What to do if your pension savings were illegally transferred to a non-state pension fund: advice from the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation

Citizens complain that they did not write applications to transfer to the NPF and did not enter into agreements with it. It is quite fair that people consider themselves deceived and demand the return of pension savings to the Pension Fund.

Thus, in the Mordovian Pension Fund, 125 such appeals were registered, and 5 complaints about the illegal “withholding” of pension savings in NPFs, 7 complaints from residents of the republic about the loss of investment income. In addition, we receive many telephone calls and oral complaints from citizens about violations of their rights.

What to do if a similar situation happens to a person? The Pension Fund gave 5 pieces of advice.

Firstly, you must contact the Pension Fund Office at your place of residence or place of actual stay with a statement about the unlawful transfer of pension savings to a non-state pension fund. The PFR branch collects such information every month and sends it to the Russian Pension Fund and NPF to resolve the current situation.

Secondly, submit a claim to the NPF for unlawful transfer of pension savings and loss of investment income. A person has the right to demand that a NPF provide certified copies of documents (application and agreement on compulsory pension insurance), on the basis of which savings were transferred to this NPF.

Third, you can file a complaint about the illegal actions of NPFs with the Central Bank, which regulates and controls the activities of NPFs in the field of non-state pension provision and compulsory pension

Fourth, protect your rights to form a funded pension by going to court. If the fact of an unlawful transfer is proven, the contract on compulsory pension insurance may be declared invalid by the court. If the court makes such a decision, the pension savings will be returned to the previous insurer (PFR or NPF) within 30 days from the date of the court decision.

Fifthly, a person can simply submit an application to transfer pension savings to the previous insurer before December 31 of the current year, i.e. return his pension savings to where they were illegally transferred from.

What should you do if you find out that your pension savings were transferred from the Russian Pension Fund to a non-state pension fund or from one non-state pension fund to another without your consent?

First of all, you need to contact the nearest branch of the Pension Fund of Russia and submit a written complaint in free form. Pension Fund specialists will explain your rights to manage pension savings and transfer your pension funds back to the Pension Fund or Non-State Pension Fund that you chose earlier. In addition, we recommend writing a statement of claim to the NPF to which your funds were transferred without your consent. The NPF is obliged to inform you on the basis of why this happened. In particular, the NPF must have an agreement with you on the transfer of your pension savings to the NPF. You must request a copy of it.

You can also send a written complaint to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation at the address: 119991, Moscow, st. Shabolovka, 4, or on the official website.

If you want your funds to be transferred back, you must write a corresponding application for the transfer of funds. If you want to change the NPF and transfer your pension savings to it, then, in addition to the application, you must first enter into an appropriate agreement with this NPF. The application form can be obtained from the Pension Fund of Russia branches or downloaded from the Pension Fund of Russia website. Your funds will be transferred in March next year.

In order to get your pension savings back this year, you need to file a lawsuit against the NPF. Such a claim can be filed at your place of residence with a request to the NPF to transfer the funded part of your future pension back to the Pension Fund or NPF, which previously managed your pension savings.

The problem of “fake” applications for the transfer of savings funds from one to another is relevant every year.

Citizens' savings are transferred without their knowledge or consent to other organizations. Often citizens find out about this by accident.

What to do if money got into the NPF fraudulently?

Conditions and procedure for transferring the funded part of the pension

In accordance with pension reforms, citizens have the opportunity to independently manage their pensions.

One of the options for managing your funds is.

Since 2014, the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation has stopped forming pension savings. All contributions are automatic transferred to insurance. The amount of savings contributions will be an increase in your pension.

Until 2014, these funds were accumulated in the state pension fund. After changes in legislation were adopted, citizens had the opportunity to transfer their funds to NPFs.

In addition, citizens can independently influence the amount of savings, by depositing additional funds into the account. Non-state pension funds provide the opportunity to transfer savings by inheritance. NPFs themselves directly depend on how citizens’ savings will grow. Organizations manage funds without access to accounts. They can invest it in various projects.

