Fraud Minister Lord Hanson has urged pension trustees to do all they can to protect millions of scheme members from fraudsters.
Lord Hanson said trustees and administrators should use “every touchpoint” with pension holders to reinforce scam warning messaging.
Speaking at the Pension Scams Action Group’s Fighting Pension Fraud webinar 2026, he said: "You know the warning signs – unexpected offers, promises of early access to pensions, or guaranteed high returns. However, your members may not recognise these signs as quickly as you do."
He told trustees and administrators: "Every touchpoint you have with pension holders is an opportunity to reinforce our message. Whether it's in your correspondence, websites, or customer service teams, you can help people understand the importance of stopping and thinking before sharing personal information on their life savings."
The pensions industry was urged to:
• commit to TPR’s industry Pledge to Combat Pension Scams campaign
• get up to date on the latest scam warnings
• educate their members on the risks and how they can keep themselves safe
• tell Report Fraud about any suspicions
Lord Hanson also outlined the Government’s new fraud strategy and the Stop! Think Fraud campaign, which provides advice on how to protect yourself from pension fraud.
Mike Broomfield, head of intelligence at TPR and chair of the Pension Scams Action Group said PSAG – a multi-agency taskforce led by TPR to tackle pension fraud – is working with the UK’s national domain name registry, Nominet, to proactively flag newly registered domains and disrupt potential scam sites before harmful content is even published.
He said a series of suspicious websites, identified using TPR’s AI website detection tool, were found to have involved the same bad actor operating as part of a wider criminal network. The websites sought to deceive and exploit savers with promises of tax-free access to pension pots before the age of 55.
Through collaboration with the National Economic Crime Centre and Nominet, many of these websites were promptly taken down.
Mr Broomfield said: “Each of these malicious websites would have had the potential to reach thousands of savers. Removing these emerging threats disrupts criminals’ operations, uses our resource efficiently and, most importantly, helps protect the public from harm.”
To date TPR has reviewed more than 1,000 suspicious websites in this way.