The Money Saving Expert (MSE) founder has teamed up with campaigners and leading charities including Independent Age, to bring awareness to the “disgraceful” rise in online WASPI compensation scams
Martin Lewis has issued a fresh warning as the “steep rise” in WASPI compensation scams risks thousands of pension-age women across the UK falling victim.
The Money Saving Expert (MSE) founder has teamed up with campaigners and leading charities including Independent Age, to bring awareness to the “disgraceful” rise in online scams. Scams seen by the group include fraudulent websites claiming that compensation is available, alongside emails targeting 1950s-born women asking them to disclose personal information.
One website falsely claimed that “DWP announces £3,000 compensation for 3.8 million WASPI women” while another labelled itself as a “Martin Lewis WASPI Calculator”.
At least one WASPI woman in Derbyshire reported that she had been asked to provide copies of her birth certificate and bank details through an online form, before realising it was a scam.
More than 3.6 million women were affected by the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) failure to inform them of increases to their State Pension age properly.
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The Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) group was launched in 2015 and represents women born in the 1950s. In 1995, the Government announced changes to raise the women’s state pension age from 60 to 65, to make it the same as the men state pension age. Originally the plan was to phase in the rise between 2010 and 2020, however, the coalition Government accelerated the shift in 2011 in a bid to reduce the cost of the state pension system.
The new pension age for women was introduced in 2018. Further increases were introduced as part of the Pensions Act in 2011, which accelerated the rise to 66 for everyone from 2020.
The five-year investigation by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) looked into alleged failures by the DWP, and last year, the final report was published. This report confirmed the Ombudsman did find failures by the DWP, noting that “too many” people didn’t understand how the new state pension affected them personally and ruled that “women affected are owed compensation payments”. However, the government is yet to set out a compensation scheme for those affected.
With a High Court challenge by WASPI campaigners currently in progress, the group say opportunist scammers have seized on unsuspecting women affected by the “pension fiasco.”
WASPI Chair Angela Madden said recent days had seen an “alarming spike” in the number of scams, saying the behaviour of those preying on vulnerable women is “nothing short of disgraceful”. She said any announcement on compensation for WASPI women would only ever come from the Government.
Madden said: “WASPI has fielded dozens of queries from women following an alarming spike in fraudulent websites appearing in recent days.
“The need for compensation is so urgent that it is the most vulnerable women who are at risk from scammers. The behaviour of opportunists who seek to exploit them is nothing short of disgraceful.
“Any announcement on compensation will only ever come from the Government. Anybody who has shared sensitive information or feels they are at risk should contact Action Fraud.”
Martin Lewis added: “The word scammers underplays the danger, of what are often organised criminal gangs using psychologically adept tactics to steal from people. They leach on to anything they can find, and compensation over the change in state pension age seems to be a new trend.
“Even if they’re not asking for money, they could be trying to take your information as part of a wider fraud. Be incredibly careful, don’t click advertising or other links on social media, unless it is from a validated trusted source.
“And to be very plain, I don’t do adverts nor allow anyone to use my name for endorsements. All my information will always be on my site MoneySavingExpert.com so if you can’t find it there, and see it elsewhere, it’s very likely a scam.”
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