There is no mandatory requirement in the law to transfer money to NPFs. But this choice gives citizens a bunch of:

1. Non-State Pension Funds provide an opportunity to significantly increase savings compared to the State Pension Fund.
2. Account holders can independently monitor the movement of funds. Most organizations provide this opportunity.
3. The contract is concluded only once. The conditions must remain unchanged throughout the entire period.
4. All funds in the accounts are insured. In the event of bankruptcy of the organization, all money will be returned to citizens.

If the applicant is not satisfied with the chosen fund, he can at any time write an application to transfer from one organization to another.

In what cases is it possible to transfer funds without the owner’s knowledge?

After the adoption of the law on the transfer of funds from the funded part of pensions, NPFs became more active. Many funds work through agents. For each contract, such an employee receives up to 2,000 rubles from the organization. Schemes are often used rewriting contracts. An agent transfers a citizen from one fund to another, receiving rewards for this. The entire procedure is carried out at the expense of falsification of statements .

Cases are becoming more frequent visits to citizens' apartments by scammers, which are represented by employees of the Pension Fund of Russia. They ask to see it. Fraudsters give the following arguments why they need the document:

1. The need to prepare documents so that the percentage of growth in the funded part of the pension does not decrease.
2. Conducting a census of citizens for the Pension Fund in order to prepare inserts for which pension certificates will be valid.

Only a small part openly offer to sign a form about transferring to another fund.

The Pension Fund of Russia has repeatedly stated that employees do not go to addresses or carry out correspondence. Its representatives in the media warn that citizens should not sign any statements.

Many people use this method recruitment agencies. Job seekers come to the agency and fill out a job search form. In fact, they are given the opportunity to sign an application and a form to transfer to the NPF. After filling out the form, citizens are told that they will receive a call. They will have to confirm that they agree to the transfer and will then be contacted about the job. But apart from a call to obtain consent for the transition, citizens receive nothing else.

Procedure

If a citizen discovers that his savings funds were transferred from the Pension Fund to the Non-State Pension Fund or from one fund to another, he must follow instructions:

These methods will help you get your savings back.

Responsibility for wrongful translation

In order to combat the illegal movement of citizens' savings funds, a new bill was adopted. It provides fine of up to 700,000 rubles against organizations.

Fine for officials ranges from 10 to 30,000 rubles. If an official commits an offense repeatedly, he faces a penalty of up to 50,000 rubles or disqualification for a period of two years.

The law establishes that if an organization provides the Pension Fund with false information about the insured person, on the basis of which the accumulative portion of funds was unlawfully credited to a non-state fund, this organization will be prohibited from concluding new insurance contracts. The Pension Fund itself should come up with a proposal to establish a ban.

There is no point in contacting law enforcement agencies.

The actions of NPF scammers do not constitute a crime under the Criminal Code. Deception is not a reason, since no real damage is caused to the citizen’s finances. Nobody appropriates the money, but only the transfer of rights to preserve savings occurs.

To protect your rights, you do not need to show your pension insurance certificate to strangers. You should never sign contracts with unfamiliar company representatives.

For those, who afraid of unauthorized translation the funded part of the pension, you can contact the Pension Fund with an application, where you need to ask to save all contributions throughout the year. If there is such a request, it will not be possible to transfer funds.

To keep your savings safe, you need to be careful about who you sign with and what papers you sign. Representatives of the Pension Fund of Russia do not come to citizens’ homes, they do not conduct any census. They will never ask for bank details or copies of documents. All applications are accepted by employees in territorial departments. If, after all, a citizen has signed an application or there is a suspicion that his funded part has been illegally transferred to another organization, the necessary measures must be urgently taken.

About the illegal transfer of cash savings to non-state pension funds without the knowledge of their owners, see the following video:

In April - May, citizens who have pension savings receive letters with information about the status of their account. Many are surprised to learn that their funds were transferred from one non-state pension fund (NPF) that they chose to another.

