WASPI

No letter. Main newspaper items included two cartoon dogs talking?!? What an insult. The government website was still stating my pension was payable at
age 60, when I was 58. Financial advisors were still working on Age 60. So as much as people like to tell us we knew, we should have paid more attention etc. Tell that to the professional bodies, divorce lawyers etc. Who were still working on age 60. WASPI are seeking compensation for lack of notice, which has been proven by the ombudsman. No one I know received a letter.

I never got a letter. My older friend retired and got her pension at the age of 60. I had to work until I was 62.

Rosies21

No letter. Main newspaper items included two cartoon dogs talking?!? What an insult. The government website was still stating my pension was payable at
age 60, when I was 58. Financial advisors were still working on Age 60. So as much as people like to tell us we knew, we should have paid more attention etc. Tell that to the professional bodies, divorce lawyers etc. Who were still working on age 60. WASPI are seeking compensation for lack of notice, which has been proven by the ombudsman. No one I know received a letter.

That is just SO negligent that it's unbelievable. I wonder if WASPI have any way of getting a screenshot of that page then - ie to prove that not only did many of us not get our letters - but checking the government website then would have given us outdated information.

Surely that's got to be worth throwing that one on the table - if someone can provide that proof?

I was born 1958 and I got a letter , can’t remember when but I’m self employed and also got a letter from my accountant, with advice for adding to my private pension. I also remember reading about it in the financial pages and seeing it on the news.

I knew about it from papers and news I remember checking to see whether I would be affected or not.

StoneofDestiny

The important point is that the change should not have been made so close to people's retirement age. It's a bit like changing the terms of your insurance payout after you have paid the premium faithfully for decades and then you find out the agreed payout has reduced significantly.
Major changes on pensions and retirement age should be made at least 15 years before implementation, allowing people the chance to plan and save.

Absolutely.

Milest0ne

Did anyone. like me pay the "Married Woman's stamp". ?
I paid it from 1972 till it's demise in 77, being told only that I could not claim sick benefit. No mention of pension. Because of that gap my pension has been reduced by 50%

Yes I worked full time and elected to pay married woman's stamp but to honest I don't see that I received any benefit from it at all. I was born in 1953.

Can't remember if I had a letter but I certainly knew about it as did all of my acquaintances. It was talked about on the radio/TV, in the newspapers and discussed widely in the office and amongst friends and family. Cannot believe so many say they never knew about this.

I can't remember receiving notification and was disappointed to have to wait until age 66 to receive my pension but am very grateful that I receive the new pension which is approximately £50 per week more than my sisters receive who retired some years before me.

I had a letter a long time ago saying I would retire at 64 and a half. Meanwhile the dates changed and in the end I could retire early in the month when I was to reach 66. I wasn't told direstly but knew from watching the news. I find it astonishing that some women were totally unaware. If compensation is ever given we should all get it, not just those who didn't keep up to date with the situation.

I have no idea whether or not I received a letter, but I do know I was well aware I would not receive my pension until I was 62 and three months.
I am amazed that on so many social media pages there are people saying things like they were informed two months before their 60th birthday that they would not receive their pension until they were 65!
Another common belief seems to be that we all paid into our own personal ‘pension pot’, which has subsequently been misappropriated by ‘the government’. I have even seen posters ( not on this site) who seem to feel they are entitled to £60,000+, and that they have been advised to instruct their lawyers to include it in their estate!
No wonder I fear Elon Musk’s statement that social media will be the only accurate source of news, and that ‘citizen journalism’ is the way forward.

I didn’t get a letter but was fully aware that changes were being mooted and when they actually happened. There was a lot of information out in the public domain.

I didn't get a letter, and didn't watch news or read newspapers, as having suffered from serious depression for many years, it was recommended that I steer clear of anything that might increase my anxiety. I'm not stupid, but at that time in my life I was busy raising my family, working, keeping house, and focusing on my other interests, while trying to keep the clouds of depression away. It really annoys me that so many people like 'Joanofarc99 'assume that those of us who genuinely didn't get letters, are either stupid, or suffering from 'selective amnesia hoping for ££££'. I also feel that women should support other women, not make nasty remarks, when they have no idea about the life that other's have lived.

I did get notice, however it wasn’t a letter, I distinctly remember years ago during a Budget speech, it being announced that the women’s retirement age was rising, I’m not sure but a budget from John Major rings a bell, I knew being born in 1950 that it would affect me by a few months, I actually ended up working till I was 66 mainly to give myself some saving in retirement. Most women I know have never had an official letter.

I did get a letter but unfortunately it arrived after my divorce settlement which took into account that I would receive my state pension at 60. Unfortunately I didn’t get the state pension until I was almost 67.

