It is essential to consider how best to invest for your retirement. While most people in the UK will benefit from a state pension, it is advisable to invest enough money early enough to provide for a comfortable life after work and to prepare a future for your children.<\/p>\n
There are many pension options to choose from, and most of these are legitimate. However, in recent years, there has been an increase in mis-sold pensions<\/a>, which the Sunday Times<\/i><\/a> referred to earlier this year as “the dawn of a new mis-selling scandal”.<\/p>\n Many of these mis-sold pensions took the form of SIPPS, or self-invested personal pensions, with the victim being encouraged through a cold call to reinvest their money in a high-risk scheme that promised an equally high return. SIPPs give complete control over the investment, but there is also the possibility of the pension losing money.<\/p>\n Many of the unscrupulous financial companies who were running these schemes were relying on the legal concept of caveat emptor<\/i>, or ‘buyer beware’; beyond ensuring that the scheme adhered to the relevant tax regulations, the onus was on the investor to ensure they understood the risks.<\/p>\n Some of these schemes were fraudulent in conception; the pension schemes were a front for a push payment scam, and customers lost their retirement savings. In other cases, the ‘pensions’ were a Ponzi scheme<\/a> that used funds from new business to pay existing customers’ dividends; once the schemes became unsustainable, they collapsed.<\/p>\n Some of these schemes invested in high-risk activities such as storage pods or overseas forestry which could not deliver the promised returns.<\/p>\n In 2011, the Financial Services Authority (FCA) began to question who was actually responsible for these mis-sold pensions. Their conclusion was that it was not enough for those behind the schemes to rely on the customer’s judgement; they had to shoulder some responsibility for ensuring the pension scheme was suitable for the customer.<\/p>\n In many cases, SIPP providers were not exercising due diligence in the running of their schemes. In addition, financial advisors were guilty of hard-selling their schemes with little regard to their suitability. Many financial advisors were failing to take their clients needs into consideration by advising customers with a low risk appetite to take on high-risk investments.<\/p>\n Yet more cases involved unregulated market ‘introducers<\/a>‘ who were illegally approaching customers or colluding with financial advisors to aggressively push unsuitable schemes.<\/p>\n There is a high degree of complexity in deciding who is responsible in the case of a mis-sold pension, so it essential to get claims advice. If you have been the victim of a mis-sold pension, there is a time limit by which you must enter a claim.<\/p>\n In order to decide whether the scheme was mis-sold, ask yourself: was I informed of the risks? Was the fee structure made clear? Was the scheme successful? Did I really want this scheme? Were my circumstances and needs taken into consideration?<\/p>\n If you answer ‘no’ to any of these questions, you may be the victim of a mis-sold pension. Making a claim is complex and best left to those with experience, so contact a professional to get claims advice.<\/p>\n In some cases, money for fraudulent investments can be claimed through the banks; in other cases, the scheme provider will be responsible for compensating you directly for a mis-sold pension. If the scheme was mis-sold through a regulated financial advisor, there may be a claim through the Financial Ombudsman Scheme<\/a> (FOS) or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).<\/p>\n In any case, the spotlight is on mis-sold pensions, so get claims advice now.<\/p>\n It is essential to consider how best to invest for your retirement. While most people in the UK will benefit from a state pension, it is advisable to invest enough money early enough to provide for a comfortable life after work and to prepare a future for your children. There are many pension options to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1923,"featured_media":29646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,1960],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"modified_by":"James W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/makemoneyinlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/makemoneyinlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/makemoneyinlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/makemoneyinlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1923"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/makemoneyinlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/makemoneyinlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/makemoneyinlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/makemoneyinlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/makemoneyinlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/makemoneyinlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}