In 2013, I transferred my savings to NPF Sberbank,” says Sergei Fedorov. - And in April I receive a letter from Sberbank stating that my savings have been transferred to the NPF Soglasie. But I didn't translate anything. I contacted Sberbank, they told me that the transfer was carried out on the orders of the Pension Fund, where I applied to transfer funds to Soglasie. But I didn't do that. I contacted the Pension Fund and it turned out that no applications had been received from me, the transfer was illegal. It turns out that the agent who had my SNILS, passport data, through whom I entered into an agreement with NPF Sberbank, forged my application, signatures and on my behalf entered into an agreement with Soglasie, receiving his thousand rubles for this.

NPF "Soglasie", where our hero turned for clarification, admits the fact of illegal transfer of funds, they say, this happens, it is unrealistic to double-check all contracts. The fund said that due to such problems they refused the services of agent networks.

What is our pension based on?

The pension consists of funded and insurance parts. Every month, the employer contributes 22% of the employee’s salary to the Pension Fund. Deductions are distributed as follows: insurance pension - 16%, funded pension - 6%. The insurance pension consists of a fixed payment of 4,558.9 rubles and pension points, which are awarded depending on length of service and salary level. For example, if a woman applies for an old-age pension at age 55 now, its amount will be:

8,912 rubles (120 points x 74.27 rubles, point price in 2016) + 4,558.93 (fixed payment) = 13,471 rubles.

The funded part of the labor pension can be formed in the state system (PFR) or private (NPF). The choice of management company remains with the citizen. A future pensioner has the right to pass it on by inheritance, can receive the entire amount immediately upon retirement, or receive it in parts as a supplement to the pension.

The size of the savings portion depends on where to invest it and at what interest rate. Now NPFs offer various interest rate options - from 1% to 7% per annum. Alas, while inflation eats up all investment income, and pension savings depreciate.

Is it possible to choose NPF now?

It was possible to send the funded part of the pension to one of the non-state pension funds or leave it in the State Pension Fund until the beginning of 2016. After January 1, 2016, 6% of the salary that could go to the funded part of the pension was automatically included in the insurance part of the “silent people”. If a person has not formed the funded part of his pension before 2016, he will no longer be able to do this. But there is a nuance.

Citizens who decide to form only an insurance pension still have pension savings generated before 2014, commented the Lipetsk branch of the Pension Fund. - In the future, these funds will be paid in full when a citizen has the right to an insurance pension and applies for its assignment. These citizens have the right to transfer their previously formed pension savings to a non-state pension fund or leave them to the Pension Fund. You can find out the amount of accumulated funds in your “Personal Account” on the Pension Fund website.

To transfer the funded part of your pension, you must first come to the Pension Fund and notify it about the transfer of funds to the NPF. If a non-state pension fund is included in the system of guaranteed pension savings, then in fact this is a formality; the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation will not be against such a transfer of funds.

How to transfer money to another NPF

You can transfer your savings portion to another pension fund of your own free will by writing an application. It is rational to do this once every 5 years. That is, if in 2015 a person submitted an application to transfer, for example, from the Pension Fund to the Non-State Pension Fund or vice versa (you can add your savings part to the insurance part), then his savings, taking into account investment income, will be transferred only by 2021. You can speed up the process and transfer money within a few months, but in this case the citizen will lose investment income.

How you want to transfer money - quickly or without loss of income - is indicated in the application, which is written to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation at your place of residence. If a person wants to transfer money from one NPF to another quickly, then within a month, for example, he will not be able to do this. It is necessary to write an application, and the funds will be transferred in the first quarter of next year. At the same time, a person can write several applications to different funds before the New Year, but his savings will be transferred to the one indicated in the most recent application.

If the money ends up in another NPF, what to do?

If a citizen is sure that his pension savings were transferred to a non-state pension fund unlawfully, then he needs to immediately contact the territorial office of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation at his place of residence, the OPFR commented. - Pension Fund specialists will explain the rights to manage pension savings, including transferring pension funds back to the Pension Fund or Non-State Pension Fund of your choice.

