Sipps rip offs?

maxie014

I know its the sun newspaper,but how do people get talked into withdrawing their entire pension pot,and then investing it with some company in a overseas forestry deal?
I cant understand it myself but it also says as many as a million of the 1.2 million sipps will have dodgy investments in them,i find this very hard to beleive.
But like i said it was in the sun lol.

dunstonh

I know its the sun newspaper,but how do people get talked into withdrawing their entire pension pot,and then investing it with some company in a overseas forestry deal?

Greed and stupidity

I cant understand it myself but it also says as many as a million of the 1.2 million sipps will have dodgy investments in them,i find this very hard to beleive.

I don't believe that figure personally. However, I would not be surprised to see a figure in the low hundreds of thousands.

Drp8713

We generally try to be nice and help people on here.

But there are seriously people around and some who come on here having saved all their life into a pension, then some sales person cold calls them and says forget about the standard thousands of UK, USA, European, Asian and Emerging Markets Equities funds, forget about Government and corperate bonds, forget about commercial property.

Forget about mainstream but niche sectors like commodity ETFs, private equity, infrastructure, frontiers markets.

What you want is a diversified portfolio made up of a car parking space in Scotland, a beach hut in Cape Verde and some shares in a spanish vinyard that doesnt exist yet.

I mean can you really help people who are willing to risk their pensions that they have saved for decades on the basis of a 5 minute cold call sales pitch? If you told them Heinz have brought out special magic beans they would probably buy some.

Anyway, I refrain from saying that in threads where people have been scammed as it wont help them and will just make them feel worse but anyone with even average intelligence and a modicum of common sense would realise if they researched investments, that you can take massively wild risks in return for potentially massive returns (if that is your intention) in a mainstream SIPP on individiual smaller company shares, specialist funds and the like and you would still be far, far more likely to see any of your money again than with one of these scammers.

ManAtHome

I think most of the potential scams on here have been the 'pension liberation' ones (get yer cash out before you hit 55). Hopefully most if not all posters were discouraged by the responses, but MSE-ers are still a minority of the general public.

OldBeanz

Look at: how many people smoke; how many people come on here asking for advice about such scams, I would like a £ for every time someone on here is told about cold callers; the reputation of the industry, again a £ for everyone who thinks their pension could disappear, like pre-Maxwell; DB government servants wanting to cash in/transfer out their pensions; PPI payments, people are recovering thousands - did they not query the need for such cover; OAP's being duped at their door; telephone calls... etc.
There is no financial education in this country and if a nice man phones up and offers to make you more money or a free review then what harm can there be in that...

bigfreddiel

No such thing as a free lunch! fj