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I was a Citibank employee for 21 years and last January I had to go on disability due to degenerative disc disease. I currently have my daughter living with me due to anxiety problems, my 2 grandchildren. Also living with me I have a younger daughter in college and my wife, who has been unemployed for over a year. In an attempt to save my home from foreclosure I decided to retire and take my pension in lump sum.
I contacted Hewitt Associates in December ‘09 and informed them that I wish to retire. They informed me that as long as the paper work was completed and received back by 1/05/10 I would have my funds on 2/01/10. I was told an advocate would contact me to assist.
Well the advocate called twice and left a message both times but not a contact number. When I called the 1-800-connect1 number I was told by the customer service folks at Hewitt that they were not permitted to switch calls to the advocates or give out their phone number. The customer service reps, including the manager attempted to assist and we set everything up so that I would receive the funds on 2/01/10. I then made an arrangement with my mortgage holder to pay a certain amount on 2/01/10 towards my mortgage and then they would modify.
When the mail came on 2/01/10 there was no check. I contacted Hewitt and they agreed I should have received the funds but the system did not generate them. I was told that an inquiry would be entered and I would be updated in about 5 business days, because they marked it “URGENT”. I requested to speak to i, the manager, and after being on hold for about 15 minutes the same customer rep just picked up the phone and reiterated that it would take 5 business days for an update. I requested to talk to the AVP in charge of the section and was told that they are not permitted to give that information out.
Although the customer reps were polite and attentive the point was not getting across. I needed the funds on 2/01/10. They agree the funds should have been allocated. I called 2/02/10 to get an update and was told that the inquiry has not even been worked on at this time. I guess the POINT was still not coming across.
After contacting the CEO of Hewitt and speaking with his assistant I was contacted by one of their Orlando office investigators. She told me she would take care of the matter. About 3 hours later she contacted me and stated that they never got the release from Citicorp needed to release the funds. She contacted Citicorp human resources to see if they could rush this to them and they said they would not. They could not give me a name of the person, just Citicorp HR. They could not give me a reason.
These are my funds, my pension. I am now being told I have to wait until 3/01/10 even though it was Hewitt Associates mistake. And what happens if I don’t receive the funds on 2/01/10. Do I start this all over again?
The check I provided to my mortgage company bounced yesterday. I can only think the foreclosure will now be filled.
I would advise anyone with a pension, or 401k, in Hewitt Associates to get their money out, if you can. And I would not trust in a company such as Citibank who would use such a company as Hewitt for their employees.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
I have a complaint against Hewitt as well. We were approved for tuition reimbursement, were even told a deposit date. When the deposit date came and went, we called and were assured it would be deposited the following paycheck. They CHANGED the dates in the computer system after I called and complained when we didn't receive the original deposit. THEN they changed the original wording of the benefit so we didn't qualify, called us and said OOPS we made a mistake you are denied. They CHANGED the wording of the benefit because they made mistakes on the original approval requirements, approved us, and then when we filed for the rest of the benefit they noticed their original mistakes. NOW the computer system is saying we need to pay them back for something we never received. This company is so shady with how they do business. I talked to the "customer service manager" Allie and she claimed there was no one else I could speak to about anything. Seriously? I am not going to let this happen to anyone else. I have all kinds of screen prints and I will be pursuing whatever actions I can with whoever I can, starting by contacting the labor board. Look into the complaints about this company because there are many!
Hewitt, or I guess any other company like theirs, does not take responsibility for their errors.
After having 5, yes 5, payments for Cobra withdrawn from our account within 3 weeks the calls began to Hewitt. I say began because there really is no end. They stated Yes, they made a mistake. And No, they have no plans to correct. Call after call, pretty much the same thing. Katy, Blair and Diane, all are incredibly well trained (or appear to be trained) at passing the buck. Blair promises a call by such and such date to have a remedy for the issue. Yep, you guessed it, not call. A day later, call in again. Same schpeel. Promised Blair would call Thursday. Nope. Call in Friday, informed nothing they could do. Asked to be transferred to Blair...said I would keep calling back until they transferred me so they might as well get it over with. Spoke to Blair. "Oh yes I see I was supposed to call you back on Tuesday, oh and look Thursday too. What can I help you with? That's a good one, will put that in my back pocket to use in the future. Still nothing, same thing. Said he just emailed the person who can make the right decisions, and should hear back from them sometime hopefully early next week. That maybe then they would have an answer. Wow. Mind you, this has been going on since July of this year. It's now Oct 24, 2014 Think I'm getting anywhere?
And yes, I would be happy to join the lawsuit. I have the correspondence and other materials that could prove to be handy. They shouldn't be allowed to do this to anyone else. And if we don't do something about it, we are just as responsible as they are passing the buck.
Well Mr Smartfell...there have been many pension plans that have go south, but it's always due to bad management. Positive I've never heard of a financial institution failing because of bad investors. Matter O'fact...sound like you might be one of those two-faced, back stabbing, lying, cheating ### parasites that's the money of hard working people and then skips off leaving the tax payer with the bill. We have way to much of this type crime, and I think it's time to jail them and take all their possessions...property, investments, cash and sell the stuff to pay for the hurt and harm done to others, then if they are ever released from prison they are not allowed to hold any position in banking, investing, insurance or finance of any kind. How old are you...18?
Mredfield - Your father's pension plan is what is called a "NON contibutory" pension plan. This means your father did not contribute a single penny towards his pension. This was all funded by the company he worked for and he earned it according to a formula based off of mortality, years of service, and salary. Your father left the pension to a beneficiary, in this case your mother. When your mother died then pension stops there. You or anyone else are not entitled to a single penny. You continued to spend money and collect on a pension plan that was never designed to be paid to you. You're a liar and dishonest and the company will get their money back eventually. It's ignorant ### artists like yourself that screw companies into the ground and ruin the pension system to the point where it's almost non existant.
