Over 3,000 people a day have sought information about pension scams since the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and The Pensions Regulator (TPR) jointly launched a project in the summer to raise awareness.
Additionally, over 370 pension holders were warned about an unauthorised firm after using the Warning List, an online tool that helps consumers check a list of firms operating without authorisation.
Victims of pension scams last year lost an average of £91,000 each to fraudsters. They reported receiving cold-calls, offers of free pension reviews and promises that they would get high rates of return – all of which are key warning signs of scams, the regulators said.
The 3,145 people a day that visited the ScamSmart website was a 462% jump from the 562 people per day that visited it before.
Research from the FCA estimates over 10 million UK adults received an unsolicited pension offer in just one year. The Treasury has laid regulations that will ban pension cold calling early in 2019.
Mark Steward, the FCA’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said: “Our research shows that many pension holders believe they are too savvy to be scammed. But pension scams are often very sophisticated and difficult to spot. Scammers will target people from all walks of life and with any size pension.”
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