“You know the warning signs – unexpected offers, promises of early access to pensions, or guaranteed high returns. However, your members may not recognise these signs as quickly as you do,” Lord Hanson told the webinar, which was hosted by The Pensions Regulator (TPR).
“Every touchpoint you have with pension holders is an opportunity to reinforce our message. Whether it's in your correspondence, websites, or customer service teams, you can help people understand the importance of stopping and thinking before sharing personal information on their life savings.”
The webinar – which is now available to watch online – brought together more than 550 pension trustees, advisers and administrators to hear from experts on the latest intelligence, advice and tools to keep their members safe.
Attendees were urged to:
commit to TPR’s industry Pledge to Combat Pension Scams campaign
get up to date on the latest scam warnings
educate their members on the risks and how they can keep themselves safe
tell Report Fraud about any suspicions
Lord Hanson also outlined the Government’s new fraud strategy and the Stop! Think Fraud campaign, which provides advice on how to protect yourself from pension fraud.
Mike Broomfield, Head of Intelligence at TPR and Chair of the Pension Scams Action Group (PSAG), updated attendees on PSAG’s latest work to identify and disrupt fraudsters’ operations at source and prevent harm to pension savers.
He outlined how PSAG – a multi-agency taskforce led by TPR to tackle pension fraud – is working with the UK’s national domain name registry, Nominet, to proactively flag newly registered domains and disrupt potential scam sites before harmful content is even published.
Mike revealed how a series of suspicious websites, identified using TPR’s AI website detection tool, were found to have involved the same bad actor operating as part of a wider criminal network.
These websites sought to deceive and exploit savers with promises of tax-free access to pension pots before the age of 55.
Through collaboration with the National Economic Crime Centre and Nominet, many of these websites were promptly taken down.
Mike said: “Each of these malicious websites would have had the potential to reach thousands of savers. Removing these emerging threats disrupts criminals’ operations, uses our resource efficiently and, most importantly, helps protect the public from harm.”
To date TPR has reviewed more than 1,000 suspicious websites in this way.
“We are now exploring further ways of dealing with repeat bad actors and working with our partners to develop further disruption techniques,” Mike added.
“Fraud wrecks lives. Through strong, coordinated action, we can stop scammers in their tracks and protect savers’ futures.”
Mike underlined how vital reports from industry are in informing this work.
Chris Bell, Report Fraud, Service Delivery Director at City of London Police, gave an overview of Report Fraud, the new cyber-crime and fraud reporting service, outlining how every report related to pension fraud is analysed by a TPR analyst embedded in City of London Police (CoLP) and fed directly into active intelligence work.
“The intelligence we’re receiving is helping us build a clearer, more comprehensive picture of the threats out there – and high-quality reporting from pension professionals is a key part of that. You don’t need to be sure that fraud has taken place before you report something. Every report counts. Sometimes it’s the small concerns that help complete a bigger picture.”
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