The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has launched a new scam-fighting strategy amid the cost of living crisis.
TPR is warning that savers may be lured by offers to access their pension savings early to cover essential household bills or be attracted by fake investments offering high returns that never materialise.
In its latest plan to tackle scams, the regulator said it will continue to improve the co-ordination of intelligence between scam-fighting partners to better disrupt and prevent fraud and scams and bring scammers to justice.
The strategy follows a joint assessment of the threat from pensions scams carried out by TPR and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau.
Nicola Parish, TPR’s executive director of frontline regulation, said: “Our new scams combat plan sets out to make savers aware of the risk of scams, encourage schemes to adopt higher standards of protection for savers’ pots and secure the intelligence we need to work with others to pursue and punish criminals.
“But this task is not ours alone. We expect industry to lead the way in thinking of innovative ways to protect savers now and in the future.”
TPR’s plan will complement the work of Project Bloom, the multi-agency taskforce created in 2012 to tackle pension scams, which is to be renamed as the Pension Scams Action Group.
The name change follows a recommendation by the Work and Pensions Committee and is designed to make the group’s scam-busting remit clearer to the public.
TPR’s…
