Following government confirmation that it would ban cold-calling in a bid to stamp out pension scams, PA has put together a list of key stats which drove the campaign …
Measures designed to protect private pension savers from scammers, including a ban on calls, emails and text messages, are set to be introduced by the government, it confirmed last weekend.
On Monday, the Treasury then published its response to the consultation on the proposed ban. The paper outlined government feedback to the 111 responses to the initial consultation, launched in December last year.
Despite the confirmation that legislation would be going ahead, however, the industry remained unsatisfied with the “slow” timeframe set out in the paper.
Red Circle Financial Planning IFA Darren Cooke originally petitioned for the ban, in September 2016. The petition received 8,690 signatures, just less than the 10,000 threshold required to trigger a formal government response. However, the campaign picked up enough industry backing to prompt Chancellor Philip Hammond to pledge to tackle the issue in the 2016 Autumn Statement.
Here are other key cold-calling and scamming statistics you may have missed throughout the campaign…
1. An estimated £43m had been unlawfully obtained by scammers since April 2014, according to government figures. It found people had been conned out of £5m of this amount in the first five months of 2017.
2. Research from Retirement Advantage, meanwhile, found around 1.8m people aged 50 or over had been targeted by potential pension scammers between May and July 2017. It said this represented those who had been offered unsolicited free pensions advice or investment opportunities by phone, text or email.
3. On an annual basis, the government reported that nearly 11 million pensioners are targeted by cold-callers. It said there are an estimated 250 million scam calls per year – equivalent to eight per second.
Phoenix Group also found pension ‘cold contact’ to be on the rise, up by more than a fifth (22%) between September 2015 and December 2016, to more than a quarter (26%) of the 2,002 adults it surveyed. It found 7% had released some or all of their pension following cold contact.
It was more concerned, however, that around three-fifths (61%) said they would not report the contact, with 70% saying this was because they did not know they could or should report calls.
4. In its consultation response, the government referred to figures from Citizens Advice that said 97% of the pension fraud cases referred to its office, in 2013, stemmed from cold-calling. In the same paper, it said Citizens Advice had also found that nine in 10 people would miss the warning signs of a scam.
The Tax and Incentivised Savings Association (TISA) similarly referred to research from Citizens Advice, that found just 12% of people selected the legitimate pension help on offer, despite the fact three-quarters (75%) said they felt confident they could spot a scam.
5. The Information Commissioners’ Office (ICO), which the government proposed would act as its enforcement agency for the ban in the consultation response, said it could issue penalties of up to £500,000 to scammers.
6. In February, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it had received 11,650 enquiries relating to scams from consumers between 1 December 2015 and 30 November 2016. This represented 13% of all consumer contact with the regulator for the period.
A total of 8,277 enquiries related to potential unauthorised activity in the period, which led 521 official enquiries and 16 investigations. While the FCA said it resolved 156 matters through correspondence with firms, it also revealed plans to return £1.9m worth of funds to out-of-pocket investors where cases led to court action.
The regulator issued confiscation and restraint orders to value £2.7m. Investigations resulting in court actions have also led to a total of 32 years and nine months in prison sentences, the regulator said.
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