Aberdeen Reviews 184

I was with Standard life and was automatically transferred to ABDRN.
Stay away from this company. They are chaotic! disorganised and undertrained! They are woefully undertrained on what should be the basics.
You will waste your energy trying to teach their staff their job.
*DO NOT* bother writing a complaint letter, just do not waste your time and efforts, the complaints team will just palm you off. No investigation whatsoever. Trustpilot will not allow me to name the complaint handler.
After reading the reviews from others, I was at least reassured that I am not alone

I am a solicitor and have been trying to help my ex-sister-in-law deal with her father's estate. This company is not fit to deal with anybody's money, as far as i am concerned. Instead of receiving probate and sending a cheque with the payee as "the administrators or the estate of J F "$£*, they have come up with all manor of excuses and reasons for asking for more information. I would never trust my money with this firm.

Sends personal information to the wrong person, state they will continue to after being informed, refuse to look into it and refuse a deadlock letter is fundamentally wrong.
Want to trust your money to a firm that flouts data protection? use this lot then

Update (to their reply) -
Just the stock reply sent to your many unhappy customers. So you have “reached out” for information you already have when you dismissed my request to stop sending someone else’s private data.

Nearly two months ago I closed my OEIC investment account with abrdn, but they have yet to return my funds. Initially I did not have a bank account attached to my investment account, so abrdn requested that I send proof of address and a bank statement, via post, which I promptly provided. Despite submitting all the required details, sending my personal details via post (which seems an outdated and unsafe method of communication), and passing every single security check, my funds have not yet been returned. In my attempts to get my money back, I have phoned abrdn on 7 separate occasions, only to be put on hold and hung up on 4-5 times. I have sent multiple secure messages to them, and not received a single reply. More recently abrdn decided to “resolve” my online enquiries without any form of communication with me. On one occasion, a customer service representative informed me they would not accept a printed copy of my bank statement as proof of address (?!), which seems very strange and unreasonable, since they asked me to sent it via post originally.

I have provided everything they need to return my funds. I am quite honestly appalled by their customer service, and antiquated systems and processes which clearly put customers’ personal identifiable information at risk. I hope others think twice before investing with abrdn!

If you need money for Christmas, start withdrawing it from abrdn in mid-summer. It takes forever to get your funds settled and money transferred out. The slowest financial institution since the Middle Ages.

From day one, they have been the worst financial company I have ever been involved with.
They make terrible investment decisions..active overlay fund was so bad I believe they have shut it down(?)
They put wrong prices of their funds on their own website.
I am currently trying to withdraw all my SIPP to invest in a different place and despite my funds being sat in cash and being given numerous dates for the transfer, still nothing has happened.
Whatever commission they are paying advisors to put business their way, it ain't enough as they are destroying the advisors credibility as well as their own.
Please, please, please DO NOT give these inept clowns any of your money...you'll regret it

Update.
Eventually received a reply from Kevin.
IMO, it's a word salad, full of bluff and bluster and ...I believe.. incorrect information.
I've asked for clarification and and currently waiting for a reply.
So glad I've moved my money away from tis utter shambolic company

23 years ago I invested a lump sum with Aberdeen (Mid Cap Equity Fund Acc) following the birth of my granddaughter, and the next year I invested a similar lump sum with the same fund on the birth of my grandson. I was shown as the account holder and my grandchildren were named as the designated beneficiaries. Notwithstanding the fact I had regular reports from ABRDN telling me inter alia how proud they were of their service, from approximately 2018 both investments diminished in value. Over the years I have tried to obtain an explanation for this from ABRDN but could find no-one knowledgeable enough, or interested enough, to help me.

In April this year I endeavoured to arrange for my granddaughter's investment to be transferred into her name so that she could thereafter encash this. This process was as frustrating as it was tedious. To do this one has to contact ABRDN's communication centre in Chelmsford who, from the outset, take a hostile approach and are seemingly suspicious of one's motives. They seemed entirely to forget that I was the customer and that it was my money I wished to discuss. They assume that you are fully aware of their forms and procedures and delight in talking to you in acronyms and internal jargon. They do not write their own letters and so when you receive correspondence from them the letter they send is unattributable and in most cases fails to address the issues raised. In my case, they also got several facts wrong, so I made a formal complaint.

Two Complaints Investigation Officers dealt (separately) with me and each sent details of the Financial Ombudsman Service with their letters. Perhaps unfairly, I always view this as more of a threat than a benefit, particularly when we have yet to discuss the issues raised. One of the Investigation Officers wrote me a six page letter which was barely intelligible in that it appeared to contain mostly chunks of information which were lifted from other documents.

The first application I made for the transfer of the investment to my granddaughter was dated 8th May 2024. This was rejected by ABRDN with a covering letter which was largely unintelligible and totally unattributable. Hence, after numerous further calls to the Communications Centre, we repeated this application at the end of June. At the same time my granddaughter applied for the investment to be encashed and the funds transferred to her bank account.

Since then ABRDN has sent her several letters which she does not understand and, more particularly, they have said they cannot do this until they have received from her a certified copy of her ID. This represents further cost and inconvenience for my granddaughter and I resent this. The saga continues.............

