Fewer than one in three pension fraud reports (29%) submitted to Action Fraud are referred for police investigation, according to a new report.

Over the last eight years only 1,173 of the 4,006 pension fraud reports submitted to Action Fraud were passed to local police forces by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau for investigation.

The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau sits alongside Action Fraud.

The figures were obtained by Quilter under a Freedom of Information request.

In 2019 only 6% of reports were sent to the police for investigation, but this rose to 66% during 2020 when the Coronavirus pandemic hit.

Due to the complexity of pension scams, to investigate them requires considerable police resources so Action Fraud and the investigatory agencies are forced to prioritise the cases they believe can lead to a successful criminal justice outcome.

Jon Greer, head of retirement policy at Quilter, said: “The pension transfer regulations brought in 2021 have had a positive impact on highlighting scams. However, even with those regulations in place scams are still being perpetrated making the Online Safety Bill an important piece of the puzzle.

“Getting retribution for a pension scam can be tricky so we should be going to the root of the problem and that starts with getting the Online Safety Bill over the line. The Government continue to risk people losing their life savings while this legislation stalls.”

Yesterday the Government revealed that it is to ban cold-calling for all financial products as part of its beefed-up strategy to tackle financial fraud. 

The ban will cover all unsolicited calls offering any financial product. It follows a ban on cold-calling on pension products which was introduced in 2019.

The Home Office also announced that it will set up a new fraud squad with 500 investigators. The new National Fraud Squad will work with local and international police forces, as well as the UK intelligence services.

The current Action Fraud service will be replaced by a £30m fraud reporting service. The service will include a simpler route for reporting fraud online, reduced waiting times and an online portal to allow those reporting fraud to get updates on the progress of their case.

The Home Office said the new system will be live within a year.