My elderly neighbour has come to me in some distress about the following letter he has received on 30th March. It is from Buck Consultants, part of the UPS Pension and Life Assurance Plan. What do you think?
Dear Mr. XXXX
UPS Pension and Life Assurance Plan - Lynx Section (the Plan)
We are writing to tell you that a review of the pension increases applied to your pension from the Plan has revealed that an administrative oversight has lead to your pension being overpaid. As the Trustees must ensure that benefits are paid in accordance with the Rules of the Plan, we must take steps to rectify the position so that your pension is restored to an amount in line with your entitlement.
In order to minimise the effect of the correction, we propose to maintain your pension at its current level (ie not apply any increases) until such time as the increases due have cancelled the overpayments. At this point, we will resume the payment of the increases.
We cannot predict the period over which increases will need to be withheld as this depends on inflation, but we will review the position on an annual basis. This means that your pension will remain payable at the rate of £5,385.00 pa until we contact you further.
We apologise for any inconvenience to your. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Best wishes
Yours sincerely
KJ Youngs
On behalf of the Trustees of the UPS Pension and Life Assurance Plan - Lynx Section
Now, apart from the fact it's a very badly written letter with grammatical and style errors, it does not specify how much he's been overpaid and from when. He's called them up (on 01473 293 000) and they can't even tell him that but they will send him the breakdown of the figures.
What should he do? It sounds very rum to me. Please could you help with some advice?