Just one day after it came back online after a supposed upgrade, investment advisers are finding they and their clients are locked out of the Aviva for Advisers platform.
Advisers were told on 23 January the platform was back up and running.
However Clive Farrell, an adviser at Galleon Wealth in Ipswich, told FTAdviser his experience of the platform since it came back online has been “chaos”.
Mr Farrell said: “We had known for several months the upgrade was happening, which is fine. We knew it was supposed to come back online on Monday, but that was delayed, I understand that can happen, so that it fine.
"I spoke to Aviva this morning (24 January) and they told me it was up and running.
"But when I tried to access it by the normal route, I found it virtually impossible."
Mr Farrell said he called Aviva to address his access issues and kept on hold for a long time.
"They told me there was a glitch with the normal route to access the platform, so they told me how to access the service by a much more circuitous route than normal, and that worked.”
But the real problem began when one of Mr Farrell’s clients, who is based overseas, tried to access the consumer area of the platform this morning and was unable to.
Mr Farrell said: “I was told by Aviva there is no problem with the consumer part of the platform, so I told my client he should have access.
"But when he tried to log on he got a message saying there is a ‘registration error.’
"The client is based overseas so I called Aviva. I spent 45 minutes on hold on the adviser line, only to be told they couldn’t deal with the query as it was about client access.
"They transferred me to the client line, where I went back into the queue and was on hold for twenty minutes, when I was told by the client line they couldn’t deal with me as I am a third party, even though I am the registered adviser.
"So where do I go? It may be I have to ask my client to phone them, but that is difficult for him.”
The financial adviser said the platform was easier to use when he had a dedicated account manager who worked with him as a single point of contact.
Catherine Comben, spokesperson for Aviva for Adviser, said the company is aware that there are a number of glitches on the platform and is working to fix those.
She said advisers are being communicated with about the problems, and added that call volumes are much higher today than normal.
David.Thorpe@ft.com
