Frances Lewis

Stuck in the same doom loop of dealing with unintelligent AI or deliberately obtuse customer service personnel. Signed up for Prime four days ago and have just received the same repeated message telling me what Prime is supposed to offer but wasn't available to me when I booked my flight. No one is listening. This seems to be the pattern of arrogant behaviour from Ryanair, despite consumer protection law. I can now confirm this as a scam. Ryanair has now blocked me from raising a complaint even though they haven't dealt with it!
9th June 12.43 for an hour, 64145762, 6414926, 64253825. FIVE times repeating the same thing and FIVE times Ryainair has refused to understand or address teh issue which is the promised benefits were NOT delivered. Ryanair is so anti consumer it refuses to acknowledge its failures or to refund the money it has misappropriated. This is goes beyond manifest incompetence. It is objectively dishonest by the standards of ordinary decent people like me and most of Ryanair's hapless clients. I recommend you do not sign up for prime and reconsider whether Ryanair is the best service provider. I will let Ryanair know I have voiced my concerns publicly on this site and see whether they respond.

DO NOT SIGN UP FOR PRIME. Website promises free seat booking, free insurance and a discount on flights in April - June. Sounded ok for 79 pounds so I signed up although I anticipated there being an issue. Paid the money, booked the flight and none of the benefits offered were available. Spent an hour on the chatline, engaging with a useless chat box and then an equally useless human being. Told to file an action and have been going in ever decreasing circles ever since. Each person says complaint is resolved - what a lie! Now have to send snail mail to Ireland for a refund. Save yourself a stack of bother and DONT SIGN UP!! I have lost the will to live. I feel as if I have been scammed. Paid 79 pounds and have absolutely NOTHING in return but hassle and disappointment.

My husband and I are no longer clients of Abbey Wealth. Thank goodness for that. We have complaints which have been rumbling on since April 2025. I asked for clarity on outstanding issues of AFS Wealth Management and Advisers Ltd' CEO Vesper France and Head of Compliance and John Cairnduff including why AFS is collecting fees for the other organisation, AWM Advisers Ltd gave the advice, why AFS does not keep proper client records. It has 11 months and had to go to a third party to find out what fees it had taken (!) from me, as did AWM in my husband's case. I telephoned yesterday morning to speak to John Cairnduff, spoke to the Head of Client Services (who was perfectly jolly and polite). She told me he would telephone back immediately. I waited several hours. I telephoned again to be told everyone was in a meeting and would call back when it was finished. At 16h I received an email from the CEO: Thank you for your detailed correspondence. I acknowledge receipt and confirm that it has been reviewed.
In documenting your allegations, that may indicate a criminal offence or a breach of regulatory obligations has occurred, I am required to report your allegations to the relevant authorities.
Your relationship with Abbey Wealth has now concluded. To preserve the integrity of any investigation or complaint handling process, this will be our final direct correspondence on the matter. Any future communications relating to this complaint will be coordinated through our Compliance Team and Legal representatives. We respectfully ask that you direct any further correspondence via formal channels only, The "criminal activity" (her words) is the theft of information by an outgoing Financial Adviser (which AW knew was taken, but did nothing about for more than a year, including warning clients). Then at 16.01, and email from the Head of Compliance: "I note your email below and also your email of 8 April. In relation to the latter, I also note that its contents continue to include unsubstantiated allegations, which in this case also include abusive statements which I consider to be defamatory and potentially libellous. For clarity, our position in relation to your time as an Abbey Wealth client is as follows
• We have issued our final response to your complaint dated 1 February, in which we indicated that we will not engage on any of your opinions which have no basis in fact. As we have provided all the information you requested in your complaint, we regard this matter as closed.
• We are progressing your data subject access request (‘DSAR’).
• We note and acknowledge that your email of 8 April represents a complaint - I will formally respond to it in due course.
• As you are no longer a client of the Firm, nor are you a prospective client of the Firm, we do not have any continuing regulatory obligation to you.
In these circumstances, please be aware that, given the continued abusive nature of your communications with the Firm, we will not be taking, or returning your call(s), nor will we be responding to your emails, beyond those in relation to the matters addressed above. For the avoidance of doubt, we are happy to engage with any party who is prepared to do so in a constructive and responsible.

As you can see the correspondence i contradictory and defensive. I am being accused of being unreasonable for waiting patiently for more than a year for data subject access requests to be fulfilled, for a single review we never had (when four were promised annually). I am being asked to produce evidence which is already on AW's website, in its terms and conditions and in its files. The behaviour is shocking. I invite you to read AW's public promises and consider whether, given the number of increasingly poor reviews whether AW is all that it presents itself to be. Our complaints are similar to many expressed on this site. AW has left my husband and bitterly disappointed and inconvenienced. We have wasted a great deal of time. We have been stressed and anxious. We were promised a personalised experience and continuity. I have had four FAs in a year, my husband three and the last one, who left in August 2024 wasn't even removed from his account. AW didn't notice that its employee had left, three months after she joined the organisation. AW has the evidence to substantiate what it calls my "allegations" i.e. complaints it has failed to address about abysmal service and non-compliance with statutory duties. Before Vesper France complains this is fake review i had several experiences yesterday, including hanging on the phone waiting for it to be answered, three conversations with different people all promising a return call from the Head of Compliance (which he never made) and two emails from AW. It doesn't get any more genuine, or disappointing than that.

