The budget proposals to free up pension pots. Right or wrong?

mishap At the very least you should keep an eye on the interest rate your BS account is paying.
They often offer a relatively good rate to new savers and then when you're not looking, lower the rate to something derisory.
I had an online account with Newcastle Building Society, which initially paid a good rate but within a couple of years I had to close it and put my money somewhere else - our current account with Santander was paying a better rate.

It may well have been the same scheme jane - a couple of years ago. Cousin not stupid but admitted he was naive and trusting.

A lot of older people lost money when persuaded to buy investment products sold to them by their bank, which they didn't really understand. I have every sympathy for them. DD after being mis-sold an endowment policy with her mortgage, has come up with Rule 2 (No 1 being, as janeainsworth said, if it sounds to good to be true, it is too good to be true) Never invest in anything you do not understand. If you have read all the documents and still do not fully understand what you are investing in. Don't

I have very little sympathy for intelligent people who put all their money into get rich quick, high return schemes. For the last ten years DH has regularly been phoned by 'boiler room' fraudsters who, if you listen to them, will try and sell you shares in a company you have never heard of but whose shares, they say, will soar in value in the next year. I have heard people who lost money to these people explaining how pleasant and nice these persuasive people were and it has constantly amazed me that a) they had stayed on the phone long enough to discover this and b) anyone would consider buying something they had never heard of, from someone who cold called them. You wouldn't buy a car, sight unseen, from someone who cold called you, why put your life savings into the share equivalent? To describe such people as 'naïve and trusting' is a kindness to someone we may know or sympathise with but I would use much harsher language for them.

That's a bit unfair, Flickety. Very few people should take out a personal pension in that case.
You may have everything explained to you, but it does not mean that you understand it all. The people who run pension schemes can change their minds about where they invest your money, and once in, you lose money if you change from one scheme to another. If you have been saving in the same pension company for over 30 years, the rules have definitely changed.

We did understand the concept behind our endowment mortgage and the endowment for an additional loan as we had had endowment policies for years that had always made good returns. However, both failed to achieve the sum required to pay off the mortgage or loan. We were offered a settlement for the full amount for the additional loan (as if we had taken out a repayment loan). However, the other firm (Axa) refused to budge and we were left with a shortfall on our mortgage.

And we had not started out with Axa, they took over the firm with which we took out the original policy.

Civil Service AVCs could be put into Scottish Widows or Equitable Life - both recommended schemes. By a scientific analysis I chose Scottish Widows, luckily for me (ie I did 'dip, dip, dip, my blue ship').

durhamjen I was not talking about long term personal pension plans, or indeed exceedingly dodgy investment schemes sold by banks. I have every sympathy with anyone let down by companies whose probity previously had been a rock you expected to rely on.

I lack sympathy for intelligent people who suspend their intelligence and common sense when offered a get rich quick scheme and then feel aggrieved when, inevitably, it proves a scam and the more foolish who put all their eggs in one basket are left penniless.