The fact is that there you will be asked to write an application for the transfer of funds in the same manner as described in the chapter “How to transfer money from one NPF to another.” A citizen has the right to file a claim with a non-state pension fund to which his pension savings were unlawfully transferred. The NPF is obliged to inform on the basis on which this was done. A non-state pension fund must have the original agreement on the transfer of pension savings. True, all these requests and claims yield little; in the end, you can return the money to your NPF either according to the scheme described above, or by filing a lawsuit against the NPF demanding the transfer of your savings to the previous insurer.

Sberbank, meanwhile, is confident that leaking clients’ personal information in their case is simply impossible.

We didn’t have such precedents on a large scale, there were isolated requests,” commented Anatoly Gurov, press secretary of the Lipetsk branch of Sberbank. - There were cases when people in other banks took out loans and, along with the loan papers, they were also given a form of agreement on transfer to another NPF. If a person did not write any statement of his own free will, then he needs to contact law enforcement agencies. The personal information of our clients is securely protected. We do not have external access to computers, that is, we cannot download information to a flash drive or hard drive. All computer processes and information transfer take place only within Sberbank via a secure connection. If we receive information from an external source, it must be checked by the security service. In addition, there are video cameras in all offices.

But in the case of our reader, the fact remains a fact.

How to punish scammers

We contacted the police to explain to us how to deal with pension lawlessness.

If the actions are unlawful and there is evidence of this, the court may classify the act as fraud if the person’s savings were of significant material importance, official forgery, or negligence, law enforcement officers commented. - The police are obliged to conduct an investigation. If your application is refused, complain to the prosecutor's office.

This is just a theory, but in reality the situation looks different.

After I received clarifications from the NPF and the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, I contacted the police,” continues Sergei Fedorov. - The application was handled by the UBEP. The first question I was asked was whether there was any material damage. In fact, no, no one caused me any material damage. My money was not stolen, not misappropriated, just transferred from one NPF to another. And if there is no damage, it means that it is impossible to initiate a case under the article “Fraud”. Then the question arose about forging signatures in the agreement with “Consent,” which I did not enter into. When the investigator made a request to Consent to submit the contract for a graphological examination, they stated that the contract was lost. That’s it, signatures cannot be compared, there is no damage, there is no criminal case. In addition, the agreement with the NPF is not included in the list of forms, the forgery of which is punishable by law. You can get an agent punished for processing personal data without my consent; this is a fine of 1,000 rubles. All.

There is a corpus delicti here, he believes. lawyer Artyom SHELUDKO. - It is necessary to appeal the actions of the NPF in court. If there is an agreement with a falsified signature, you need to declare this during the process. If the contract is lost, then it does not exist, and there should not have been a transfer. It's even more convenient. The court will recognize the transfer from one NPF to another as illegal and will make a decision to recover funds from the fund, which arbitrarily disposed of the investor’s money. Plus, it is reasonable to collect a penalty under Art. 395 Civil Code.

Filing a lawsuit will cost about 550 rubles, and the amount of investment income that a person can lose in a year on average is about 14 thousand. So it makes sense to fight. Also, a client of an NPF has the right to write complaints about the work of the fund to the Central Bank of Russia through feedback on the website www.cbr.ru. In this case, the NPF may face revocation of its license.

As a result, Soglasie paid me compensation for investment losses, because I did not intend to cooperate with them. So I didn’t go to court so as not to waste time,” says Sergei Frolov. - When I spoke with a representative of the fund, he said that this spring alone they paid compensation to six clients.

How to keep track of your savings?

You can control the amount of your pension savings in your Personal Account on the Pension Fund website or on the website of your NPF. Some non-state pension funds immediately issue plastic cards with a login and password for the “Personal Account” on their website.