No notification here.
I was told that my ex-husband's 'stamp' years had been deleted from my NI record because the current thinking is that we should be responsible for ourselves.
It wasn't the current thinking in 1980s!
I also wasn't told that until I questioned my years on the phone.
WASPI isn't the problem. It's that we are women. Money enough for other schemes though.

I was born 15 months into the 60s so I'm not a waspi .
If ever ( compensation is given ) I will get nothing which I feel miffed about plus cannot get my pension until age 67 .

I did receive the letters and I heard about the changes but I know some women who didnt receive them and didnt hear of the news either.

We have a surprising number of women here on Gransnet who knew all about every change to the SPA, because they saw information about them plastered all over the place at every turn. How odd then that the Ombudsman’s long and exhaustive inquiry has found clear evidence that the changes were not properly publicised, and has concluded that there was clear maladministration on the part of the DWP.

I personally received one letter, about the second change, when my SPA went up for the second time from 64y 10m to 66y. I did read about the earlier hike in a newspaper article, but people not interested in politics (and it’s not obligatory) probably wouldn’t have. As demonstrated by the fact that when I spoke about it to women I knew who would be affected, the majority of them were completely unaware of the changes and many were horrified to find that their plans for retiring to look after relatives etc were in tatters. And no, this was not because they were stupid or feckless, as some on here seem to believe. The ones most affected were of course those, often on very low wages or temporary contracts, who would be solely reliant on the state pension, and who did not have a generous private pot to draw on.

To my mind the worst aspect of the whole affair is that the government seems quite happy simply to ignore the findings of the Ombudsman, and so many women on here seem quite happy for it to do so. The Ombudsman is the last resort of any ordinary citizen who feels they’ve been treated badly by a powerful state body. What a dangerous precedent this would be.

I am absolutely disgusted by some of the judgemental comments on here from some of you!! What is wrong with just supporting each other?
I was born in 1957 and did not receive any letter. In the 80’s I was bringing up young children and in the 90’s had gone back to work full time doing shifts .
Like you Time2 , I suffered from depression in the late 90’s and tended to shy away from newspapers , tv news etc. But I am by no means thick or stupid. My sister, a head teacher , born in 51 got her sp when she was 60 , my next sister a chartered accountant born in 54 would’ve got hers when she was 63 and a half ( if she’d lived that long , she died age 59 from cervical cancer) and she did not receive any letter either.
I was unfortunately made redundant in 2011 but had a very supportive husband so have been able to manage and now get sp and 2 small work pensions .
But please can you judgemental ladies please stop with the smug comments saying that you knew and ‘how could anyone not know?!’ Believe me shit happens and it was easy!!!

V3Ra- I was born December 1957 and I got a letter

I agree that there were women who did not get a letter or enough notice but I do think some women have selective memories.'

I'm still amazed that some women think they can claim for "lost" pension -from the old age of 60. The ombudsman has already decided it is to do with lack of notice

Everyone who is my age born 1954 that I know working in the NHS, got a letter. I do wonder if it was "Government" employees who got them? But I do recall seeing in Newspapers.
I had to wait until I was 66 yrs.

I too find it highly inappropriate behaviour for some to say "It's your fault you didnt know" - when so very many of us have confirmed we indeed did not have letters. If they did = they were fortunate.

But a heck of a lot of us never did get our letters and I honestly wouldnt have known personally if I didnt read newspapers and accidentally spotted it there.

Thinks - should I get out my crystal ball - just in case there's anything else more recent we should all have been told - but only some of us were?

I don’t know that there is a common belief that we paid into a pot, although that is often (rather smugly) brought up on these threads. Is there evidence of that?

What I do know is that from the day we started working - often in our teens - we paid a percentage of our income in NI, knowing that some of that was so that we would get a pension in our turn. I don’t know how many people gave any thought to the mechanics of the scheme, and arguably it was the governments through the years who could have made it plain, if it was so commonly misunderstood. That they didn’t suggests that they knew that people would object to paying with no guarantee they would get anything back.

These threads always end the same. Those who knew belittling those who didn’t- sometimes suggesting they are lying - and worse out for money.

The number of people who didn’t understand that paying a married woman’s stamp or think everyone on the old pension gets less than everyone on the new shows how sketchy understanding has been when it comes to pensions.

For most of our generation it was been possible to assume that the trust we had in ‘the system’ was reasonable, so who knew what and how they found out doesn’t alter the injustice, if you see it as such. If you don’t, then why not just say that you don’t care that 50s women - by no means all of whom are WASPI members (another misunderstanding that keeps cropping up) had years of lower pay, lack of access to promotion exclusion from pension schemes and so much more deserve another slap in the face? That’s really what underpins a lot of this.

Born in 1950 made it my responsibility to know exactly when I would receive my state pension so that I could plan accordingly! My OH thought he would get his at 65 but had to wait another year but he KNEW !!