Very poor experience. They take 1.99 for the first transaction, give you 7 days to cancel but don't send a reminder and then take a huge fee, much bigger than Adobe. Ii didn't find the application particularly good in any event and cancelled but not within 24 hours of the 7 day expiry.... there lies the trap. 24 days before, so it is not 7 days. It is MISLEADING and an UNFAIR Commercial Practice and therefore not honest. The responses are very polite and very smug, as they know they have ripped you off. I feel as if I have been scammed but they called me a valued customer so in their eyes that makes it already. Somebody is getting rich, whist "valued clients" get poorer.

Regrets .... I've had more than a few. I was promised integrity, honesty and trustworthiness. I was promised continuity of service and adviser, 4 reviews a year and financial peace of mind and security. AW has failed to deliver on any of its promises. I CANNOT RECOMMEND Abbey Wealth and would give minus 5 stars if allowed). Upon receiving the final response letter from Abbey Wealth's New Head of Compliance (for a complaint which started on 15 April 2024) I immediately terminated the relationship by writing to the Trustee of the QORPS who acted upon my request within a couple of hours. AW were removed from my account with immediate effect. Thankfully the Pension Trustee is more efficient that AW who have taken from 15 April 2024 to 20 March 2024 to provide a schedule of costs. I have paid an eyewatering £37.5k in fees to Abbey Wealth from my pension fund in the last two years and a further £23k to the discretionary fund manager. I haven't drawn down anything from my pension and the income generated from fund last year just about covered the 19k total costs (in one year!). Thankfully, I trust the Discretionary Fund Manager, but the scale of fees is eye-watering and although I can speak regularly with the fund manager I can't change the investment strategy without an FA. I once trusted AW, but I don't any more, and with good reason. Make sure your advisors translate % into money equivalents for your wake-up call. Ask your adviser for a schedule of fees. AW had to go to the discretionary fund manager to ask for the fees it received because, presumably, it doesn't have its own records. I didn't realise I didn't have a record either. In 2 years there has been no summary of fees paid to AW from AW. In the last year I have had 4 financial advisers, NO reviews, spent a year complaining and paid £6k in fees for what the Head of Compliance called "ongoing service". I have effectively paid £6k to have my complaints handled badly by the Head of Client Services, the Head of Sales and the Head of Compliance. I found out that initial adviser was a contractor and personally received undisclosed commission for new business (in breach of fiduciary duty). AW calls this a "commercial relationship" which it doesn't believe needs to be disclosed, despite the fact it is driving the type of products that are recommended. The reason there are exit penalties on the bonds is because of the front loaded commission that AW gets (which isn't explained to clients), including the commission secretly paid to the adviser(s). The Head of Compliance says AW's standard terms and conditions do not state quarterly reviews, although this was written into other contractual documents. He accused me of "non-co operation" for there being only one fact find and only one risk assessment since 2022! They didnt't give me access to cashcalc (the proprietary software) until 20 November 2024 and I'd been dealing with them since December 2021! The Head of Compliance doesn't think that former employees / contractors stealing client information as per Vesper France's comment (below) is an data protection issue (!) or the sending of other people's pension information to someone else (by insecure and unencrypted email) is a problem! The Head of Sales backdated a document and he doesn't see that as a problem and the Head of Client Services and Head of Sales don't understand or comply with the firm's complaints process and that isn't a problem either. This organisation is a complete and utter shambles. 100% turnover of advisers and they are still churning. New intake have barely (or any) ex pat experience. They have refused to refund the fees, refused to confirm whether the initial advice I was given is accurate or not, and offered £500 as an ex gratia payment. I am clearly just a cash cow to be milked dry. AW have also been creaming off the fees from my husband's pension which has flatlined in a rising market (after fees). We have just discovered that the adviser who left in August 2024 was still named as the adviser on the Novia Platform which raises major data security concerns about AW's "ongoing service" and due diligence. Use them at your peril because "ongoing service" which is inadequate service (of sufficient care and skill to meet legal standards) is considered to be the "exceptional service" promised by AW on its website, its publicity and orally by its employees (or contractors) I now need to make formal complaints to the Maltese regulator (in respect of my QROPS), the Irish Financial Ombudsman (in respect of the misrepresentation and omission etc), to the UK regulator (in respect of my husband's pension) and to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner and/ or to the Irish court. Yes, it will involve a lot of work and worry which is the antithesis of "financial peace of mind".