Over the years I have met a good many elderly people who have been stripped of all or part of their hard-earned pensions by cold calling fraudsters.
It is hard to overstate how awful such people are. Often preying on elderly or disabled people they con them into giving over their savings in return for the better part of nothing. Fraudsters love a pension pot, especially when it is someone else’s. When your pension is your largest financial asset, you stand the risk of being the target of those who can’t be bothered to work hard and pay into their own pensions but who prefer to help themselves to your savings. And these idle, cowardly, shysters leave people facing retirement with a greatly reduced income and unable to rebuild their savings.
The majority of pension fraud comes via cold-calling. A smooth operator phones up a vulnerable older person and appears to promise all kinds of riches if they just do this, or invest that. So I welcome this Conservative Government’s decision to ban cold-calling in relation to pensions. It is now illegal (with some very specific exemptions) to cold-call anyone to discuss their pensions.
As my colleague, and Pensions Minister Guy Opperman MP summed it up: "Pension scams are despicable crimes, fleecing people of the retirement they've earned by doing the right thing, working hard and saving for the future. Banning pensions cold calling will protect people from these callous crooks and ensure fraudsters feel the full force of the law."
So, as of now, if anyone you don’t know calls up to discuss your pension, you should hang up and inform the Information Commissioner’s Office on 0303 123 1113 or at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/nuisance-calls-and-messages/
And if you want to throw in a bit of choice language telling the scammers what they can do with their deals, feel free.