"With this approach, these commentators are destroying trust in pensions at a time when access to retirement advice is more important than ever."
Chrystal believes that demand has been stimulated by "reporting of transfer values of sometimes 40 or more times the forecast annual pension income that members would otherwise receive".
As a result, he says individuals are speaking to advisers starting from the premise they are on "the right end of a "deal", when for many people nothing could be further from the truth".
An estimated £50bn has been transferred from company DB schemes to individuals since the pensiom freedoms and many taking these pension transfers have received advice.
Chrystal says that "of course, there have been some rogue advisers in the sector, unfortunately, as there are in every industry, but to listen to some so-called pension industry experts continually crowing in the media, you would think that the whole sector is riddled with scandal".
He warns that people who transfer their pensions after taking professional advice are "routinely and arrogantly slammed in the press by many in the industry as having been misled, misinformed or mis-sold".
Chrystal continues: “If these industry commentators bothered to drop the ‘we know best because we are the experts’ attitude, they might learn that the regular people we work with are not stupid, have made more good decisions than bad ones in their life, know their values and how they want to live. They want to organise their income in a way that allows them to do the things they did not have time to do when they were working.
“By pushing their agenda in this way and by creating constant distrust, they have turned what should be the point in someone’s life when they reward themselves for all their hard work, into a time of fear and anxiety.
“With this approach, these commentators are destroying trust in pensions at a time when access to retirement advice is more important than ever.”
