BEWARE PENSION POT COLD CALLERS

If you weren't able to read my Pensioners Platform column in the June-July 2014 edition of the Torbay Times, here it is:-

THE CITY regulator has warned that the over-55s are being targeted by cold callers who are falsely claiming to offer “new, free, government-backed retirement guidance.” If you receive a call or email, or see an advertisement that makes such a claim: ignore it. If you don’t you could be conned and end up putting your pension savings into risky investments and losing the lot!

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has alerted consumers to beware of phone calls, emails, text messages and online adverts offering them a “free pension review” which encourages them to move their pension to “get better returns”. The regulator said it had heard evidence that some telephone cold callers were claiming to represent the government after the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced plans in the recent Budget to offer impartial face-to-face guidance on the range of options people had available for their pension pots.

In reality, that guidance has not yet been launched. Instead, it will coincide with plans from April 2015 to give people aged over 55 the freedom to take their pension pot however they see fit.

The FCA alert added that, as the new guidance initiative was still at the developmental stage, any claims of a link to it are highly unlikely to be true.  The regulator went-on to explain these “reviews” were designed to persuade you to move your money out of your existing personal or occupational pension into a self-invested personal pension (SIPP) or a small self-administered scheme (SSAS).

From there, the pension pot is likely to be invested in unregulated investments such as overseas property developments, forestry or storage units. Unregulated investments can be very high-risk with returns that are potentially unreliable. Indeed, the FCA stressed that, for most individual investors, putting pension money into unregulated investments is unlikely to be in their best interests. Moreover, such investments are also often very difficult to sell.

Most of the companies making these offers are not authorised by the FCA. Nevertheless, the regulator pointed-out that the companies concerned often falsely claimed they are acting on its behalf. This is not true! The FCA also warned that people investing in this way are likely to find they have no safety net to fall back on if something goes wrong. This would include no right to complain to the financial ombudsman, and no right to claim money back from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). Indeed, the regulator said it was unlikely that the ombudsman or the FSCS would be able to help someone who loses money as a result of dealing with an adviser who was not FCA-authorised.

Even more importantly, the FCA pointed out that authorised financial advisers who had their clients’ best interests at heart were very unlikely to be offering such a service, because professional advice on pensions is not free.

Tracey McDermott, director of enforcement and financial crime at the FCA said, “People should be very wary if they are contacted out of the blue by someone offering a ‘free pension review’. Most of the companies offering this ‘service’ are not authorised by us, and we’re concerned that the reviews often end-up with pension pots placed in higher-risk, unregulated investments. If you see or receive an offer of a ‘free pension review’, just ignore it. If you are called out of the blue to discuss your pension, just hang up. Your pension is far too important to be put in the hands of a cold caller.”

The FCA said people who were considering reviewing their pension arrangements should consider getting independent advice from an authorised financial adviser. Consumers can check if the adviser is authorised by the FCA and, therefore, allowed to give pensions advice by going on-line to www.fca.org.uk/firms/systems-reporting/register.

You can also ask firms for their “firm reference number” plus contact details and then call the firm back on its switchboard number shown on the register, rather than call on a suggested direct line. If there are no contact details on the register or the firm claims they are out of date, you can contact the FCA’s consumer helpline on 0800 111 6768.

Footnote: If you have already moved your pension pot and have concerns, you should firstly take the matter up with any authorised firms that were involved. The ombudsman might be able to help if you cannot get the matter resolved with an authorised firm.

 

TRAITORS IN OUR MIDST?

 If you weren't able to read my Pensioners Platform column in the May-June 2014 edition of the Torbay Times, here it is:- 

 

Vince Cable MP ~ photo: courtesy of the Daily Telegraph

WELL, I guess I’ve heard it all now. On April 14, I watched a TV programme called The Agenda on which the ITV’s political editor Tom Bradby hosted a discussion on the topics of that week. One of the discussion points lined-up for the programme was, as Tom Bradby pointed-out in his introduction, “Are the older generation under-valued?”

Approximately two-thirds of the way through the show I came close to heaving the nearest heavy object through my TV screen. Why? Well, first I heard seventy year old author Michael Morpurgo (of War Horse fame) say, “We had it really very good post war. The Fifties were a good time … optimism … a new National Health Service”. Moments later, the politician Vince Cable (71) agreed when he chipped-in with, “Our generation did have it good … easier to buy a house, salaried jobs, and so on.”

Clearly, both of these talking heads lived on a different planet to most of the rest of us during the 1950s. After all, neither of them mentioned rationing, or grossly overcrowded classrooms, smog, the menacing events in Korea, Suez and Budapest, and the almost constant threat of a four minute warning, followed by total nuclear annihilation. However, those are things I and I dare say the majority of us, remember living with, while growing-up in England during the Fifties.

Indeed, my own experience was a cramped but cosy London County Council prefab until it was demolished with the rest of the estate in 1960. After that, my parents and I were moved to a GLC flat seven miles away, so I had to change secondary schools at the age of fourteen. My education never recovered because, due to an appalling GLC administrative error, I lost a whole academic year that was never recouped. Needless to say I failed all five of the GCE “O” Levels I took.

Before then, in the 1950s, my play grounds were often World War II bomb sites. As for easy mortgages: if it hadn’t been for the fact my father died at the ridiculously young age of 54, I would never have been able to afford the deposit on a house. Why did my Dad die so young? Answer: he served his King and country throughout World War II and, along the way, his health suffered. He left the Royal Artillery at Christmas 1945 with the princely sum of £99 cash, a demob suit and a peptic ulcer. The latter eventually turned to stomach cancer, and that spread to his liver. He died in June 1971.

As for Michael Morpurgo and Vince Cable: they were born in St Albans and York respectively: hardly war-torn areas compared to London, Coventry, Exeter and Plymouth methinks. Furthermore, they both came from reasonably affluent families, and they both attended grammar schools before going-on to university: Vince Cable to Cambridge and Michael Morpurgo to the University of London.

So, with all due respect to Messrs Morpurgo and Cable, they are in no position to wax lyrical about how good the 1950s were, because their experiences are far from the norm. The 1950s were not “a good time” as claimed by Mr Morpurgo, they were tough ... very tough, for most of us. They were austere too, and the majority of us, as children, just had to get-on with it and battle through the hard times as best we could. To suggest the 1950s were anything other than a struggle is just plain wrong. It’s misleading too, because it sends-out the wrong signals to younger generations who are already blaming the post-World War II Baby Boomers for the mess we’re all in today. But, in truth, we Baby Boomers, and our War Baby elders are NOT responsible for today’s problems. The blame, instead, must be laid at the feet of incompetent and sometimes corrupt politicians the world over, not to mention global big business in all its forms.

Anyone of pensionable age suggesting otherwise not only betrays his or her own generation, but also provides yet more hurtful and damaging ammunition to the OAP bashers in the media and elsewhere. The war babies and baby boomers should be used as object lessons, not soft targets. We made it through some perilously difficult times, and gave our children a much better start than we had. The fact that it has all gone belly-up is not our fault, but the fault of endemic greed and corruption among ALL generations.

 Michael Morpurgo ~ photo: courtesy of the Daily Telegraph