Teachers' Pensions Anmeldelser 

Some of the worst customer service I have experienced Amina (or ameena) was my mum’s call handler this morning

I work in customer Service answering calls myself with a good 10 years experience so I would like to think I have some sort of knowledge on what to expect

The agent spent the whole call talking over my mum and when they were paying attention (briefly) spent the rest of the conversation talking about the wrong thing entirely

Mum has had several conversations with teacher’s pensions about a very specific issue and every agent was helpful regrettably however this agent has left mum feeling gaslit and unsupported

Very bad customer service - do better!!

If I could give zero stars I certainly would. In my opinion the most difficult and unprofessional organisation I have ever had to deal with.

Multiple failings. Terrible Website, wrong information given by staff, pot luck on experience of staff, no replies to written communication, phone calls take average of 1 hour.

My Divorce final order granted in March 2026. I have phoned consistently twice a week since then, trying to solve the matter.
I have been sent incorrect forms, been asked for impertinent information, been given conflicting information multiple times, and am still no closer to adhering to the pension sharing order. There are no replies to written communications so only recourse is by phone. Each call takes n average 45 minutes to an hour.
Final straw has been told (only last week after 6 months of constant haranguing) that there is an embargo on invoicing, so TPS won’t enact the pension sharing order. There is no end date on this embargo I have been told so therefore to ‘call back every few weeks’, despite each call taking one hour on average.

Appalling service
Contacted teachers pension online via email and the on the site it says response will be in 10 days. However 16 after my contract I’m still waiting. I contacted them by phone and asked the same two questions. I was told that they are sending an email for someone to contact me and they will do so within 10 days. That makes it 26 days, almost one month and that is if they were to contact me at all. This is appalling service. Completely useless. I can’t understand why they are allowed to continue and get away with their poor service to the customers. They need to be regulated and sacked if no improvements. This is people’s lives here.

For the last 6 months I have been trying to get access to my Teachers Pension (TP) portal via writing to TP on two occasions and also ringing at least 3 times. The wait times have always been appalling. I have had no reply to the specific issues I have raised in my letters to Alyson Collingwood, Head of Operations. The last time I rang was on Friday 4 Sept 2026 and was on the phone for 50 mins before I spoke to a human being. I was told to access the multi-factor authentification, which I tried to set up but had a nightmare as various apps were charging me from £1.99 to £14.99. Why has it been so terribly frustrating to access my TP account? I regret taking out a pension with TP from 1995 to 2008 and now I can not get access to information on my pension.

For a professional body, this website is a total disgrace. It's impossible to login. Even when I reset my log in details and try the new password, pin etc it still won't let me in. I end up in a loop going backwards and forwards from password to pin. So frustrating. Words can't describe it. The people who run this scheme should be sacked.

Teachers Pensions have 'improved' security log in - so much so I can't log in anymore - now using MFA and authenticator - get message MFA passcode expired whatever codes I use - phoned - got cut off after 15 minutes - rang back - 20th in queue - now been waiting half an hour - also has to complain regarding transitional protection which after two years is still unavailable

This service is completely ineffective. The website and system are incredibly difficult to navigate and lack clarity. Long phone wait times are exacerbated by rude, incapable staff who seem to lack the understanding required to provide explanations. Instead, they simply issue confusing forms that are nearly impossible to complete. It’s a shame this pension service is mandatory; I would opt out in a heartbeat if given the choice.

Absolutely useless. Trying to set up my MFA access and it gives no clear instructions. This means I can't access information about my pension.
MY MONEY THAT I'VE WORKED FOR ALL MY TEACHING CAREER.
Abysmal service.

