Tuesday, August 14, 2018

If a Police Officer can have his pension scammed then is anyone safe under Tory "Pension freedoms" ?

Check out this BBC report about a serving Police Officer who was cheated out of his pension but managed to win £135,000 compensation from the Ombudsman for his fund's failure to properly warn him about risks.  The Police Officer had been "persuaded" by his financial advisor to transfer his very safe and secure government backed Police pension into a completely dodgy scheme which it appears was then "lost or misappropriated".

While some may argue that a Police officer should know better, to me this shows that if a Police Officer can be conned out of their pension, then anyone can and that the Tory (and Lib Dem coalition) so called "Pension freedoms" have enabled con merchants to pray on ordinary peoples lifelong savings.

Since I used to work in financial services I know first hand how convincing and sophisticated these fraudsters are and also how extensive institutional corruption can be. I think that my personal views on institutional LOBO and LIBOR rips offs are well known.

Today there was also reports about the average loss is £91,000 for such pension scam victims and that
  • The Financial Conduct Authority's Financial Lives report suggested that 107,000 people aged 55 to 64 could potentially have been victims of pension scams last year

What a complete and utter mess. No wonder ordinary working people have little confidence in our financial services and its regulation.

I am appalled that Sir Steve Webb, the former Penision Minister, who introduced "Pension Freedoms" and now works for the industry is also quoted as blaming pension schemes for these cons and not apparently taking any responsibility himself for the "Pensions freedoms" policy which is facilitating even more cons to happen. 

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