Scams
At a glance
Your pension is likely to be one of your most valuable assets, so it’s important that you protect it from scammers who want to trick you out of your hard-earned savings.
There’s been a sharp increase in scamming since rules about how you can take your pension were relaxed. In December 2020, research by provider The People’s Pension found that 1 in 200 adults in the UK – around 250,000 savers – have lost retirement savings to fraud.
How to protect yourself
Unsolicited phone calls, texts or emails about your pension are illegal. So, if you receive a pension-related cold call you should hang up. You should also ignore any emails or texts offering you a free pension review. Free pension reviews are designed to persuade you to move money in your pension pot into a high-risk scheme.
Scammers will often claim they’re from Government-backed bodies. These organisations would never phone or text to offer a pension review or free pension assessment.
MoneyHelper has useful information about common tricks used by scammers and how you can protect yourself.
One of the most important things you can do is to seek financial advice from a regulated financial adviser before taking any decision about transferring your pension. Professional advisers will never cold call you, so if you receive an unsolicited phone call, text or social media message offering you a pension review or a one-off investment opportunity, it will be a scam. Find out more about taking advice.