One of the worst experiences I have ever had! I am still waiting for a response to the letter that I sent them in JANUARY 2026 to sort out a request from JULY 2025 ! I have phoned many times and written. When I wrote, it took at least a month for a response and it was terse and unsympathetic. I complained TWICE in May 2026 that I was still waiting for a response to my January letter and they said that they could see that it hadn't been dealt with and they would "escalate it" but it would take 3 weeks at least. However, every time I rang, the response was "it can take 3 weeks or longer..." OK, try nearly 9 months! It is now nearly September 2026 and still absolutely no response. This was over the issue I wanted sorted the previous July 2025 and then suddenly I couldn't log in to my online account in July, after repeated efforts and failing security every time, despite a few years earlier logging in fine. TPQ: What is your TP number? Me: I don't know, I need to get into my TP account to look and then I can tell you. TP: You need it before you can pass security if you can't give me the correct answers to other questions. What month did you join TP? I can't remember. Endless tries to log in and going round in circles of passwords failing... I wanted to move my benefits to my new employer. I had to go to the department of Education to enable me to get my TP account number, to then be able to go back to TP and pass security and get back in online to my account. I did FINALLY get one really helpful person on the phone who helped me to get back online into my account and he was very patient and helpful.I feel the people answering the phone get the short straw, and I think it's the whole system that isn't fit for purpose. There is no co-ordination, no calls back and a ridiculous waiting time. ABSOLUTELY APPALLING AND UNACCEPTABLE.

Continually let down and cheated out of my entitlement.
I"m battling with cancer and the hospital have told me to avoid stress. Consequently, I can't persue this frustrating situation any longer.
How can anyone in authority allow this situation to continue?

Since I was unable to award zero stars, I have had to award one. Unfortunately TPs has let me down on every front, long call waiting times, unable to perform simple tasks. The familiar ‘I will raise a case,’ statement whichI have heard so many times it is ridiculous.
The icing on the cake was after waiting for 40 mins for my call to be answered, the handler said that he was talking to someone in the back to get it sorted for me and needed to put me on hold. He left me on hold for 46 minutes, then the li e was cut off.
I rang back the next day and was told that there were no notes regarding the previous afternoon’s call and that there was a back room staff - so a blatant lie. I raised a complaint, a day later a manager called and said that he had listened to the call and apologised. After 8 weeks my very simple problem is unresolved!

Impossible to get into touch with anybody. Website never loads so that you can complete forms and get your account data. Seems it’s on purpose …awful!

if I could I would give no stars at all. They are either not qualified to handle the info or totally inept at doing their jobs. I just cannot get a straight , clear answer to my query and their response is so confusing, it seems that they are just not bothered.

Teachers’ Pension sent a ‘Declaration’ form dated early July to be completed within the ‘next 7 working days’. This was not possible as the form arrived 3 weeks later! An attempt was made to complete the declaration via ‘My Pensions Online’ portal however a ‘Multi-factor authentication (MFA)’ had to be set up but despite several attempts to receive a ‘one-time passcode’ by text none came through. Apparently, it’s not possible to receive the passcode to a French mobile number! How are retired teachers, living in France, supposed to know this? There’s no online explanation to that effect or one on how to use the QR code. Consequently, pension suspended. After two telephone calls with very long waiting times and a letter sent by recorded delivery pension still not received despite being told it will be paid. No compensation for loss of income, wasted time and costs sorting out mistakes not of retired teachers making!

Has Kept me hanging on phone in past for up to 1 hour!!! And then no action!!!

Hopeless website and AI bot. Still waiting for CETV info even after months since paying the LARGE fee!

All i want is to talk to someone, not be challenged by AI bot that does not understand english or even keywords i.e. CETV ?

I filled in all my forms back in March this year ready for retirement in August. They say, when you fill the forms in, don’t contact us we will be in touch on your pension date. I took them at their word until the start of this month (August) when I thought I really should have received something. I messaged them - nothing! So I called and was told a secure message had been sent to me (coincidentally whilst I was on that call). The message sent apologised but the customer communications process had been way over the expected time frame. An error on a date id entered the form had been picked up but they had failed to contact me to ask me to fill in another form (the lump sum allowance form that is). So after all this time, they have done nothing. I sent another form special delivery which they received next day, but 3 days later they still haven’t scanned it to my account. The chances of me getting my pension on time are slim to zero. Do not listen to them when they say it’s all in hand- keep checking and keep chasing.