Information on the status of an individual personal account, containing information on the amount of pension savings, can be obtained from the territorial office of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation at the place of residence upon presentation of a passport and SNILS, commented the OPFR in the Lipetsk region. - After 10 days from the date of application, you will be able to pick up an extract from your individual personal account in person or receive it by registered mail.

The specified information can also be obtained via the Internet using the citizen’s Personal Account on the Pension Fund website. All users registered on the website www.gosuslugi.ru and in the Unified Identification and Authentication System (USIA) have access to the service.

How to protect your pensions?

As explained in the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, in order not to fall into the trap of scammers, people need to demand from agents a passport, power of attorney and official identification - write down the data or photograph the documents. The agent will issue the citizen an agreement on compulsory pension insurance. Three copies are signed - one remains with the client, the other two copies (to the NPF and to the Pension Fund of Russia) are taken by the agent.

You can also protect your personal data, but the culprit of their disclosure will be punished only if they are found, and in the age of modern technology this is not easy.

There is a rather harsh Federal Law of the Russian Federation “On Personal Data” No. 152-FZ dated July 27, 2006,” commented lawyer Artyom Sheludko. - If there is a suspicion that personal data has reached third parties, it is necessary to write complaints to the prosecutor’s office, Roskomnadzor and Rospotrebnadzor.

Transferring personal data without the right to do so is a serious violation. If the data was transferred to the NPF, Article 13.12 applies. Code of Administrative Offenses “Violation of information protection requirements”, which entails the imposition of an administrative fine on citizens in the amount of up to 1 thousand rubles; for officials - up to 2 thousand; for legal entities - up to 15 thousand rubles. If the data was transferred by a legal entity, this entails the revocation of the license to carry out a certain type of activity. If an individual, this can be qualified as “Violation of privacy”, punishable by up to 2 years of imprisonment.

How can I find out where my money is?

A person can find out where his funded part of his pension is located from several sources.

* In the Office of the Pension Fund of Russia at the location

residence. You need to have your passport and SNILS with you.

* On the public services portal in the “Pension savings” tab.

* In one of the banks with which the Pension Fund has cooperation agreements: Sberbank, VTB-24, Bank of Moscow, Gazprombank. A bank employee will provide information about where your funded portion of your pension is transferred upon presentation of your passport and SNILS, even if the citizen is not a client of the bank.

It’s worth checking where your savings are stored if you didn’t receive letters from the NPF or Pension Fund in the spring: the mail could have gotten lost.

Seven NPFs lost their licenses

In 2015, the Bank of Russia canceled the licenses of 7 non-state pension funds: JSC NPF Solntse. Life. Pension" (formerly "Renaissance Life and Pensions"), JSC NPF "Adekta-Pension", NPO NPF "Uraloboronzavodsky", JSC NPF "Protection of the Future", JSC NPF "Solnechnoe Vremya" (former NPF "Pension Fund of the Industrial Construction Bank "), JSC NPF "Savings Fund Solnechny Beach" (formerly CJSC NPF "SberFond RESO"), JSC NPF "Sberegatelny".

Have you found a notification from the Pension Fund in your mailbox that your application has been approved and your pension savings have been transferred to a non-state pension fund? You didn't write any statements? It is likely that scammers did this for you. How to get your pension savings back if they were unlawfully transferred to a non-state pension fund?

If you have received such a notification from the Pension Fund and are sure that your pension savings were transferred to the NPF unlawfully or that you were misled, you must immediately contact the Pension Fund branch at your place of residence or place of actual residence. Pension Fund specialists will explain your rights to manage pension savings, including the transfer of pension funds back to the Pension Fund or Non-State Pension Fund of your choice.

You have the right to file a claim with the NPF to which your pension savings were unlawfully transferred. The text of the claim is drawn up in free form. The NPF is obliged to inform you on the basis of which your pension savings were transferred to this NPF. The NPF must have the original agreement with you on the transfer of pension savings.

