Pension scams
Stay safe and learn more about pension scams
The impact of losing some or all of your pension savings could mean that you’re unable to achieve the retirement you deserve. Often, there isn’t the time to recoup your losses and this could mean that you have to change your plans, work for longer or face financial difficulty later in life.
Taking the time to learn about how pensions work and understanding how to recognise pension scams could help you shield your retirement plans from those who would ruin them for you.
It can sometimes be difficult to spot a scam - they come in lots of different formats: unsolicited phone calls, emails and letters, as well as cold callers to your home. When it comes to pensions, you need to be careful of:
- Pension liberation scams, that offer you access to your pension before the age of 55.
- Investment scams, that offer guaranteed or unrealistic returns on investments or tempt you with high risk or unregulated investments.
- Pension review scams, where you’re contacted out of the blue and offered a free review of your pension savings and investment returns.
- Advice scams, that offer free advice with the aim of finding out personal information.
Check out the ‘sender’
It’s always worth checking the ‘from’ email address. Scammers can change the name being displayed to make it look more like it is from the company or organisation they are pretending to contact you from. However, to find out if its genuine you can hover your cursor over the ‘sender’ name, or right click on it and you can see the full email address. Make sure the details after the ‘@’ sign look like the company they say they’re contacting you from.
Check out the content
It’s worth reading the content to check for any signs that the email is from a scammer. Sometimes scam emails will just say “Hi” and not include your name, other times your email address will be used after “Hi”. This can sometimes be a sign that all is not as it seems.
It’s also worth checking spelling and grammar and seeing if the message makes sense and sounds like something you’d receive from that company. Also check for consistency – are the contact details and dates correct for that business? If there are any details, links should be provided. If you hover over those links, you can see the web address without clicking on it. Does the website look genuine?
You can also compare the branding to make sure it matches any other correspondence you’ve had from that company or compare against their website.
What to look out for
So, what can you do to protect your pension?
Where to get help and information
What to do if you think you’ve been scammed
If you think someone has attempted to carry out a scam, or has even been successful there are a number of things you can do:
Get in touch!
If a transaction is in progress, it may still be possible to stop it. Contact your scheme or their administration teams.
Report it!
Contact Action Fraud, or the FCA and provide them with as much information as possible to help them investigate.
Which? offers independent advice and information about consumer rights.
We're committed to protecting our customers and stamping out pension scams full stop. Our administrators, Capita, have self-certified that they're meeting the requirements of the pledge. This means that we're providing our members with the information and tools they need to identify and report scams, as well as implementing the the checks and other requirements needed to ensure we’re doing everything we can to protect members' savings. You can find out more about the pledge at www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk
© Capita Pension Solutions. All rights reserved.
Capita Pension Solutions Limited is part of Capita plc. Registered in England & Wales with our registered office at 65 Gresham Street, London, EC2V 7NQ, England and registered company number 02260524. Capita Pension Solutions Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN: 142484).