Teachers' Pensions ignoring all correspondence, payment six weeks later and counting

M
Just got to search for your details. Sorry our systems are running quite slow, so I'll try to be quick as I can for you.
[long pause]
Sorry, the system's taking a bit longer than normal. um so I can't even get your details open. Um what's the reason for your call? And while I'm leaving this to load, I'll see if I can help in general terms.

You
In general, this is interesting actually because I was speaking to M on Tuesday and the last thing he said to me was ‘the system just keeps freezing up’. The line’s dropped at your end.

M
Yeah.

You
What are you told to do in those circumstances? Are you told to ring the customer, to move on to the next customer and forget everything you've just been discussing or to deal actively with what the conversation is about? What's their actual procedure there? Because it feels like – this complaint has been going on for 6 weeks now – that nothing gets done.

M
Um if a call drops for any reason, we don't unfortunately do callbacks unless the query’s relating to a bereavement.

You
Right, so what happens to the things that have been discussed during the call? Do they get acted on or do you just forget about the whole conversation?

M
So unless anything was done, so we don't actually take any actions on a person's records, we, if anything, any sort of action needs taking, depending on what aspect it's relating to, we would raise, uh, a request with a relative team. So if a request has been logged with the relevant team before the system crashes, that relevant team would then deal with it in the background. But if nothing's been raised, then nothing would get done, unfortunately.

You
All right, this is great. I'm about to refer everything to the Pensions Ombudsman. I did email you on Monday morning so you had 48 hours to resolve all this. I gave you the good grace of speaking on Tuesday evening and saying, look, enough is enough now. What are you going to do about it? The call then dropped in that conversation. We did establish in that conversation that I should have been paid on the 4th of July. Two authorisation chases have since been raised and M said, “it seems as though nothing has happened”. So you're putting all these requests through. Your internal teams are completely ignoring them. And I think it's time for the Pension Ombudsman to come in and actually sort things out because it's an absolute disgrace. And all through this, I've been asking to speak to somebody who could actually help, and like you said, you just say, oh, we can only refer you. We can only put in requests. We can only do this and that. We won't actually let you speak to somebody who's dealing with it.

M
Yeah, unfortunately, these internal teams don't deal directly with people, they leave it to us, the people that can't actually do anything, unfortunately. So I can only apologise for the experience you've had so far.

You
Right. So we've got a complaint that went in on the 3rd of July. Not been not been dealt with. Everything that I've, every time I've contacted you, secure messages, emails, all been ignored, and you say this is just like standard procedure at the Teachers Pensions these days.

M
Yeah, so,

You
Wow.

M
essentially, the, the standards that are in place is all the work that gets carried out, regarding any aspect of a pension, is dealt with by background teams that don't unfortunately deal directly with the callers. um So when you phone up and you speak to advisors like myself or it was it M, you say, you spoke to the other day any advisor you speak to, we are, we are actually limited to what we can do in the sense that if something needs to be done, regarding a pension all we can do is log that with the relevant team, and we are then relying on them to do their job, and

You
Well, they're not doing their job.

M
Ahem.

You
They're not doing their job because they're ignoring their own, your statutory procedures for dealing with complaints and not responding within 10 days to contacts on the secure messages. They're not doing their job. I need to speak to somebody now who's actually going to sort this out, or it's going to be a Pensions Ombudsman’s thing, and they're going to come down on you like a ton of bricks. And deservedly so.

M
Yeah. Yeah, so in that case, you're, you would need take it to the Ombudsman then because there's no one you can speak to that will sort it out today.

I’ve been locked out of my online account. Nobody will answer the phone. New administrator recently taken over, tata, nuff said. Refuse to deal with formal complaint, totally ignore their own procedure. Just emailed my mp, with a bit of luck he’ll gee em up

Couldn’t log in because MFA passcode never arrived on my phone. Wasted my life and nothing achieved. Failed security questions on telephone but was not allowed to be told which one I had got wrong. Probably the one regarding “When did you start work?” All I could remember was Easter 1995. But was Easter April or March? Or perhaps I said a wrong number in my Teachers reference number. You only get one chance! So still not able to log in.