More pensioners have written into FT Adviser, having been told they are unable to draw down any income from their Hartley Sipps.
One couple are in serious ill-health, and told us they believed they might not live to see their money back.
Several others have told us and the action group supporting them they have nothing to pay the bills with over Christmas.
While they are stuck in limbo, unable to get to their money, the administrators are still applying charges to their funds.
Most of the 17,500 Sipp holders have seen no form of compensation through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme yet, despite the company going into administration in 2022 and being declared in default by the FSCS this year.
In 2023, FT Adviser warned that Sipp holders could be charged a total of £37mn in costs if they wanted to transfer to another provider.
In February this year, the FSCS placed Hartley in default so it could pay out compensation on clients' exit charges.
But many advisers and Hartley pensioners have told FT Adviser they cannot exit or transfer - they are stuck and unable to access their money.
And the more FT Adviser looks into the accounts and the hundreds of Hartley Sipp-related companies that have been set up on Companies House, the further down the rabbit hole we go.
Curious and curiouser, as Alice might say.
The old adage 'follow the money' seemingly rings true - where is the money going? Who benefits from not allowing pensioners access to their Sipps?
Following these threads has been leading us at FT Adviser all over the place: the UK, the Isle of Man, Ireland, America. Where else?
There are documents upon documents to read through, cases upon cases, and every week more people contact FT Adviser asking for help.
They want to know, rightly, what regulatory action is being taken to protect people's pension pots? What interventions are being done?
The Hartley Action Group has claimed billions of pounds of people's money is now tied up in Hartley Pensions, which is owned by the same Wilton Group that acquired Greyfriars Asset Management, Guinness Mahon, Berkeley Burke, Guardian Pensions and The Lifetime SIPP.
Questions
"We are due some explanations - immediately", according to Simon Nuttall, one of the founders of the Hartley pensioners' action group.
"The extraordinary conclusion we reach is that pensioners are being methodically misled, and kept uninformed."
Some explanations would indeed be good.
There are huge sums of money in all these accumulated pension pots - what will this be used for? And by whom? Because right now, it's not being used by the people who saved into them. They can't access their money.
The way hard-working people have seemingly been hung out to dry is, in my opinion, nothing short of scandalous.
