embarkpensions.co.uk Reviews 52

This company are breaking their own complaints procedure time after time. I believe they are part of the Lloyds Banking Group.
I have an ongoing complaint against them - since November 2025. At the start of February, they finally acknowledged their failings. They promised - in writing - to bring this to closure - by the 9th March 2026. I am still waiting for them to contact me. Their incompetence has to be experienced at first hand to begin to believe! I feel that I must now go to the Ombudsman. They are a disgrace and reflect everything that is bad about UK business - an utter indifference to the client. Do NOT use this company - their SIPP administration service is APPALLING. Their online service is old-fashioned and creaks. Stay well clear of this shower they will only bring you problems.

I would give a review of minus 5 stars if I could. Emails are ignored, call backs are either unavailable or promised within 48 hours and then not made. Withdrawal from Stocktrade is delayed. Payment other than on a regular end of month date is delayed and charged for. They are supposed to to be providing a service to their investors, but service is non-existent. Find another company if you can, I cannot recommend Embark at all.

Embark Pensions are a joke, takes weeks for any type of response and when you do get one they are crap…I’m actively looking to get away from these jokers.

I have a SIPP with Embark.
Their customer service is very slow particularly the property department.
Communication is poor and they seem to change their policies without consultation.
I would not recommend this company

delay after delay and stalling to release funds that are not theirs, Stay away I am moving away from this shower

In common with all other reviews I can attest to their inability to reply to emails.
All I wanted to do was draw down 25% of my pension.
Several weeks after my application they asked about about my pension allowance, details of which I had supplied with my initial application. 2 months passed I then received an apology and was told my request would be delt with immediately but a copy of my bank statement was needed. It was sent within 24hrs. That was almost 2 months ago. I have not had a single email since then despite chasers.
How the industry can say they are amongst the best pension administrators is beyond me. I use Embark because my broker chose them. If you have a choice I would recommend you give them a wide berth. I am still waiting.

I cannot state just how truly awful this company is. Unfortunately like every other review I have to give one star. Emails go unanswered, and if they are almost always given either confusing, misleading or contradictory information. The "customer services" department is appalling. Have been trying to remove all our funds to a new SIPP provider for over 4 months and still not completed. My recommendation would be to avoid using this company at all costs.

The worst company i have ever dealt with. Terrible communication and service. My online account has not been updated for over six months and when planning pension drawdowns this is unacceptable. I had compensation due to their mistakes at the start of the year but still problems continue.. and their charges are £1000 pa !!

There are so many opening statements to this review. Is 1 star too good ? Most definitely! Perhaps its time for trustpilot to allow minus stars, to which from me, and i have no doubt from others, would be the absolute worst. They are probably the worst company operating in pensions administration. My own SIPP has ended up in their hands not by my direct choice. When I found a manager to actively manage my portfolio, the SIPP administration was in house. My manager has remained the same, however through the years the administration has moved to EBS pensions and now , i am very sad to say, Embark. Over the whole period the quality of administration support has gone from excellent to good to Appalling. I am now actively seeking an alternate administrator. Their customer care is abysmal. Emails are not answered for days sometimes weeks. As regards to telephone calls embark has installed an answering system that in no way increases their efficiency but allows them to hide behind it. A queue that starts with 50plus calls waiting requires far more agents answering the calls than they have. And then when communication is finally established their incompetence level is amazing. They cannot calculate correctly tax free cash amounts etc. When corrected , by me usually, an apology is never given. Their proactive attitude to clients is minimum i would even say zero. Is it unreasonable to expect to see calculations as opposed to just what they think is the amount. Also when we, as individuals, take out sums from our pensions, they are major events. When a payment is finally made, don't expect speedy, despite our banking system nowadays that is almost instant. Also are we not entitled to a final message confirming how the amount was derived? My claims about this company are based on actual events which i am willing to show any interested party, hopefully some person or organisation that can take away their right to administer private individuals SIPPs . A final comment the number of reviews combined with the overall rating says it all. STAY AWAY FROM LETTING EMBARK ADMINISTER ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN YOUR LIFE, YOUR PENSION.

This company are so bad. They don’t respond to enquiries at all.

I have been trying to move my pension to another company since August but have failed because of their complete lack of response.

They appointed a specialist to deal with this issue but then made him redundant without bothering to tell me.

Appalling company. Avoid at all costs

I am trying to initiate a drawdown from my SIPP. Embark are incapable of carrying this out. I have waited over 20 days for them to carry this out. They put the phone down on me when I call and just say they’re very busy. They are totally ineffective. I so regret my IFA setting up my SIPP with them.

Can't give zero unfortunately.
18th in phone queue. Virtually impossible to take money from my pension. Don't respond to complaints.
Wish Halifax had never transferred me from AJ Bell.

Sadly I can’t give zero stars, I’m forced to give a one star minimum, but that’s far more than they deserve.

Teansferring my SIPP from Embark to another provider due to bad service - they received all the transfer forms on 31st July but nothing has happened.

When I rang to chase the transfer back in September, they said it hadn’t even been looked at but they couldn’t give me an ETA, the best they could do as tell me it may take another 2-3 months.

I explained that I wanted to transfer it away and then take my tax free lump sum and they were delaying it, so was told that I’d be better off taking th lump sum with them because that’ll happen much quicker than the transfer, and they may be able to expedite it because there’s nothing they can do to speed up the transfer.

