The cost of fraud

Cost of pensions fraud could be more than £14 billion

The People’s Pension¹, the workplace pension provider, estimates that as much as £14.6 billion may have been defrauded from UK pension savers.

Results of a survey by The People’s Pension, conducted by YouGov, found that 0.46 per cent² of all UK adults questioned, said ‘I’ve been a victim of a pension scam, where someone has defrauded me of money from my pension pot’. These figures indicate that as many as 240,610 UK adults³ may have fallen victim to pension scammers at some point. Based on an average pension pot size of £60,700, this would mean that the total cost could be as high as £14.6 billion⁴.

It is widely acknowledged that the true size of the problem is unknown, although Government figures have previously revealed that £43m had been taken from victims who reported the crimes to police over a three-year period, while the influential Pension Scams Industry Group (PSIG) had previously estimated the total value of the crime might be as high as £10 billion⁵.

The survey also revealed that of all UK adults surveyed:

• Nearly one in 11 (nine per cent) have ever received unsolicited contact about their pension
• Four per cent know someone who has been conned out of pensions savings
• Four in 10 (41 per cent) are aware of pension fraud from news coverage
• More than half (54 per cent) have received an unsolicited call, text, email or letter from people they suspect might be trying to scam them generally

Phil Brown, director of policy at The People’s Pension, said: “It’s deeply concerning that as many as 240,610 savers might have lost some or all of their hard-earned pension savings. Our estimatefor the number of victimssuggests that some of the figures currently put forward for losses to pension fraud are underestimates. While £14.6 billion is a large number, fraudsters will only want more and with £2.5 trillion of pension savings potentially accessible to criminals, there is plenty for them to target.

“This is a crime which causes untold misery and has the potential to wreck lives, which is why it’s vital that there is a joined-up approach to tackling this very serious problem. We want to see a broader definition of pension fraud to ensure that crime data provides an accurate picture, the establishment of a central intelligence database, not to mention more support for victims.” 

In September this year, The People’s Pension and policing think tank The Police Foundation, published a report, Protecting people’s pensions: understanding and preventing scams⁶, which made a series of recommendations including granting pension providers greater powers to warn savers about suspected fraud.  There have been cross-party discussions with MPs to ensure the Pension Schemes Bill contains enough provision for pension providers to prevent suspected fraudulent transfers from proceeding. The specific grounds will be contained in secondary legislation, the details of which could be revealed when the Bill returns to the House of Lords in the coming weeks.

ENDS