australianretirementtrust.com.au Reviews 17

I contacted or attempted to contact a financial advisor from this company.. took about 3 weeks to get a phone appointment.. the bloke was more interested in advising me to try to get $22 more from my pension. They are losing way more money than other funds at present. I suspect they have boofheads working for them

Even one star for Australian retirement trust is way too much.
Unfortunately, I’m with them but not for much longer called up needing help but I was told just to do it on my own online. They weren’t interested in helping.
Not everyone can do everything online, especially when you live remotely
Aren’t you actually paid to help people because you’re pretty lousy at your job?

I contacted ART and Jacob Williams picked up the phone on the other side. He was friendly and patient with me the entire 45min updating my details give me insights information that I needed. Its always good to have good people, who give you a helping hands to make your day a little brighter. Thank you Jocob.

Very poor and outdated service living 20+ years in the past. I feel ART is trying everything to avoid accepting a binding death benefit nomination which is expiring every few years and can only be submitted via post or a scanner scanned document. Phone scans are not accepted. This is excluding members from an essential service and ultimately enriching ART by avoiding to pay out funds. This bureaucracy should be illegal and penalties should be applied. I will change my provider to one that offers a current time technology and service offering.

In transferring my Aus Retirement Trust balance to NZ Kiwisaver I was continually misinformed, left waiting and generally jerked around and fobbed off. The only time I seemed able to get any action on their part was by spending hours chasing them up. Spent three times the money I should have had to on international courier fees because their information on the required documents was wrong.
I don’t know what’s wrong with their system and I imagine they don’t know either.
Can’t recommend any other super company other than them enough. 109% don’t recommend.

I was originally with Sunsuper before it changed to Australian Retirement Trust. I've drawn my Super several times to pay for work done and up to now the process was awesome. This time its been horrendous its now 11 days and STILL no money in my account I can't pay the tradie who did the work. Whenever I ring ART I'm given the runaround and it's not good enough.

As a holder of enduring power of attorney for my son, I have absolutely nothing good to say about this gang. They have obviously lied to me that they accept only an original power of attorney witnessed by justice of peace, no copies are allowed. When I sent them an original more than 3 months ago, they are still refusing to send me back my original enduring power of attorney, although I was told in one of over the phone conversations that they do not require an original at all. Last time I spoke to them on 19/05/2025 and they promised me that they will send the original back to me by post immediately, today is 02/06/2025 and I still did not received anything from them.
They are full of lies and, mischief and deception.
They are also refusing to us to use my son's money for his needs, and making all sorts of excuses, saying we need to talk to ATO, which we did and they are saying it has nothing to do with them, it on RTA only.
I will report them to ACCC, and then we will see them on court if necessary.
Do not trust them at all!

Latest news from them, a total disgrace, see the copy below, please;
Receiving documentation by post
When Australian Retirement Trust (ART) receive documents by post, these are automatically
scanned into our workflow system and kept for approximately two months.
This allows sufficient time for the scanned request to be processed, in the event the original
paperwork may be required where it is unclear or has not been scanned correctly.
Due to the volume of paperwork ART receives, it is not practicable (nor cost effective) for us
to retain original paperwork, which is why it is securely destroyed after two months.
As we received your Enduring Power of Attorney documentation on 10 January 2025, this
would have been destroyed around March 2025.
We apologise that a response was not provided to your initial request (received on 9 May
2025) for your documentation to be returned to you.
May I suggest where you’re needing a document to be returned to you, that you include this
request with your documentation.
No comments from me anymore. THIS GUYS ARE DISGRACEFULL

Problem fix, after few months communication!

Frustrating, yes, but it finally nearly done!

Terrible experience trying to process my DASP. I’ve been back and forth with bureaucracy since November (it’s mid-February) and still not resolved.

There is no point talking to their complaints department as they take 45 days to respond according to ART.

My advice is to move your account to another fund before processing DASP. My partners took 2 weeks with another fund, easy! Better still choose a better one to start with.

Clearly a company policy of stalling releasing funds.

I found myself inadvertently in Australian Retirement Trust (ART) after it took over QSuper.
QSuper used to be Great and I have been a Long Term Member since 1989.
But since being taken over by ART QSuper are absolutely Useless !
QSuper completely neglect their Self Invest option now and look to be actively trying to shut it down and so continually winding down what Assets you can hold ASX300 => ASX100 for example !
And they completely Fail to inform Members of Any such changes.
If you want more control over your Super without going completely to an SMF then QSuper has removed itself from the equation !!!
On top of that their response times are simply ludicrous !
3 days to answer an email and 45 days to respond to any sort of complaint !
I'd still go with an Industry Fund but there are now much better options than QSuper/ART !

