Pension Scammers Target People Who Want To Avoid IHT

MallyGirl

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81995663#Comment_81995663

the challenge there is the quality of the data. I used to work for a company that licenced cleansed mortality lists but the work to get them usable was significant.

Silvertabby

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81995603#Comment_81995603

Nothing to do with unlawful burials or not being buried at all, and all to do with nok continuing to receive pension benefits for a family member who has died.

Speaking with my ex LGPS hat on, the usual ways we were notified of the death of a pensioner were:

Phone call from NOK

Pension payment rejected by bank, as 'account closed'

DWP routine 'all points' notification, which weren't usually received until several months after the death.

The fraud cases are (eventually) picked up, then the pensions department are the bad guys for trying to claw back several hundreds - or thousands - of £s from a grieving family.

QQQQQQQQ_Y

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81995847#Comment_81995847

Any dataset with any free-text field in it will contain errors - particularly where matching one free-text field with another - matching data even with unique reference keys can be challenging. Once overlaid with issues around notices of death it will then rapidly move from a technical issue to a political one.

The other issue then becomes who has access to the data and to what purpose it is put - I can see scammers having a field day with this sort of information.

MarkCarnage

Most big schemes will now employ a tracing service to routinely check on pensioners over a certain age…or to follow up in more detail where there are clear suspicions. Scheme of which I am a Trustee had a case of over £20k being fraudulently claimed. Ultimately, Trustees will weigh up the cost/benefit or recovery…if it's fifty quid they won't bother, particularly if it's a genuine oversight. They will also be more relaxed about overpayment errors for small amounts where it's an error by scheme admin. They will stop the overpayments clearly, but will be careful about pursuing for past arrears particularly to elderly vulnerable people.

Silvertabby

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81996148#Comment_81996148

Not long before I retired I took a phone call from an elderly lady who wanted to change her bank details. Explained I needed that in writing, so I would send her a form to complete.

Couldn't find a record based on her NI or DOB, so asked her where she had worked. Transpired that she was talking about her husband's LGPS pension, and his records showed that he was alive and in receipt of a much higher than average pension. Told the lady that her husband must sign the change of bank details form - at which point she burst out laughing and said he'd have a job doing that as he'd been dead for over 5 years.....

I very carefully said that we weren't aware of that, and that I would to stop her husband's pension and send her the claim form for widow's benefits. She didn't see why, as her husband had told her that she would just receive his pension on his death, so hadn't seen the point in telling us..... Misunderstanding rather than fraud?

She was well into her 80s, and the overpayment must have been over £50K. Even reducing her payments to the spouses benefit rate would have been a substantial drop in her income, but I don't know how the trustees treated the overissue.

MarzipanCrumble

Death data is digital - including reasons for death; ONS hold it but agree about 'quality' especially around names.

LHW99

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81997098#Comment_81997098

Doesn't surprise me - the hospital completed the piece of paper I had to take to the registrar with an incorrect spelling of my late mothers' surname. When I aske them to change it, the admin person said "It doesn't really matter, you can just tell the Registrar the right spelling".

How many bereaved people wouldn't notice that sort of minor detail, and what sort of confusion would it eventually create?

Moonwolf

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81997098#Comment_81997098

One of my jobs in the past has been writing a pipeline to clean, compare and match deaths to hospital data to keep hospital patient registers up to date. It is difficult - Fred Smith (Not intended to be a real name) could have been David Fred Smith and always used his second name, or Frederick Smith or Alfred Smith. The hospital record was often the used name and not canonical name, although that has improved with improved NHS Number use and better systems. Death registrations don’t always match the name registered at birth. I bet there are a few people on this forum whose friends and even close family wouldn’t recognise the name on their National Insurance or NHS record.

GDB2222

When I registered my father in law’s death, I gave him a middle name which apparently was not his.

QQQQQQQQ_Y

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81997989#Comment_81997989

Becomes even more challenging when doing data matching where the father and son have the same names and live at the same address. I've heard tell anecdotally of someone attempting data matching exercises where 3 generations of family members in the same household had the same name.

I also understand that there have been cases of duplicate NINOs being issued to multiple people - so even an apparently unique identifier isn't unique. These things are really easy until you start looking closely at the detail.