Portafina Reviews 

After taking cash some years ago from my private pension using Pension Release with Portafina/Portal Financial and following their "expert advice", my pension is now "illiquid", whatever that means, with a value of "ZERO".

On the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) website, both Portal Financial Services LLP (Firm reference number 501272) and Portafina Investments Management Limited (Firm reference number 754580) are classed as 2 separate companies.

However, when you drill down to the finer details, many people who have worked for Portal Financial LLP, which has now applied to cancel its authorisation as of 18 June 2021, also appear to have a vested interest in Portafina Investment Management Limited.

Many customers of these 2 companies, like myself, are now still waiting for redress (my case has been going on for 3 years). My complaint has been upheld by the FOS (Financial Ombudsman Service) and I am still awaiting calculations.

Not even the professional courtesy of picking up the telephone when you call or even acknowledging, let alone responding to emails.

Stay away from any of these companies if you value your hard-earned money over the many years of your gainful employment.

I have also contacted my Member of Parliament to escalate the issues I have faced with these 2 companies and will, if necessary, take this to the highest level to ensure no-one experiences what I have had to endure since coming into contact with Portafina/Portal Financial.

How do the Directors and so-called "expert" Financial Advisors, of these 2 companies sleep at night, knowing they have destroyed peoples’ lives? They are complete charlatans. The dictionary definition is below:

charlatan
[ˈʃɑːlət(ə)n]
NOUN
charlatans (plural noun)
a person falsely claiming to have a special knowledge or skill.
"a self-confessed con artist and charlatan".

DO NOT TRUST THEM WITH YOUR PENSIONS!

UPDATE 3 AUGUST 2021

I have been advised by TrustPilot to remove my review to the correct profile as Portafina believe I have the wrong company.

This is typical of these companies who have given me the run around for 3 years when Portal Financial became part of Portafina and are now again named as Portal Financial (who is now not taking on further clients but have now acknowledged their failings after FOS intervention) again denying any wrongful advice on how to invest my pension which is now worthless.

It is shameful after 2 years of denial to myself and the FOS that after 1 day of writing a truthful review on TrustPilot they are now acknowledging me.

The Directors of these companies should hang their heads in shame and take responsibility for their actions and not try to silence the people who have entrusted their life pensions to them. Portafina did nothing to reverse this trend whilst looking after my pension when they were in charge.

Happy for anyone from either Portal Financial or Portafina to call me to discuss this as I have been trying to resolve for 2 painful and distressing years. Thank you for at least finally acknowledging one of your customers!

Also speaks volumes as they appear to respond very quickly to customers who give them 5 star reviews but not always to ones who endeavour to inform other customers when things have gone wrong.

UPDATE 4 SEPTEMBER 2021

Today I've had another reminder from TrustPilot as follows:
Portafina recently sent you a request to update your review. You have 2 days to respond to their request. Note that the business may choose to flag your review for further investigation.

Unbelievable! Why don't both Portafina and Portal Financial actually take the time and allocate resource to contact customers on an individual basis, i.e., pick up a phone, call them and ask them how they are feeling after giving wrong advice, when they have placed their trust in the experience of your companies and want to resolve with you?

I understand the difficulties many companies are facing currently and the volatility of the pensions market on the whole.

However, rather than giving yourselves a “pat on the back” when you receive a 5-star review, why can’t you exhibit some kind of compassion to your customers when you have made an error of judgment? A judgment which has led to these customers losing their lifetime pensions and having to resort to going to independent organisations to get some sort of redress? A generic letter just doesn’t cut it I’m afraid.

So, I actually welcome an investigation and am more than happy to work with you as most people will agree, there are always two sides to a situation.

To the Directors of both Portafina and Portal Financial - pick up the phone and speak to me! Show YOUR customers you have some humanity and also ask yourselves this one important question, "How would you feel if you were left with no pension"?

Thank you.

They were easy to get in touch with when you needed a query also they kept you in touch regularly also they made my money grow

The team at Portafina were so professional from start to finish, you feel safe & secure whilst using their great service, everyone I spoke to there was very polite, courteous & very informative I would highly recommend anyone, to use there extremely professional services.

Outstanding customer service kept informed of progress at all times and answered all questions I had.

Very good and really easy to use and understand

Easy to talk to; they explain all your options before you proceed. No pressure to use their service, but once you are on board the communication is frequent and excellent.

6 months in to a 6 week process.
Frustrated!!
Now phone lines down. 😞
On verge of withdrawing.

Terrible company to deal with it has taken them 7 months to sort my pension release i would certainly not recommend them to anyone.

I started looking in to releasing money from my pension back know June, Portafina guided me through all the way and were on hand to answer any questions, said they would ring me back and actually did, many thanks to the whole team particularly Paul who did a brilliant job, acting very professionally, I feel I'm in a far better place now, having sorted things out, many thanks again, Peter Cooper.

I recently had Portafina look into my pension plan, and the Paraplanner Hollie, went through all my options, and even listened to what I had to say, and my intentions. Cant fault Hollie anything, she done her job brilliant.

The only down side, and maybe this was down to covid-19, and took tome to get back to me. My provider had got back to me, and we could proceed with my request. If Portafina had acted more quickly I would have asked them to follow up on my request

Fantastic service highly recommend portafina very helpful staff and made whole process easy

Waited a year for them to sort my pension out and still didn't. Kept sending me loads of forms to fill out and send back. They took so long to send the forms to my pension provider that time had ran out and it was to late. So i would have to start all over again the next year. They also phoned me and asked why I hadn't filled the last lot of forms out. I literally had 2 days to fill about 100 pages of stuff I didn't understand and that was inbetween my 12 hour shifts. I just couldn't do it. So portafina seemed to blame me. Thanks very much portafina for nothing

The team at Portafina were really helpful. I have no idea how pensions work and just needed someone to explain what I had in laymans terms, which is exactly what Portafina did. Now I've move my pensions into one manageable plan, I feel I can see how much my pension is working for me going forward. Hopefully it will be growing ready for when I retire.

Waited months to hear from these people after sending documents which they eventually denied receiving. This is not a real company or they are scammers. USE AT YOUR PERIL !!