- Lawmakers have been slow to act, so investors must be on their toes
- Serious investors, as well as the unsuspecting, may be at risk
Pension scams have been making headlines with increasing regularity over the past half-decade, but for experienced investors the risk can still feel distant. For all the sympathy afforded to victims, there is a tendency to think ‘it wouldn’t happen to me’. That belies the fact that investment frauds are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and increasingly hard to spot.
The risks have risen over the past two years, during which time Britons have frequently been asked to stay at home. That has played into the hands of the criminals whose activity was already increasingly focused on online scams of various stripes.
Of the 875,622 scams reported during the year to March 2021, 80 per cent involved cyber crime, according to Action Fraud, the national fraud reporting centre.
This has compounded a problem that first flourished following the introduction of the ‘pension freedoms’ in 2015, which allowed those aged 55 and over to access their pension pots more or less as they wished, and invest as they saw fit.
For some, greater flexibility brought with it greater risks. Pension scams flourished as fraudsters sought to capitalise on the wave of money looking for a new home.
As a report published last March by MPs on the work and pensions committee pointed out: “People can now access a wider range of investments. As a result,…
