Abbey Wealth Reviews 964

Communication now appalling. Changing of fees without notification

Like numerous other reviewers of this company I'd prefer to give zero stars, but one is the minimum.
I've been with Abbey (as an expatriate pensioner) for some 10 and a 1/2 years and for the first 10 years all was fine. I'm relatively undemanding of my investments, never requiring or expecting them to surge or plummet. I've always paid the fees, as required, and taken my lump sum in January. The past six months however have been a complete disaster; I moved my pension funds, through my then advisor, into a different kind of account - which should not be able to fall - and their value promptly fell by some hundreds of pounds some weeks later.
Ever since I've been trying to contact either my new adviser or the head of investor services, neither of whom are taking my calls not answering my email messages. I've had no pension payment this year, which means that for 10 or so weeks I've been surviving on the dregs of last year's funds. They blame it on the company holding the pension fund, which I'll review elsewhere, but their story is inconsistent. Sometimes I'm told that they didn't realise I needed a lump sum payment this year, sometimes the forms are with the other company and they're awaiting action...which is it? I can't get access to my money except through Abbey and they are signally failing in their duty of care. Just RUBBISH! As well as not giving me access to essential pension funds, my "cash" account from which the pension company abstracts fees has been overdrawn for 3-4 months. I'm informed at the same time as Abbey is/are. I send messages to Abbey asking them to make the necessary arrangements, and NOTHING keeps happening.
I understand that this company has been relatively recently bought by another, and that's maybe why their service has gone down the toilet. I don't really care, and there is in any event no excuse for their putting me in a position where I'd even consider a move such as posting this dreadful review.

AWM are an appalling company. They do not keep appointments, they don't return calls. They have taken huge fees for giving no service whatsoever. Now, they have effectively blocked me from my own pension fund by asking me to pay a fee of £250 in advance to make any withdrawal. I have had my pension with this company for nearly 5 years, and this is only the 4th time I have requested a withdrawal, hardly been pestering them non-stop!! Steer well clear of the total incompetence of this company.

Nothing to say, is pretty much the Dublin attitude, no service whatsoever

Hi, I just hope someone finds this useful and does not need to go through the same experience as I did.

In 2021 I transferred my UK pension in to the care of Abbey Wealth Management. Within a few months, my portfolio significantly lost value. My advisor showed little on no proactive management and then disappeared entirely, no word, no email, just gone. I was eventually informed my advisor had left Abbey and I was assigned a new one. I was never able to get in touch with the new advisor and after months of trying I eventually started the official complaints process at Abbey Wealth. As their final offer they proposed me a small rebate on part of the fees that they had collected. I refused.

Looking through the TrustPilot reviews I saw than many people were experiencing the same lack of service. I became interested in the back story and it turned out to be, well, very interesting.

After a bit of digging I found out that the CEO of AWM had founded PLU Financial (UK) in March 2023. At that same time three senior AWM employees/financial advisers left AWM to staff PLU Financial (UK). In Feb 2024, those same three advisors incorporated incorporated a separate entity, PLU Group Holdings (UK) but continued to do business under the trade name (PLU financial). i.e. the same trading name, web page, logo and employees but a different company number.

Subsequently, I found that my advisor (Mark Smith) left AWM for PLU in March 2024.

Whilst digging I counted that at least 10 AWM employees (senior managers, advisors and clerical) had moved to the new entity (four in 2023 and six in 2024).

Mark Smith and others now claim 5-star performance on the Trust Pilot page at PLU with customers which clearly date from their employment at AWM.

Meanwhile the customer service at AWM deteriorated to the point of non-existence, as witnessed by my own experience and witnessed through one-star Trust Pilot reviews of fellow customers.

I draw attention to the 36 five-star reviews for AWM in December 2024. This is, well, how can we put it, statisically improbable given the history of reviews before and after.

I invite you to reflect on the following:

Have you ever wondered how financial advisors can consistently beat the market?

Do you think the ex AWM employees would have left AWM for PLU if the company had not been set up by the senior management of AWM?

Do you think customers at AWM would have received better service and advice if the employees had not left en-masse?

Can reviews be accepted at face value? May I suggest verifying the profile of any reviewer, if it’s their only review...

I don’t want to make any accusations but I encourage you to do some research.

I took my complaint to the FSPO (financial ombudsman in Ireland) and went through the mediation process. It was a complete waste of time. I enquired about putting my case through the ‘formal’ FSPO process. I was informed this would take more than 4 years for a decision.

In short, my attempt at getting the FSPO to do what I thought was their job came to nothing. I tried. To no avail.

Thus, from bitter experience, I urge anyone considering using a financial services company, especially one not covered by your home country’s consumer protection laws, to reflect very carefully.

PLU financial UK company number: 14757268
PLU Group UK company number: 15489465
All of my observations can be verified by cross-checking AWM and PLU trust Pilot pages with published Linkedin profiles.
I hope you found this useful.

I have put one but a minus would have been more appropriate. Where do I start. 17 years ago I put my pension fund with Abbey. The service was good and my fund did reasonably well. Then buyout happened and Abbey has litteraly gone down the toilet. Advisors came and went so no chance to have any confidence in them. They have two advisors both work from home and the phone is never answered. Victor France the CEO obviously isn't interested. My fund is now too small to be of interest to them or anybody else for that matter. Vesper France my supposed advisor doesn't respond to emails. How rude is that? They had an office in Málaga which is now closed but is still on their web site. I think their Dublin office is closed as well. Do not give these people your business there are plenty of advisors around.

They were ok years back. Since sometime in 2024 they´re no longer authorised to provide financial advise services.... but they pretend they still do... hence they´ve become a SCAM.

