SIX years. That’s the total prison sentence that two crooked financial advisers recently received for conning more than £22m from over 250 pension holders – each victim losing between £10,000 and £200,000.1
This wasn’t any old rookie Ponzi scheme. This was a sophisticated and credible operation, that left many of its victims with no pensions and needing to work well beyond their retirement date. It’s also every investor’s nightmare.
Are pension scams on the rise?
While official data for 2022 is a little thin on the ground, Action Fraud reported there was an increase in pension fraud in the first three months of 2021 with 107 individual accounts reported. This was an increase of almost 45% when compared to the same period in 2020.
But while official data might be lacking, some useful research from Lottie – a search and compare site for care homes and retirement communities – has shown that online searches for those looking for support after falling victim to pension and investment scams has significantly increased.
From January to March 2022, there was a 75% increase in online searches on Google for ‘scam help’, a 50% increase for ‘fraud support’, a 24% increase in online searches for ‘pension fraud’ and a 22% increase in searches for ‘pension scam’ and ‘investment scam.’
What makes pensioners an easy target?
The introduction of Pension Freedoms legislation in 2015 could well have contributed…
