Thousands of retirement savers in their fifties are the targets of a flood of cold phone calling, email, letters and texts from pension scammers, according to a new report.
The survey found that a third of over 55s warded off an approach from a pension fraudster in the past three months.
The level is a big jump from the one in five who said crooks had tried to persuade them to join their bogus pension schemes in June last year, says financial firm Retirement Advantage.
The firm revealed the scammers tried to gain trust by offering free pension or investment advice.
The real issues, says the firm, is that scammers have upped their activity since last summer and no one knows how many retirement savers are falling for their scams.
Crooks carefully select victims
Some financial experts believe that the true extent of pension fraud may not be revealed for up to a decade as savers who are currently 55 years old reach retirement age and realise that their pensions have been stolen.
Andrew Tully, pensions technical director at Retirement Advantage, said: “Retirement savers cannot afford to let their guard down or they may find they lose all their hard-earned money to a scammer.
“It’s clear these crooks are selecting their victims carefully by picking on less sophisticated and more vulnerable savers.
“Offering free advice or pension reviews seems to be a trend that retirement savers should watch out for. Many people we spoke to said this was how the scammers first contacted them.”
Pension savings at risk
Meanwhile a freedom of information request to HM revenue and Customs (HMRC) disclosed that more than 80 workplace pensions lacked official approval and that millions of pounds of savings were at risk.
HMRC ordered the companies to move the cash to approved pension schemes to prevent any loss of funds.
The pensions of several thousand workers were affected.
“Transferring pensions to an unapproved scheme could be seen as an unauthorised pension withdrawal,” said an HMRC spokesman.
In these cases, tax penalties can be charged starting at 55% of the value of the transferred funds.
HMRC confirmed none of the workers at firms receiving warning letters had been fined but did not rule out taking such action in the future.
