Source · Select Committees · Work and Pensions Committee
Recommendation 6
6
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At present there is no universal definition of pension scams and the range of potential...
Recommendation
At present there is no universal definition of pension scams and the range of potential activity which could be classed as a scam runs from sharp practice all the way to outright fraud. Project Bloom, the multi-agency taskforce set up to tackle pension scams, uses a broad definition of pension scams which has been developed by the Pension Scams Industry Group. We recommend that Project Bloom should continue to use the Pension Scams Industry Group definition of pension scams, which should be Protecting pension savers—five years on from the pension freedomss Pension scams 57 treated as the industry standard. Members of Project Bloom may need to use different definitions within their own settings—for example, to avoid double counting a case of investment fraud under several different categories—but they should record data in a way that is compatible with the definition used by Project Bloom.
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Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
We agree the issue of secondary scammers awareness must be increased and it is an important issue. The Money and Pensions Service also provide guidance on secondary scammers. The Pensions Regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority will further consider communications about the risk of secondary scammers (recovery fraud) throughout the course of the next financial year and beyond. The Pension Regulator’s next burst of paid-for activity, which focuses on the Pledge and the pensions industry, is scheduled for September. More details on both the ScamSmart campaign and the Pledge campaign can be found in response to Recommendation 17.