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Increasingly employees are asked to make voluntary or
mandatory contributions to pension and other benefit plans. This is
particularly true for 401(k) savings plans. These plans allow you to
deduct from your paycheck a portion of pretax income every year, invest it
and pay no taxes on those contributions until the money is withdrawn at
retirement.
An anti-fraud campaign by the Department of Labor uncovered a
small fraction of employers who abused employee contributions by either
using the money for corporate purposes or holding on to the money too
long. Here are 10 warning signs that your pension contributions are being
misused.
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Your 401(k) or individual
account statement is consistently late or comes at irregular intervals
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Your account balance does
not appear to be accurate
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Your employer failed to
transmit your contribution to the plan on a timely basis
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A significant drop in
account balance that cannot be explained by normal market ups and
downs
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401(k) or individual
account statement shows your contribution from your paycheck was not
made
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Investments listed on
your statement are not what you authorized
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Former employees are
having trouble getting their benefits paid on time or in the correct
amounts
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Unusual transactions,
such as a loan to the employer, a corporate officer, or one of the
plan trustees
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Frequent and unexplained
changes in investment managers or consultants
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Your employer has
recently experienced severe financial difficulty
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