Pensions are great for higher rate tax payers but I believe ISA's (stocks and shares specifically) are better for most people.

Simple to administer yourself and minimal fees.

Ah, got my numbers the wrong way round. I actually pay in £237, sorry.

I realise I don't have to do it for a long time - I think my 'official' retirement age is set at 55 but being self-employed it's rather meaningless; in fact I'm sort of semi-retired now.

Any idea what roughly return per annum you get per £100K in the 'pot'? Then I can see roughly how many centuries I have to live to get my money back.

So, Max, these expert financial wizards have turned 72k into 100k over 20 years and if you didn't take a taxfree lump out would pay you about 4.5kpa (<£90 a week) before tax as a pension?

I bet you're a bit like me, and once upon a time, 20 years ago, you thought "I'd better get a pension so I've got some money when I'm old". So you got in contact with the 'financial advisor'. And he took away some 'facts' and came back with a plan which showed you a projection of what you'd get back in 20 or 30 years time. And you thought 'hey, that looks ok' and signed it up, and basically didn't pay much attention to it, trusting that some money expert manager in some big company would be doing something sensible with it and turning it into something resembling that projection. And, of course, that'll have been the last you saw or heard of the financial advisor, and now you're left with something that doesn't bear even the faintest resemblance to those projections that led you to sign up 20 years ago.

I got out of it on my 50th birthday with what was left of my 'fund'. A combination of hard work and luck have meant that before long the paltry lump sum had actually made up the money the useless cocks wasted. The tiny 'pension' from the annuity I was coerced into 'buying' makes me determined to live until I'm 120 just so they hopefully make a loss on it. Then, of course, they steal the fund (that even an idiot who knew nothing about using money could turn into the measly sum they're paying me).

To this day I still hope to run into the 'financial advisor' who sold me it. I will kick fukk out of him if I come across him. It won't get back any of the money he coerced me into wasting, but it'll certainly make me feel a good bit better about being conned.

Sorry but he has a point.

My standard life ste pension is lucky to improve at 2.5 percent a year.

To put in perspective you can invest your money with only a trade and minimal tax within a stocks and shares isa and make 2.5 percent in one morning.

I do and am doing. Still pay into the pension too but am under no illusion that is rubbish value.

Dont put all your eggs in one basket.

As in lower than the rate of inflation...?

My SIPP returned 14.7% last year. They're not all bad.

Only a wrapper that ties in your money until you are 55, get it right ;-)

Ade, I'm sure there are many PHers whose self-investments of all kinds did ok, well, and even splendidly. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about busy butchers bakers and candlestickmakers who've decided to save money via pension plans so they'd have a comfy retirement. They phone a bloke. The bloke turns up. Takes away some (often irrelevant) facts. Comes back with projections which appear attractive and give the feeling you'll be financially ok in 20, 30, 40, even 50 years time. So the candlestickmaker signs up, and pays in every month, thinking the money's going to some clever investment bloke in a big name and long established financial company who is busy turning it into much more money. Certainly more than the candlestickmaker could make, because he knows a LOT about candles, but sweet jack all about investing. So that's it. Job done! Retirement sorted.

Then one day in the distant future the candlestickmaker discovers it's worth less/barely more/slightly more than he put in. Discovers he'd have been as well sticking it in a bank account, or, in some cases, he'd have been as well sticking it in a box under his bed.

That's many many people's story. And it's not because they're naive, or stupid. It's because they had faith in an industry and system that screwed them, and still will given half a chance. You don't expect your pension company to screw you, any more than you expect your doctor or lawyer to screw you. But they do. And not everyone's delighted to be screwed.

Eh? Equitable Life never employed me....in fact, from memory, they were one company that didn't deal via brokers at all. All in-house conmen there I'm afraid. but it certainly was my decision to take a pension from them and so you're right. No-one 'tucked me up' (is that how you describe your victims in the office) but myself.

Just to reinforce the 'con' aspect, the other month some insulting piffling compensatory payment dropped through the letterbox, about a decade after I dumped what was left of it. This was to 'compensate' for conning me.

I don't know why you think describing my all-too-common private pension experience is 'trolling'. Maybe you could explain, or perhaps I can guess. You're in some way connected to the pension con industry. Am I right?

And, in fact, I did have another private pension policy which I did indeed write myself. From Royal Life. Whilst this wasn't as simply and straightforwardly a con as the Equitable con was, the skill with which my (and I suppose many many many other people's) hard earned contributions were handled by whichever expert investors managed them meant that 15 years of contributions created a fund almost exactly equal to the sum total of the contributions made. I'd call that a con. And, of course, just like you, there's not a conman alive who doesn't consider their victims only have themselves to blame for falling into the trap.

Just out of interest, do you think it's greed that causes people to expect their pension plan contributions to come close to the value projections the companies provide? That is, of course, why people agree to contribute in the first place. The 'value projection' is the single most important device in perpetrating the con. That's how the 'mark' gets 'tucked up' as you'd put it. Isn't it?