I have awarded ABRDN a single star. Had there been a lower marking I would have chosen that. ABRDN has held my money for 23 years and I am appalled by their arrogance and inefficiency.

Heard about this company as I was doing a research on where best to invest. Contacted few people online and heard and read various negative stories about incompetence of staff; both new and long standing including their very management and HR (the only team that got praised was IT). I'm happy I've done my research and will be investing with one of their competitors

I have been a customer of abrdn, Initially Aberdeen Investments, for some 2 decades.
I needed to get my ISA investment realised urgently for a retirement home deposit - what a fiasco and 19 days later I am still waiting....
When I asked they told me they couldn't access my account because the address was wrong. BUT they were writing to me at that address!
I made a formal complaint - written out fully and with supporting details and proof. No reply. Then hours of zero progress on the phone and no reply or even acknowledgement of follow up emails.
Learned that abrdn Customer Services is actually outsourced to SS&C and that company resisted every demand to be given a contact at abrdn proper.
After 2 weeks of non stop angst, I was contacted and told (by SS&C) that abrdn acknowledged that the fault was entirely theirs and that I would receive a letter of apology and compensation. But, guess what, they were unable to transfer the funds to me because they could not verify my account! The same account from where the original investment came and the details of which I confirmed to them!
At wits end, I suggest they just send me a cheque. Apparently, senior management have to approve that and, guess what, I AM STILL WAITING 19 DAYS ON.
Indescribably incompetent organization which I will never have any further dealings with when this matter is terminated. But I will pursue through the Ombudsman who's staff have already kindly advised me on this event.

I was looked after by an Independent Financial Adviser that was bought by Standard Life and after various silly name changes became abrdn. A previously very good company was destroyed by a series of stupid mistakes by abrdn management, to the point last year where my adviser as well as many others all left, and the local office was closed. If I stayed I would have to have a telephone only adviser! Safe to say I left!

Trying to transfer a SIPP out of Aberdeen Standard Life. Worst financial company I have ever EVER!! dealt with. 3 months so far and still no where closer to getting my money out. They take the fees and provide excuses and every timer the truth they quote is found false the clock starts again from zero. STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!! Called today the 24th to check that the information I was given Thursday 20th, that all was in order was correct, to find it wasn't. So another delay and the clock starts back at zero. A good business practise that if the wrong information is provided the client is the one penalised. Nothing ever late as the back office resets the clock and manipulates their performance. Raised a complaint last week, asked for escalation waited the 48 hours for the response promised. No response on the complaint.

When this company was Standard Life my investments were worth many many times more than at todays values.
An excellent company destroyed by people who think abrdn is a smart modern concept, it is not, it is as daft as the people who gave the work to a kindergarten group to come up with the daftest name possible.
The decisions made by the board demonstrate to me their complete lack of knowledge or business ability.
No wonder the public has taken so many billions of their money out of this company, now I wish I had done so many years ago.
I have just been sent an insulting offer to buy my shares at a silly valueless amount. Does the board not see how the company has been destroyed?

As the executor on my mother's estate I had to deal with a number of financial companies including banks, pensions and investment companies.

Every one of them, except Abrdn, dealt with the winding up of investments in a professional way. No hassle just had to provide death certificate and notorised will from our lawyer for transfer of funds

Abrdn were an exception to the rule - only company that demanded that we wait until the estate was confirmed through the courts, wouldn't accept an e mailed copy from the lawyer had to be hard copy which delayed the winding up of investments again as the originals were with Law Society

Once everything sent to them letters saying bank details were incorrect so they couldn't transfer money - bank details were correct!!

They really need to look at how they deal with bereavement cases - they fail miserably under the FCA Consumer Duty on how they handle winding up of estates.

Very very poor customer service and service in general. We moved all our ISA’s out from them due to lack of service. 0/10.

Tried annually to finalise monies with this unwanted service holding a small amount of money and my information - SO PAINFULL
Thanks for email your website is slow, unresponsive and a painful at best unable to sell shares and be done with your service hope you are on trust pilot because advised telephone contact is no better - l have decided the small monies you have can be your accounting hindrance l ll just ignore the annual emails.

Actually getting them to do anything is like getting blood from a stone. My account transfer started in August 2022 and I'm trying to get them to do the final clearing up, which should have been done automatically. My advice on moving from this motley crew is never join them in the first place.

We have used Standard Life, latterly Abrdn for years as a firm of Financial Planners Their service over the last two years has been a steady decline into an abyss, which I fear they will not recover from. I find it hard to justify using Standard Life/ Abrdn any longer as our staff spend many hours hanging on the telephone to get basic information from them to be able to our job for our clients.

I requested pension drawdown on 2nd April. Received ack from Standard Life on 17 April. Process normally takes 7-10 days. Rang on 2 May, told advisor had only submitted request on 1 May which I don't believe. Then told it would take 16 working days to process (that's over 3 weeks) to do a simple cash transfer, Not good enough.

Financial advisor has cashed in bonds, but Standard Life seem incapable of uploading new bank details for a Trust bank account so the funds can be paid. Failed to respond to a complaint from the financial advisor, so I called as owner of the account and was totally misdirected. Still no sign of funds and an anticipated house move might have to be aborted, currently in the conveyancing process. Heartbreaking and unnecessary due to constant delays and incompetence.