Pension scam victims 'lost £91,000 each'

 BBC

By Kevin Peachey Personal finance reporter

• 14 August 2018

Pension scam victims lose an average of £91,000 each as fraudsters see the potential for looting savings pots.

One victim, Jennifer Ringstead, who lost over £50,000, said she was "angry" she had not been compensated and would have to start saving from scratch.
City regulators are now launching a new campaign aimed at alerting people - especially those in their 40s, 50s, and 60s - to the risk of pension fraud.
They want people to check any pensions firm they deal with is authorised.

How the scam works

The scam starts with an unexpected call, text, social media approach or email - offering a free pension review, or a way to make attractive returns on pension savings.
But the money may be simply stolen or transferred into a high-risk scheme completely inappropriate for retirement savings.
Many offer eye-catching returns or high-rolling investments in hotels or green energy schemes that never materialise, or instead lead to losses.

Pension scams in numbers

• A total of 253 victims reported to Action Fraud that they had lost more than £23m to pension scammers in 2017
• This equates to an average loss of £91,000 per victim
• The Financial Conduct Authority's Financial Lives report suggested that 107,000 people aged 55 to 64 could potentially have been victims of pension scams last year

It is thought that only a minority of pension scams are ever reported.
Many of those losing money may only have relatively small pension pots, but it may be their entire life savings.

Image caption Jennifer Ringstead says she still feels angry

Mrs Ringstead and her husband, from the Vale of Glamorgan, invested - and lost - their pension pots which, together, totalled more than £50,000. They were tricked when their finances were already overstretched.
She said that the story the fraudster told was convincing and came when they were at their most financially vulnerable.
"He was just perfect. I did not think for a second that anything was amiss. I asked questions, he had the answers to everything," she said.
"I still feel very angry. I feel very angry that we haven't had any compensation and that at our age, we are having to start [saving] from scratch.
"That doesn't look great for the future."
Mark Steward, director of enforcement at City regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), said the new campaign run by the FCA and The Pensions Regulator, which features a TV advert first airing on Tuesday, will aim to put a stop to cases like this.
"We can enforce. We can investigate. We can prosecute. We can continue doing all those things, but they are hard and they take time and they do not give people the money back that they have lost," he said.
"Prevention is better than cure, so we want to give people some handy tips to be aware of, particularly if they are being confronted by fraudsters."
Pension companies should warn people about scams if a transfer is requested to a scheme that appears to be unauthorised.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45170408 


More on this scandal

https://americanoffshore.blogspot.com/