14/9/25 - emailed complete drawdown document to customer services

24/9/25 - chased, was told their service was 11 working days and as they were still within that, there was no need to chase

9/10/25 - 19 working days since I submitted my withdrawal request Was told that it hadn’t been looked at yet but once the original ETA is exceeded, they can’t provide a new one so I’d just have to wait. I explained repeatedly that I need this money and not only am I missing out on fund growth (assets sold down to cash and not reinvested as they need to be available for the withdrawal) but also I’m paying interest on my mortgage that I planned on paying off with my lump sum. I got the verbal equivalent of a shoulder shrug from Embark, so I asked that a formal complaint be lodged, which they said was fine but a complaint won’t result in any ETA for my withdrawal. Also, they’ll try to resolve the complaint in 3 days but if they can’t, then it’ll be 8 weeks (no prizes for guessing which of these timescales has come true).

15/10/25 - email received from Embark about my withdrawal, asking for me to complete a risk assessment form (not instructed to do this up front on website) and that once completed, they’d review it and call me back for a conversation before paying o it my withdrawal.

27/10/25 - I sent the form back (yes that was 9 working days later but I wasn’t expecting a form and I’m caring for a family member with cancer, as well as working full time, so I don’t get time to read my emails often).

Today is 4th November and I’ve heard nothing back. I suspect that it was my complaint that prompted them to look at my withdrawal request for the first time and then issue that pointless risk assessment (asked questions about impact of income on taxation when I’m only taking tax free cash so not applicable to my situation) and I fear that it’ll be at least another 6 weeks at least before it’s looked at again and this will only be the phone call, after which I assume it will sit untouched for a further few months.

The stress and anxiety of not being able to pay off my bills and incurring interest, at a time when I’m dealing with a difficult family situation is terrible. I literally can do nothing to get my hands on my own money that I’ve invested with them for years, and no amount of complaints or phone calls will change this.

I could weep, it’s just too much.

I have been a victim of this unbelievably dysfunctional lot for 17 years. They are so bad that my original Financial Adviser apologised for placing my SIPP with them and waived his fees. In that time, they've had >£35k out of me in fees, for which they have done the square root of FA. They don't monitor income as per remit; don't answer emails, and it's impossible to reach them by 'phone. My wife and I are about to sell our SIPP property-we are in our mid seventies and involvement with Embark is affecting our health. They'll get one chance when a sale is agreed. If they don't handle the transaction timeously, I'm declaring 'unilateral independence--i.e., put everything in the hands of an independent solicitor and sending all my paperwork to the Ombudsman. Finally, someone mentioned Lloyds. I wrote to their Chief Executive, Charlie Nunn, and he didn't reply either! My SIPP is in the joint names of myself and the 'Trustees' of Hornbuckle/Embark. I wouldn't trust these people to shovel dung.

This is the most hopeless company I have ever come across.
They make BIG mistakes which I am still waiting for them to correct.
They do not carry out the services listed in the agreement.
They can not carry out simple admin (even a change of address is not complete after over 6 months!)
They are IMPOSSIBLE to communicate with - if you phone the person to deal with is not available but they will NEVER phone back and it you email you just get an automatic reply to say they WILL reply in x days - they never do.
I have raised formal complaints but have aged considerably after trying to deal with them over the last few months

I was put into this pension company by Coutts. I have tried to get my pension drawn down for months. They do no respond to queries. Their customer service is atrociously bad. I have made a formal complaint which has been whitewashed. I am now taking them to the ombudsman. Is anyone else interested in doing so in partnership?

Given my own experience of Embark, I was not surprised to see the huge number of one star reviews for this company. When you email their customer service people they aim to respond within 11 working days. They don’t. It often takes several emails to get any kind of response from them, even to a basic question that could be answered in minutes. I recently asked them for a valuation which took forever, but what really annoyed me was the fact that they had actually received it long before they sent it on to me. Customer service from Embark is utterly dreadful. They really don’t care for their customers at all and I look forward to leaving them soon.

This is an entirely shocking Pensions Administrator, keeping in mind that they are dealing your pension. My experience: I set up a SIPP ages ago with a respectable company. That one was bought once before ending up with Embark Pensions. Now to the point: Embark is beyond description. During 7 months 2025 I probably spent in excess of 5-6 full working days trying to extricate my pension from this sorry lot. P.S.: Correct me if I am wrong: I believe they are owned by Lloyd's Bank? Before regulators will hopefully do something about this company, and if it is true that Lloyd's owns them, it might be high time for Lloyd's to clean up this threat to retirement?

Quite possibly the worst and most stressful experience of my life. It has taken nearly ten weeks to be able to withdraw my pension funds.

You never receive a response to any emails you send, the phone system doesn't work and when you select one for customer service it just sends you around in a loop and back to the main menu, I did manage to find a way around this by just pressing 001/01/002 or any other random numbers until I eventually got through but then found myself number 18 in a Que which then took another two hours for them to connect me, once connected I only spoke to one member of staff who actually appeared to want to help me but during the course of waiting for my funds and of the numerous calls made found all the other staff to not be interested one bit.

When I eventually did get paid out I was taxed at 40% even though I provided a P45 showing I’m a lower rate tax payer.

In short quite possibly the most stressful experience of my life trying to get my own money having paid them fees for years to look after it for me.

I would beware as I get the impression alls not well hence the slowness and haphazard way they conduct themselves.

Totally Totally Unprofessional

I have been trying to transfer some funds from Embark to Hargreaves Lansdown since mid July, HL have sent numerous emails and so have I, they do not reply, I have tried to call there customer service team but know one picks up the phone, I am now pursuing moving my account to another company, except...HOW!! when you cant get them to communicate !!! I'm 72 years of age and this has to be the worst company that I have EVER in my life had dealings with.