- Joint FCA and TPR campaign including TV advertising launched to boost awareness of pension scams
- New statistics reveal pension scam victims lose £91,000 each on average
- Figures obtained by AJ Bell from City of London Police show almost £400million has been lost to investment fraud since April 2016
- Government ban on pensions cold-calling expected in Autumn this year
Tom Selby, senior analyst at AJ Bell, comments:
“Scammers continue to hound retirees on a daily basis, devising increasingly complex and convincing methods to deceive unwary savers into handing over their hard-earned pensions.
“Since April 2015, when the pension freedoms were introduced, fraud activity has increasingly and unsurprisingly targeted over 55s, often luring people to part with their retirement pot by promising huge returns over a short period of time.
“Once the scammers have your money, however, they often disappear, leaving a trail of devastation in their wake. There is no sign of scam activity reducing either – in fact, £51 million of investment fraud was reported to City of London Police from April to June 2018, up from £30 million in the same period last year.
“While the forthcoming Government ban on pensions cold-calling should mark the start of the fightback against fraudsters, increasing awareness of the dangers of scams is necessary to enable people to protect themselves.
“Scammers can now target savers in all manner of ways, particularly through social media, and there is clearly a limit to what regulation and Government intervention can achieve.
“If more people are familiar with the signs of a scam then retirees should become less easy prey for these bottom-feeding fraudsters.”
