One in 10 people over the age of 50 with a pension plan believed that they had been approached by scammers attempting to access their savings, new research from Succession Wealth has revealed.

The survey also found that, of those approached by scammers, one in 20 said that they lost money through pension scams, or up to 125,000 people nationwide.

Pension scammers were seemingly becoming more commonplace, with 84 per cent of those contacted by scammers claiming that they had been approached in the past 12 months, while six per cent said that they had been contacted more than 10 times.

Commenting on the findings, Succession Wealth head of communications, Mark Stokes said: “Our findings are very alarming and illustrate the potential scale of the problem that is pension scamming.”

Despite the apparent widespread fraudsters, only 22 per cent of respondents who believed that they had been targeted reported it to the authorities.

The most common targeting method was via the phone, with 68 per cent saying this was how they were contacted, followed by e-mail (27 per cent), while 4 per cent said that they were visited in person.

Offering a ‘free’ pension review was cited by 62 per cent of respondents as a tactic used by scammers, while promises of an investment scheme that provided high returns were ‘offered’ to 42 per cent of those approached.

Twenty-seven per cent of those targeting said that they were put under pressure to give an answer quickly and nearly one in five were told about opportunities to use their pension savings to invest in other products, but were given no details if the products.

Stokes added: “Some of the people being targeted are vulnerable and more needs to be done to protect them.

“We are writing to all of our 20,000 plus clients to warn them of this problem. Given that we manage many of their pension plans, Succession is able to help clients ensure that they don’t become victims of this crime.”

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