You can write a complaint against the NPF to which your pension savings were transferred and send it to the Pension Fund through the online reception or by mail in a simple letter (119991, Moscow, Shabolovka St., 4, Department for Work with Citizens' Appeals) . You can also leave a complaint and get advice on further actions in the “Consultation Center” on the PFR website by calling the PFR hotline at 8 800 775-54-45.

At the same time, the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation reminds: your pension savings do not disappear anywhere. These funds are still in your individual personal account in the compulsory pension insurance system.

What's upWhat if your savings were transferred illegally?

To transfer pension savings back to the Pension Fund, no later than December 31 of the current year, you must contact the territorial authority with one of the following applications:

• application for transfer from a non-state pension fund to the Pension Fund;


• application for early transfer from a non-state pension fund to the Pension Fund.

Also, if you wish, you can remain in this NPF or move to another fund.
It should be noted that the transition is carried out once every five years, and early transition can be carried out annually. In addition, the procedure for calculating the amount of pension savings to be transferred to the new insurer differs. A longer period for the insurer to manage pension savings is more beneficial for the insured person.

REMINDER!

If you were born in 1967 or younger and continue to form a funded pension, then you have the right to refuse to form a funded pension and direct the entire amount of employer insurance contributions to finance only the insurance pension. At the same time, all previously generated pension savings are preserved: they continue to be invested and will be paid in full when you become eligible to retire and apply for it.

In order to refuse a funded pension, you must submit a corresponding application to the territorial body of the Pension Fund at your place of residence.*

*if you have never submitted an application to the Pension Fund for choosing a management company or a non-state pension fund and have not become a victim of an unlawful transfer of pension savings, you do not need to submit an application to renounce your funded pension. It automatically stopped forming in 2016.

Popular methods of fraud involving the transfer of pension savings

Method 1

Agents of a non-state pension fund come to your work (or even home) (as a rule, they do not specify that they represent a private structure) and, appealing to non-existent provisions of the law, urge you to immediately transfer your pension savings - otherwise they will allegedly “burn out”, their “reset to zero”, etc.

What to do: if strangers come to your home, then at a minimum, you do not need to open the door. If for work, then refuse the offered services. If you are particularly persistent, call the police. Remember: employees of the Russian Pension Fund do not go home and your funded pension will not “burn out” or “reset to zero.”

Method 2

Very often, stores do not provide loans for the purchase of small equipment without consent to transfer pension savings to any non-state pension fund. They give different reasons: for example, without this it will not be possible to quickly obtain a loan.

However, there are often cases when people did not sign anything at all, but received “chain letters” from the Pension Fund of Russia. This happens when copies of your documents are taken during the loan application process. These copies fall into the hands of fraudsters who falsify the documents necessary to transfer funds, including your signature.

What to do: if one of the conditions for granting a loan is the transfer of pension savings, and you do not want to transfer them anywhere, we advise you to find another organization to apply for a loan. If possible, do not leave copies of documents in order to avoid fraudulent activities after applying for a loan. If you discover that your funds were transferred using forged documents (including your signature), be sure to contact the Pension Fund and law enforcement agencies!

Method 3

When preparing any documents (when receiving a loan, purchasing equipment, obtaining services, etc.), scammers do not give the entire agreement on the transfer of pension savings for signature, but only its second page. However, it is hidden in a pile of other papers and is not dated. After signing the required page, it is attached to the contract and scammers will be able to use such a document in the future.

What to do: There is only one piece of advice - carefully read everything you are going to sign. Only your own attentiveness will save you from the actions of scammers.

Method 4

Job seekers often turn to recruitment agencies for help in finding employment. Here they are faced with the unpleasant opportunity of transferring their pension savings. Fraudsters work according to two schemes: in the first case, the applicant signs an agreement, discreetly placed in a pile of papers; in the second case, the applicant is guaranteed a job if he transfers his pension savings to the desired NPF. As a rule, in neither case does a person get a job.

What to do: as with the previous method, only your own attentiveness can save you. If you are assured that you will get a job only after transferring pension savings, contact another recruitment agency that does not offer this kind of service.