The non-state pension fund Soglasie has been operating in the insurance services market since 1994, and during that time more than 176 thousand people became its clients. Since 2010, in addition to pension agreements, OJSC NPF Soglasie has been providing insurance and indexing services for future accruals under the pension insurance scheme. How did this happen? In 2011, the yield of NPF Soglasie was the highest in the country - over 33%. In 2015, the company ceased its pension and insurance activities as a result of the cancellation of the license by the Central Bank. Until this time, on the activities of the company "Consent" (NPF), customer reviews were negative due to the overly commercial policy of management, the main purpose of which was only selling insurance products.
Information about the company
For 22 years of experience in the market of pension and insurance services, the company NPF Soglasie has gained wide popularity among both customers and competitors due to the active policy of the company to conclude new contracts. The pension savings of depositors were protected by a deposit insurance system, that is, customers had a guarantee of 100% repayment of the funded part upon retirement.
Over the entire period of the organization’s existence, more than 176 thousand people transferred their savings to the Concord NPF. The company address (head office of Moscow), the official website and additional offices from 2015 to the present do not respond to customer requests and are not relevant. It is worth considering why this happened.
Despite the fact that last year the NPF “Soglasie” license was already revoked, as of the end of 2014, 29 people managed to receive payments under the OPS agreement in the amount of 858.61 thousand rubles. Under the contracts providing indexation of additional insurance premiums for non-state support, payments were accrued to 1,168 customers in the amount of over 3,170 thousand rubles.
Lump-sum payments, taking into account high indexation, represent the fulfillment of obligations to investors, and in the framework of activities this is almost a unique case for the company, as for the most part about the “crafts” of the Accord company (NPF), the feedback from investors is far from flattering.
Participation in the ranking of expert agencies
Taking part in the ratings of independent expert services, companies expect that they can confirm their solvency and the ability to meet obligations to depositors. In addition, a high level indicates a stable financial situation and increases the loyalty of the fund's clients and potential insurers, who are more likely to contact a trusted organization.
In 2014, the influential Expert RA ranking company awarded NPF Soglasie a high level reliability rating of A. The next year, this indicator was confirmed until the fund had its license for pension services revoked. The basis for such a decision of the Central Bank, as a rule, is a gross violation by the fund of the terms of the pension insurance contract - insufficient financial coverage to ensure future payments to depositors who have entrusted indexing pension savings of the company, complaints from customers, and untimely transfer of information about the company.
The fund’s policy, which provides for an active increase in customers, was directly aimed at attracting new investors by any means, due to which the majority of opinions on OJSC NPF Soglasie were negative.
Personal account of NPF Soglasie
Unlike other funds that provide information to depositors only by visiting the branch in person or by e-mail, the non-governmental “Consent” fund has a remote access channel to the state of the client’s pension savings - the “Pension terminal” of the depositor.
In order to find out information on pension savings that is of interest, a client needs to register on the NPF website by filling in the necessary information about himself (name, passport, SNILS, etc.). After registration, the client can receive information on the status of the account online. In addition, the user can connect an SMS-mailing, which will notify you of each new receipt of funds and account changes. Investors who, when transferring the funded part, received a card to enter the "Pension terminal" from the fund, are satisfied with the service. This is a rare case when the activity of OJSC NPF Soglasie was highly recommended by customers.
Opinion from the inside out. Work in NPF Concord
Work in any large company that is actively engaged in sales of products to the public is primarily aimed at making a profit and increasing the number of new customers. Non-state pension funds are no exception.
On the Internet, in addition to complaints from defrauded investors, one can also find comments by former employees of NPF Soglasie. The employees' feedback on the company’s activities coincides with the opinion of the customers - a strict attraction policy, an increase in the number of sales of insurance policies by OPS and NGOs by any means (including through fraud), unconditional fulfillment of planned targets. According to the comments of managers and insurers, the management of the company was indifferent to everything except the design of new products. Neither health problems nor family circumstances were extenuating circumstances in case of non-fulfillment of sales for NPF Soglasie.
The responses of the agents are unanimous: the work in the company was intense, requiring stress resistance, arrogance, the ability to promote the service even to those customers who were not interested in its design and directly stated this. In addition to the difficult internal atmosphere, there are constant delays in payments and bonuses for concluded agreements, lack of guarantees and support from the management, and moral dissatisfaction with their activities.
