Duplicate Superannuation accounts being set up

Has anyone had this problem? Australian Super kept setting up new accounts for me as they claimed my employer made an error quoting my tax file number. At one point I had 4 duplicate accounts. They have charged me fees and insurance premiums on duplicate accounts and refuse to refund me even though I have been paying fees and insurance premium the my main account I have held with them since 2012. Anyone else have this problem?

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@pgiles At one point I had two super accounts with Australian Super. When I called and tried to fix the problem, I was told it was because one of my previous funds was taken over by Australian Super and that they had a different agreement as a part of the take over. Therefore my super from my new job couldnā€™t be rolled into that fund and I would have to roll the money from the old fund into the new fund.

Of course there was a bunch of paper work involved with this but I eventually got it done. You should be able to roll them over through MyGov now. @XavierOHalloran might be able to give advice on making a complaint though!

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Hi Peter,

Thatā€™s really poor form from Australian Super. Even if your employer entered a tax file number wrong, there is clearly something broken with Australian Superā€™s internal processes if it led to the generation of 4 duplicate accounts and the least you could expect is a refund of fees, let alone lost interest.

Iā€™d give them one more chance, but mention you will take it to the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal (SCT) if they cannot resolve this issue for you. If the donā€™t then the SCT is the place to escalate.

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This happened to me years ago with MLC (Iā€™ve since moved to an industry fund but my employer at the time was paying MLCā€™s fees for me, so I had that going for me, which was nice). When I moved to a new employer who also used MLC as their default fund I tried to port my old fund over. Iā€™m not sure sure if my employer or MLC (I suspect the former, they were pretty bad at these sorts of things) messed up the paperwork and and processed it as if Iā€™d asked for a new ā€˜defaultā€™ fund to be set up, instead of just using my existing one.
It took ages to sort out, but in the end I got my funds consolidated into one and had all the duplicate fees refunded. Keep at them, and listen to @XavierOHalloran - donā€™t be shy about getting the tribunal involved if theyā€™re not doing the right thing by you.

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Hi PG Australian Super are a business. Ignore the ads, go to one of their 'education" sessions and discover that it is an opportunity for existing customers to be marketed their fee earning services. If you learn anything form their sessions then you are a beginner who has never read the information available on AS web sites or done any other reading from Government prepared sites on the various financial subjects. Yes really boring for most to digest information you read. It is easier to get ā€˜stuffā€™ from an bonus driver employee, who talks real nice and slow if you want. That employee has targets to achieve in tough employment times.

Yes, I am a lawyer et al, former Fed Govā€™t employee, and suggests my colleages ae overwhelmed by efficiency dividends. This last phrase means reduced staff, while the dishonest, right through to marginally criminal, are compensated with bonuses.

However, any Super fund associated with any bank is likely to engage in more dishonesty than AS. When questioned by the Senate and consumers,- all you get is mea culpa (guilty to some extent) and words, after much delay, that accept the corporation or entity dis not serve their customer well, or as well as they could have expected. Their are legal standards that have been cleared by top lawyers, working with exclusivity contracts at the top firms in the field and a couple of spares as well.

You are dealing with executives in entities holding Trillions of dollars in assets These folk attend many executive conferences and meetings, that I suggest merely give them the emotional intelligence talk. The nub of the issue is that they are worth more pay/bonuses, and that it is appropriate to take credit for ideas and improvements suggested by lower staff.

As you get closer to CEO status, you have been indoctrinated within that expectation bubble and can take the extra privileges that were due in the past employ. Only being exposed by those share value sites and organizations can put a spotlight on their behaviors. I just read the top 15 executives in the USA that competent left leaning folk deemed were overplayed an average of double their calculated worth. In summary increased shareholder value should be in tandem with real executive pay packets after tax benefits are recognized. THat may explain why I am hyper. We have a three strike rule in Australia, that has delivered little. The efforts of executives at ā€œwhich bankā€ should be the first to be reviewed by an entity with real teeth.

Come on neighbor Malcolm, I may even vote for you? Any cynics who read this blurb may suspect this is unlikely. Cheers Geoff .

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I and my employer(s) had nothing but endless trouble with Australian Super. If you look at the consumer ratings for this super fund, they donā€™t stack up very well when compared to other super funds. I got the hell out and I suggest you do too. The only way they will improve is if people start leaving.

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Hi A you have dumped on AS, so who is better?

Hi @geofff, Iā€™m not dumping on AS so Iā€™m sorry if Iā€™ve given that impression. Iā€™ve never been an AS customer so Iā€™ve had no experience with them at all, good or bad.
I was referring to MLC who I did find quite good, but then someone else was paying their fees for me (the problems I had were, I believe, a fault of my employer). Iā€™m also no expert when it comes to superannuation, so I too would be interested to see who people recommend.

An update on my nightmare with Australian Super. After lodging several online complaints finally one of their client services people called me and has pledged to look at it for me again and come back in a week with a response. Stay tunedā€¦