What a horrible experience I am having with Abbey Wealth. I was transferred to them after Pennick Blackwell (another bag of Worms) in Spain gave them their book of pension clients after Brexit. Since then my reliable AW advisor left the company, and I have not had a meeting in over two years. The advisor doesn't turn up for meetings and no apology or new appointment offered. I am becoming so frustrated. I have an email with a forecast of what my pension should be worth from Pennick Blackwell and unfortunately the profits have been eaten up by large fees, so I am nowhere near the forecast. I feel I have been totally misled. Since no-one contacts me and giving me no customers service, I will have to take advise from the FSCA or equivalent.

What started out as a great experience 8 years ago, has turned into a complete mess.
Very very slow response time when we want to sell our assets.
I never moan or post, but I would not recommend them at all.

Since when is the Head of Marketing of Abbey Wealth (Phill Pennick) allowed to write reviews about the Abbey Wealth performance? (see bellow)

Bonus question, is Phill Pennick the same Phill Pennick mentioned in the post from pension-life.com from 2019?:

"Another prolific CWM scammer was Phill Pennick. He, like all his colleagues at the unregulated Continental Wealth Management firm on the Costa Blanca, conned hundreds of victims into having their pensions and life savings placed into illegally-sold insurance bonds by OMI, SEB and Generali, and then invested in toxic structured notes provided by Royal Bank of Canada, Commerzbank, Nomura and Leonteq. Victims lost up to 100% of their funds while Pennick and the rest of Kirby’s team of scammers earned fat, concealed commissions from the insurance bonds and structured notes.

Pennick went on to set up his own “IFA” practice – Pennick Blackwell – at two office addresses on the Costa Blanca: Albir and La Nucia. Former mortgage broker Pennick – and his associate Kristoffer Taft (former barman with no qualifications) proceeded to scam more victims and openly commit criminal offences by selling insurance bonds illegally in contravention of the Spanish insurance regulations. In the past few days, the Albir Pennick Blackwell office has closed down and been emptied of all furniture and light bulbs. It is not known whether Pennick (who had also been running an estate agency and a mis-sold mortgage claims management company) is now on the run or whether he has simply done a “phoenix” somewhere else. Certainly, the public should be wary and report any sightings of this serial scammer."

On the request from pension life, I am reporting sighting of this serial scammer!

Over 80% 5stars shows the quality with in .

Sincerely, this is not a genuine firm to invest with. I had my withdrawal pending for months and till date nothing had been done to resolve the problem. I sent numerous messages to their support and to no avail. I opted for PAIVA and my payouts has been consistent.

Just had my yearly review with Vespa, she was very knowledgeable and Informative. She had taken the time to make sure she knew about me, my case and my history with the company. Gave brilliant advice and was generally really reassuring and a pleasure to deal with. Highly recommend Abbey Wealth and Vespa in particular.

I worked for the organisation - its not in a great place.

When I started there were 15 advisers, lots of admin and well structured management team but in the last few years its been a gradual decline in operational function that has led to Advisers leaving, clients receiving poor service levels, the management becoming more desperate and this has led to a succession of poor strategic decisions. They currently have just 3 advisers left across the global business, are having to set up new licences due to departing their previous jurisdictions, they have too few staff for the number of clients that they have and they are trying to increase fees and charges to clients to capture revenue.

It really is in a difficult situation, I feel sorry for any clients or staff remaining in the business.

We have been trying for over 6 months to get to the bottom of the reason a large amount was withheld from a recent withdrawal. They have had three changes of advisor in this time, and now the telephone lines have been cut off.

This is not a company to do business with.

Received data disclosure from a request made in April 2024 on 29 July 2025 but I believe some information has been deliberately withheld. Meeting convened with Head of Compliance to discuss outstanding issues. Told the online meeting would be recorded and shared immediately after the meeting. There was an agenda. Was told that I had been given the wrong contract to sign. The contract was for a company that was dissolved three to four years before I was given it to sign. I have asked for a written explanation of the legal consequences of such a blunder, but none have been forthcoming. I was told to instruct a lawyer. Recording was mysteriously cut short and then not shared at all. I was sent a very poor transcript that looks as if it has been computer generated and has been materially and manually amended with large chunks of text being cut or altered. I have complained. I was subsequently told the recording will not be sent out because I have put adverse reviews on Trust Pilot. I believe this organisation and most of the many people I have dealt with are manifestly incompetent and I have irrebuttable evidence of employee dishonesty. It seems I am not alone in my dissatisfaction of this organisation which is publicly claiming on its website and downloadable brochures to be everything that it it is not. Engage with it at your own risk.

Appailing service. They clearly have a staffing issue. My financial advisor changed 5 times in 3 years as they just kept leaving the company. They sent in July a new fee structure that had come into force in March - yes, they left it 4 months before informing their client. After three weeks of sending emails and leaving voice messages with no response, I have now removed them from my finances as they simply cannot be trusted. RUBBISH CLIENT SERVICE!!!

This is one of the worst experiences in my life. Profits are way below what was promised. I have also tried to change beneficiaries for the last 9 months, but the support is non-existing, from paperwork that has been lost to absolutely no replies to emails. Stay away from this company as far as you can - there are other better investment options.

I invested a substantial amount with Abbey Financial Services (as it was called in 2015). For me it stagnated - any profits being creamed off by 'fees'. I returned to UK in year 7 and have now been hit by a punitive tax demand from HMRC. Seems that the wrapper I had been advised to use falls under the category of 'Personal Portfolio Bonds' which HMRC assume 15% growth annually and tax accordingly while UK resident. This PPB works when overseas but at no time did AWM advise me to change anything when I came back to live in UK.
So not only have I made no return on my investment of 7 years but now face a tax bill of £15K!
What exactly was the advice I have been paying for?

The transactions once agreed are always swift and accurate but the financial advisors - the last 2 i have had have been very poor