signed dated and left with the customer
the fee is deducted in the first year as a top line deduction so how do they not get tax and prsi relief?
standard pension knowledge? you will be hard pressed to find many brokers that would be able to advise a teacher/nurse correctly on the workings of their superann/avcs etc
 
mula - do you work for Cornmarket in any way ?

*If* you have a vested interest, then the posting guidelines require you to declare the interest.

z
 
the fee is clearly outlined in there TOB and this is signed dated and left with the customer
the fee is deducted in the first year as a top line deduction so how do they not get tax and prsi relief?
standard pension knowledge? you will be hard pressed to find many brokers that would be able to advise a teacher/nurse correctly on the workings of their superann/avcs etc

  1. They are losing the tax relief they would get on their pension contribution so (because the contribution is being eaten up by charges), you can't have it both ways.
  2. I said a pension consultant (someone that operates on a fee basis, not commissions like Cornmarket brokers) - all of the consultants that I know (including me) would know all about teacher/nurse pension schemes, and AVCs are the same for all schemes when paid on a defined contribution basis.
 
Back
Top