Prohibited Reception, or How NPF Soglasie Expands Client Flow
From 2010 (from the beginning of active sales of new products and agents' obligations to fulfill high plans for the promotion of insurance policies) and to the present, comments from investors appear on the Internet, which managers tricked into transferring pension contributions for social insurance and NGOs to Soglasie (NPF) . Reviews of deceived people about the promised harmony of the company with customers with amazing similarities repeat each other and are extremely negative in color.
Since it was not possible to honestly attract the required number of clients who were ready to transfer to an unfamiliar company with an opaque policy, the most active agents developed a special plan that was a huge commercial success for the company, but was a direct fraud for new program participants. The essence of the idea was as follows: insurance agents disguised as employees of the Pension Fund made a round-by-apartment tour, forcing the owners to issue a special card to enter the Personal Account of the RF PF. According to legend, this "pass" for the site should have been mandatory in the PFR office for all clients, and for a long time, but for some reason this was not done. After that, the client is provided with a package of documents for allegedly confirming the issuance of this card, and the fund employees tried to slip the contracts at the most inappropriate or inconvenient moment for the depositor, so that he would not be able to study it. Having received the desired signature, the agents sought to hide as soon as possible.
As a result, a copy of the agreement (and it was not issued to all customers by any means) with the fund, an irrelevant employee phone number, a sense of deception and disappointment, and negative statements about the activities of the Consent company (reviews on forums and websites about the pension provision of Russian citizens).
Another legend - false employment
In addition to the stories of defrauded investors about how they slipped the agreements on transferring to NPFs right in their apartment, the Internet contains a huge amount of comments on the topic of unsuccessful job placement, when they demanded that they go to NPF Soglasie when receiving a package of documents. Customer reviews are unanimous: a warm welcome, prompt preparation of documents allegedly confirming employment, the promised "Golden Mountains". And instead of all this - a statement about the transfer under the OPS program to a non-state pension fund.
In other words, this is a new fraud scheme, which is based on the desire of potential employees to choose the option suitable for them (since the advertisement necessarily indicates only favorable conditions for employment). As a rule, clients' doubts about the correctness of their actions arise almost immediately after leaving the office, when they are holding the notorious agreement with NPF Soglasie. The reviews are so similar to each other that there is no doubt that this was not just an isolated case, and that the developed strategy for attracting new investors does not arise.
How did the agents receive copies of documents from the client to go to NPF Soglasie?
Examining the activities of NPF Soglasie, reviews of people serviced by this non-governmental fund, one can find that everything indicates that when concluding contracts with the company, agents took photos of documents on their mobile phone in order to conclude a contract with a new client as soon as possible. That is, the depositor had only a few minutes to understand what was happening, and if for this short period he did not have time to figure out what he was signing, the funded part of future contributions was transferred promptly to the NPF office, and after confirmation by the client (who called the SMS code to the operator, not particularly understanding what was happening) finally transferred to a non-state pension management company.
How is the transition from the FIU to the non-state company Soglasie made?
After signing the documents confirming the transfer under the OPS agreement to NPFs, many investors were worried about the question of how long and how the final transfer to another fund took place. For all private organizations (management companies, non-governmental funds, including “Consent” (NPF), reviews of which indicate a lack of awareness of clients about the procedure for transferring the funded part of the pension), the same rule and method of transferring the pension apply: after sending contracts signed the client, and copies of his documents, within a few days, the operator must reach the participant in the OPS program and request confirmation of a desire to change the fund. As confirmation, it will be necessary to once again indicate the data of the documents (SNILS and passports) and a special code that comes in the form of an SMS message after the manager has entered information about the new client.
Without personal confirmation or in case of refusal to provide the necessary information, the funded part of the employee's pension will remain in the previous fund. However, information is published on the Internet about unprecedented cases of transfer to another non-state pension fund without mandatory notification, which (in case of client’s disagreement) is a violation on the part of the beneficiary company and can be considered fraudulent. Transition in this way can be carried out only in case of compromising the client’s data and fraud of insurance agents, indicating as the phone number to which the notification should come, your SIM card or any other available number (clearly not belonging to the depositor himself).