Similar complaint here... again Hewitt Associates. These people are incompetent beyond belief and what is more, they don't even care to excuse their incompetence. My situation concerns a death benefit. My father was employed by Remington Rand for 30 years, which ultimately became Sperry Rand and then Unisys Corp. He died in 1990 and my mother began collecting pension benefits on monthly installments. 19 years later, in Oct 2009, she passed away and I notified Hewitt (the Unisys benefits administrator) immediately. I filed a claim for any remaining pension benefits. That was the beginning of a LONG and extremely frustrating process...and to this day---18 months later---I have received NO information about what funds are left in the pension and NO resolution...only the standard "this is being researched, we will notify you in 5 business days". I have spoken to any number of "customer service representatives' and even the supervisor, and continue to get the same runaround. I finally gave up and filed a complaint with the FTC. Four months since I filed the complaint and guess what?! Yesterday I got a letter from Hewitt requesting refund of an "overpayment made after her death" of nearly $6000. You have got to be kidding me! I have received exactly NOTHING from these people, they cannot even respond to the question of what is taking so long...and now they want ME to send THEM money!? Holy crap! I would almost find this funny except that it is the only loose end from my mother's death and I can't get closure until this is wrapped up. So now I will be following up on my FTC complaint to notify them of this amazingly ridiculous development. The kicker is, whatever pension money is left is probably almost nothing; but now I am FURIOUS and have decided I am going to pursue this with litigation, whatever it takes, to hold these people accountable for their blatant lying and incompetence. If either of you are interested in bringing a class action lawsuit against Hewitt, let me know because I do intend to pursue this. I am sorry for both of you, and believe everything you said because I have spoken to these same people numerous times and had the same inaction/excuses all the way down the line.
I will let you know how an outsourcing company works. The administrator makes a contract with Citibank, Citibank makes all decisions regarding how to proceed with funds, timing, etc. The employer makes ALL the decisions. In your situation, you reach out to the highest authority the CEO office, and they event try to work an agreement with Citibank to verify if they can resolved the problem, and if Citibank decided not to release the funds, there is nothing the administrator can do. Keep in mind the administrator always gets paid to get the blame.
We are facing very similar problems. My husband worked for Verizon for 42 years. For health reasons, he retired on June 1, 2010. Verizon out-sourced their HR department to Hewitt resources. We began the retirement process OK and had set up our health care options, auto debit for our portion of healthcare costs, and rollover of lump-sum pension. We thought things were all set up (according to Hewitt) by June 1. We were to receive the lump sum pension on July 1, 2010. Well, on June 11, I logged onto the Hewitt site and saw that I had been dropped from the Medical coverage. Going further into the site, I found that my husband was listed as being rehired on June 4 (he was not), as being single (he is not), and as being a smoker (he is not). We immediately called Hewitt (by immediately, I mean being on hold for about 3 hours). They said they would straighten it out. When we asked who was responsible for my husband being listed as "rehired", they said it was Verizon HR. We asked for the number for Verizon HR. They responded that they could not give us one. We also called every number we could find for Verizon anywhere. I do not believe Verizon HR exists. At this point, I had no health insurance and my husband had higher rates because of the "smoker" listing.
After a little over a week they called and said they had straightened out and that I was covered. In the meantime, we had never received the paperwork needed for the lump sum pension rollover, so we didn't get it in time to arrange for our promised July 1 rollover. We finally did get the paperwork filed and did get our pension rollover (Aug 1). In the process we lost a month's interest on the pension and the pension was reduced because my husband was a month older. We also had to live off of our savings during this time. Fortunately, we had savings!
When my husband talked to a Hewitt supervisor in June, she told him they didn't have the manpower to deal with the pension problem. She he was lucky because there were people in worse shape (about to lose their homes etc.) That sure takes the "human" out of human resources, doesn't it?
Now by June 21, I did show up as being covered by health insurance (on the Hewitt site). Not trusting them anymore, I called Blue Cross/Blue Shield and found that, in fact, I was not covered. They had not received anything from Hewitt since they dropped my coverage (June 4). Blue Cross was very helpful and told me I would be reinstated the moment they heard from Hewitt. So began lots more calls to Hewitt and lots more hours on hold. Finally, by July (after an entire month of no insurance) I was again insured. We set up auto-debit for our portion of healthcare costs and it came out on July 1, as expected. Finally, with a great sigh of relief, I thought we were done.
On August 4 I was reviewing our Credit Union statement and noticed that our payment was not taken out on August 1, as it should have been. I went on the Hewitt site and nothing appeared to be wrong. Looking further into the site, I found that on Oct 1, my husband would not have the supplemental insurance (he turns 65 in Sept.) That we had signed up for in June. So once again we had another fun (on hold) to Hewitt. This time, they blamed our Credit Union (or us), claiming our financial institution probably rejected the auto-debit. I asked to speak to a supervisor and, while I was in on-hold purgatory, my husband called the Credit Union (on the cell phone) and confirmed that they had not rejected anything. They had received no payment request. When I was finally connected to a supervisor, she tried the blame it on our financial institution gambit, which I immediately shot down. Then she switched the blame to Wachovia Bank (to whom they outsource the auto-debit stuff). I asked for a number for Wachovia, so I could straighten it out with them. Surprise, surprise, she couldn’t give me that number either. We are waiting now for the resolution to the auto-debit problem and awaiting the paperwork to get my husband's supplemental insurance. I intend to double and triple check every action that Hewitt is taking. I would like to find a way to notify other unfortunate people who have to work with this company that they cannot be trusted to be even moderately competent