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Grove Pensions Solutions, based in Kent, hired a third party marketing firm to distribute over 2 million emails over a twelve month period, promoting its services. An investigation led by the Information Commissioners Office found that Grove Pension Solutions Ltd was responsible for the two million emails, which were sent between 31 October 2016 and 31 October 2017.

The ICO found that Grove Pensions Solutions had instructed a marketing company and used third party email providers to carry out hosted marketing campaigns, that advertised the company’s services. The company had sought specialist advice from a data protection consultancy as well … Read more

Action Fraud have released a statement saying that organised criminal groups led by married couples and families are scamming pension holders to the tune of millions of pounds.

Action Fraud say criminal investigations involving regulators, government agencies and police forces are currently ongoing into a number of these gangs. In some cases, the fraudsters have hired fraudulent financial experts with pension experience to run large-scale scams. The fraudsters would not be able to run these scams without the insider knowledge of fraudulent experts.

Victims report receiving cold-calls, offers of free pension reviews and promises of high returns. However a ban … Read more

Action Fraud has revealed that two people have reported to the service, that they have lost more than £1 million each to pension scams. However, Action Fraud believes this is only the tip of the iceberg as many victims never contact the authorities to report it and so the total amount of people who have handed over such large pension pots is unknown.

In 2017, the average loss of pension scams was £91,000. Victims reported receiving cold-calls, offers of free pension reviews and promises that they would get high return rates, all of these promises are warning signs of … Read more

A former financial advisor has been jailed for his involvement in a multi-million pound investment fraud. Neil Bartlett has been sentenced to 8 years imprisonment for scamming £4.5 million from victims, which he used to fund a lavish lifestyle of travel and gambling.

Police in Merseyside began to investigate Bartlett after receiving a number of complaints from Action Fraud, about his business practices. The scheme involved tricking victims into believing they were investing their pensions and life savings into investment accounts with interest. What he was actually doing was filtering the money through his company to pay himself this … Read more

The Financial Ombudsman Service has upheld a complaint bought by five individuals who lost nearly £100,000 after transferring their savings following a free pension review.

The decision made by FOS could offer hope to thousands of other victims, who have lost their savings in SIPP’s, a successful way to claim back their money.

The five individuals invested into schemes, including Ethical Forestry and Global Plantations, between 2013 and 2016. The 5 victims alleged Guinness Mahon Trust Corporation worked with unregulated introducers, to facilitate non-standard investments.

The five victims were cold called and persuaded to invest their pension pots into … Read more

The Financial Conduct Authority and The Pensions Regulator have issued a statement, to warn the public to be vigilant when receiving cold-calls, regarding pension investments.

 

The warning comes after 253 victims contacted Action Fraud to report pension investment fraud. This resulted in more than £23 million lost to pension scammers in 2017 alone. The average loss equates to £91,000 per victim.

Needless to say, these are highly sophisticated scammers, who convince people into transferring their pensions into fraudulent schemes. Victims can lose their life savings and hard earned money, which could leave them facing a retirement future they … Read more