Non-governmental fund “Consent”: termination of the contract
Customers whom insurance agents fraudulently forced to transfer their pension savings from one fund to another, after realizing what happened, are immediately interested in questions about how to withdraw from NPF Soglasie OJSC, and how to terminate the agreement on transfer to NPF.
Before panicking and pouring negative on employees of the CALL-center, the investor must make sure in which pension fund his accumulations are now. To do this, you need to call the PFR free hotline and dictate the data of the documents (passport and SNILS). As a rule, a transfer to an NPF can only be carried out after confirmation by the program participant himself, who must give the code from the SMS message and the relevant information (except for the cases of fraud by the NPF employees mentioned above). If no notification has been received on the client’s phone, or when calling from a specialist, he has refused to transfer, the funded part of future pension contributions will remain in the previous fund.
If the client still managed to confirm the transition, then his deductions will be transferred to the management company from the 1st quarter of next year, and before the end of the time period they will be indexed taking into account the profitability of the existing company. Accordingly, after confirmation, if you do not want to transfer to a new fund, you need to contact the PFR branch to transfer your savings back by writing a corresponding application. However, it should be borne in mind that at the beginning of the 1st quarter of next year, the statement that arrived first will be accepted. Accordingly, there is a risk of moving to another company if the application is sent out of time. In addition, under the law, citizens of the Russian Federation have the right to change their pension fund no more than 1 time per year.
So, you want to sever all relations with NPF Soglasie? The following information will tell you how to terminate the contract: you can return the funded part (subject to a recent conclusion date) by contacting the company's official website. However, in connection with the revocation of the license, the fund’s page on the Web is not updated; accordingly, this method of transition is not relevant today.
NPF Soglasie: how a good company “collapsed”
Wanting to get a good pension increase, the working population of the country, who is actively interested in the state of their account in the FIU, has been trying since 2006 to increase future government payments. The transition to NPFs for many clients is the only way to receive decent benefits and not limit yourself to financial expenses in old age.
At the initial stages of its activity, NPF Soglasie set the customer’s satisfaction with the quality of service and a guarantee of high profitability as the main development priority. And indeed, not a single pension fund of the country could boast of such indexation (over 30% per annum). However, as a result, the desire to receive more than to give, overpowered the "right" development paths and led to the fact that contracts for the transfer of pensions began to be concluded in huge numbers. The company's profit grew, the number of participants increased exponentially, but few of them made the transition to a private pension fund of their own free will.
Negativity, disappointment and absolute disagreement with the fraudulent principles of the agents led to the fact that the customer dissatisfaction index was constantly growing, and as a result more and more confirming information appeared on the sites. Reviews of defrauded customers on the Web continue to appear at the present time, since the activities of the fund are widespread. Who is to blame for this situation?
Firstly, to conclude contracts in large numbers, despite the reluctance of customers, insurance agents were obliged by the management, which set, in their opinion, ambitious goals, motivating employees with bonus and additional bonuses. But in practice, the opposite happened - the agents were deceived by their own company, which repeatedly allowed delays in payroll and unreasonable refusals in payments.
Secondly, the enormous competition in the pension services market often leads to the fact that non-state funds are forced to work on the principle “the strongest will survive”, therefore, in order to stay afloat, they strive to overtake their rivals by concluding corporate pension programs for entire organizations or offering fabulous conditions ( extraordinary profitability, additional contributions from the company itself, employment).
The working population, which is not indifferent to the fate of their future social contributions, must now take care of which company the pension will be in.And when choosing a fund, special attention should be paid to the experience of the company, reliability rating, customer reviews and their total number. It is not necessary to be “silent”, fearing to remain without a pension in the future - the state guarantees the safety of contributions through the insurance system, and the level of profitability of the PFR is much lower than that of the NPF.
However, you should not succumb to the tricks of fraudsters, which eventually became the agents of NPF Soglasie, and sign documents in a hurry, without studying or in case of doubt about the honesty of the manager. Loss of accrued interest and going to authorities is not the most pleasant, and submitting an application yourself, having studied all aspects and features of the activities of a non-governmental fund, will not be difficult and will not take much time.