Worst Experience Ever - Avoid Australian Retirement Trust at All Costs!
I’ve had the absolute worst experience dealing with Australian Retirement Trust. I was unfortunate enough to speak with Thomas, who was completely unhelpful and seemed utterly indifferent to my situation. He provided no solutions, no explanations, and barely seemed to care. It’s disgraceful how a company trusted with people’s money can treat its clients with such blatant disrespect and incompetence.
I’ve been trying to get my money back for what feels like an eternity, but Australian Retirement Trust keeps dragging their feet, offering excuse after excuse. Their customer service is non-existent, and it’s clear they have no interest in actually helping their clients.
This company is a complete joke. They are more than happy to hold onto your money with no accountability or responsibility. If you value your hard-earned cash and want it to be in safe hands, do yourself a favor and steer clear of Australian Retirement Trust. Absolute disgrace.”

I applied for the DASP superannuation claim after I departed Australia permanently 3 months ago. It's been 3 months now still I didn't received payment.

I was called more than 20 times to customer service, but they said that we are still processing because we have received so many applications to finalize & it will take more time than usual 28 days. Now 3 months gone. Still not yet.

My name is Nimantha kalansooriya, and my membership number is 902551760. I Can't recommend Australian retirement trust to anyone who is willing to Immigrate Australia and Australian citizens. Worst Superannuation fund ever........!

Insurance Options

Income Protection

Rates and Fees

Excessive and unexplained charges continue - Australian Retirement (No) TrustAs usual Australian Retirement (No) Trust - try at all costs to deceive there members with unexplained and deceptive fees and charges. I have just received my annual statement right on page 8 was the following unexplained fees and charges $2756.81 - total figure. I have made multiple phone calls to ART to have the figure explained to no avail and requested a response in writing - request ignored. I made the request in terms of potential fraud and breaches of legislation for superannuation. I had a manager ART ring me on my provided phone number. I also provided 3 pieces of separate pieces of verification including name, D.O.B. and address. I was advised this was only beginning of the process, I hung up in frustration and disgust at the dehumanising process. The questioning was akin to an East German Stasi interrogation. I am 55 years old and saddened by what has happened to our beautiful country with the bloodsucking corporate practices that pervade all of our lives in this country. With the erosion of our retirement savings and hard earned money. There needs to be a parliamentary - public enquiry into Australian Retirement (No) trust and its practices. The superannuation industry in Australia is broken for the average working person. It has been several weeks now ART refuse to provide a written explanation for the excessive fees.

My wife has passed away. Its disgraceful how long it is taking a simple superannuation payout. ART confirmed on the 27th June they have the final requirement. Its now the 26th July. I have been advised can take another 7 working days. Then a form will be sent to me requesting banking details. Then that can take up to another 10 working days to be paid. A form I cannot complete now to save time.
Weak excuse they are inundated with claims to pay. Good to know the biggest firm cannot handle efficiently a lot of claims. If that is the reason.
I advised them to change the bottom of the emails saying 5 working days.

My super is unfortunately with ART. I would not want my estate to deal with this. I will be moving super funds shortly. No doubt new business clients are signed up in hours or days.

They are hopeless, you will wait on the phone for 30 minutes listening to self serving recorded messages about how wonderful they are, they asked me to ring and then didnt answer for 25 minutes on 2 occasions, their website is very confusing, I wouldn't recommend this company to my dog

Australian Retirement Trust has diabolical customer service via the phone.
I have had to contact them many times over the last couple of months. Their wait times are disgraceful. They try to re-direct you to their "live chat" via their website but it's often unavailable. They offer a call-back option rather than waiting on hold. When they call back you are back where you started and have to begin the process again. When you get through to someone their knowledge seems very limited (not their fault). They have asked for the same information three times and I have provided exactly what they require in the format requested yet they appear not to have received it.

I have recently retired, I rang the superannuation company to get information on the best ways to work out my super to get an income from the super. Keeping in mind, this company has changed its name five times since I have been in it.
The first port of call (customer service) could not provide the information correctly, as clearly they were not informed to that degree.They said I could talk to someone for advice, I thought I already did. I had to wait an entire month for the person to call. The questions were clearly the basic outline from the script. The person kept saying the same thing in different ways. I had a list of questions I wanted to know. In the usual ART way, I was spoken down to when I tried to define the answers.
I then went online to create the income account, when I attempted to confirm my identity using one of the requested forms of identity, it failed. So I rang "customer service" who told me I would have to do a paper form. I asked if they could reset it, apparently, they are not up to that. I put in a complaint about my experience, and low and behold, customer service sent the outcome of investing themselves, telling me they are right, who would have guessed?
I would strongly suggest this company spend less time changing their name & more time on updating the system & training the first port of call people. While all this time passed, my super has gone down with the fluctuation, now I have to wait until it rebounds to do what I need before setting up the retirement income account.