If you think you have just been scammed, act now. Read these steps in order. Every step here is simple. You do not need anything complicated. Help is available, and reporting matters, even if you feel unsure, embarrassed, or shaken right now.
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1
Stop all contact with the person or firm immediately.
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2
Do not transfer any more money or sign anything else.
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3
Contact your pension provider straight away. Ask them to pause any pending transfer if one has not completed yet.
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4
Report it to Action Fraud. Call 0300 123 2040 or go to actionfraud.police.uk.
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5
Contact MoneyHelper for free guidance on what to do next. Call 0800 011 3797.
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6
Tell someone you trust what has happened, so you are not dealing with this alone.
These six steps matter more than anything else on this page. If you do nothing else today, do these. You can come back and read the rest of this page later, once these steps are underway.
Key contacts
Why acting fast matters
Some pension scams happen over days or even weeks, not in one single moment. If a transfer has been started but has not yet completed, there may still be a short window where it can be paused or delayed. Your pension provider cannot always stop a transfer once it has been requested, but many providers will try if you contact them straight away and explain your concerns clearly.
If the transfer has already gone through, it is easy to feel that acting fast no longer matters. It still does. Stolen money is often moved through several bank accounts very quickly, sometimes within hours or even minutes. The sooner a bank or investigator is told, the better the chance of tracing where it went before it moves again.
Banks can sometimes freeze a payment if they are told quickly enough. This is not guaranteed, and it does not always work, even when reported fast. But it only has any chance of working at all if someone reports it quickly. Waiting a few days can close that window completely, so it is always worth trying, however small the chance feels.
Speed also helps in a quieter way. The details of what happened are freshest in your memory right now. Dates, names, and conversations are easier to recall today than they will be in a month. Writing things down now, even roughly and imperfectly, will help you and any investigator later.
If you are not certain whether money has actually left your account yet, that is fine. Contact your provider and ask them directly. They deal with these questions regularly and will be able to check your account status without judgement.
What information to gather before you contact anyone
You do not need everything perfectly organised before you make your first call. Do not delay reporting just to gather more detail first. Reporting quickly always comes before gathering extra paperwork. But if you can, try to note down a few key things, either before you call or just afterwards.
Useful details include the date you were first contacted and any later dates you spoke to them again. Note down any names the person or firm used, even if you now suspect the names were false. Write down any phone numbers, email addresses, or website addresses they gave you, exactly as you remember them.
Keep hold of any paperwork, letters, emails, or text messages you received. Do not delete anything, even if looking at it again feels upsetting. Small details that seem unimportant now, such as a signature style or a company logo, can matter later to an investigator.
If you made any payments, note the amounts and the dates as closely as you can. Bank statements or transfer confirmations are very useful if you still have them. A screenshot of a website, an advert, or a message is also worth keeping, in case the page or account is later removed.
If you spoke on the phone, try to remember roughly what was said and how you were made to feel. Were you told to act quickly? Were you told not to speak to anyone else, such as a financial adviser or a family member? These pressure tactics are themselves useful information for investigators.
If you genuinely cannot find some of this information, that is completely fine. Reporting with partial information is far better than not reporting at all. Investigators are used to working with incomplete details, and every piece you can offer helps build a wider picture of how the scam operated.
Why you are not to blame
Pension scams are designed by professional criminals. They are often highly organised, well resourced, and extremely convincing. They study how real pension companies communicate, so they can copy the tone, the paperwork, and the language closely. Official-looking letters, confident phone manners, and real-sounding job titles are all part of the deception, built deliberately to be believable.
Many scams use pressure and urgency on purpose. You might have been told an offer would expire that same day, or that you would miss out if you did not act immediately. This pressure is a deliberate tactic. It works on sensible, careful people precisely because it is designed to, not because those people were careless.
Some scams involve cold calls, even though cold calling about pensions has been banned in the UK since 2019. Others arrive through adverts, social media, comparison websites, or even someone you were introduced to by a friend, colleague, or family member, which can make the approach feel even more convincing and personal.
Scammers often use real regulatory language too. They may claim to be authorised, quote genuine-sounding reference numbers, or mention real organisations to sound credible. This is a calculated tactic, not a sign that you failed to check something you should have known to check.
None of this means you did something wrong. Thousands of people are targeted by pension scams every year in the UK, including people who are financially experienced, professionally successful, and normally cautious with money. These scams are built specifically to get past anyone's guard, whatever their background.
Try to be gentle with yourself over the coming days. Many people feel shock, anger, embarrassment, or even guilt after a scam. All of these feelings are a normal reaction to something distressing. None of them change the basic fact that a crime was committed against you, not by you.
If you are supporting a family member or friend through this, try to keep the same tone with them. Avoid any question that could sound like blame, even gently, such as asking why they did not check first. Calm, practical support is far more useful to them right now than any explanation of what could have been done differently.
What happens next
Once you report to Action Fraud, you will usually be given a crime reference number. Keep this somewhere safe. You may need to give it later to your bank, your pension provider, or other organisations helping you, as proof that you have formally reported what happened.
Your report is passed to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, which reviews reports and looks for patterns across many cases. Not every case leads to an individual investigation straight away, and it can take time before you hear anything further. This is a normal part of the process, not a sign that nothing is happening behind the scenes.
If a regulated firm was involved and appears to have failed in its duties towards you, the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Pensions Ombudsman may be able to look into a complaint separately from any police investigation. This is a different process, with its own timescales, and it can sometimes run alongside a fraud report.
It is important to be honest with you about recovery at this stage. Getting money back is not guaranteed, and no organisation, including the Pensions Ombudsman or the FCA (the Financial Conduct Authority, the UK's financial regulator), can promise a particular outcome. Recovery rates for pension scams are generally low, especially once money has moved through several accounts or overseas.
This does not mean reporting is pointless, far from it. Reporting can sometimes help a bank freeze a payment before it moves further. It also helps investigators build a wider picture that can protect other people from the same scam in future. Right now, the most useful goal is stopping any further loss and reporting clearly, rather than focusing only on getting your money back.
You do not have to work any of this out alone. MoneyHelper offers free, impartial guidance on pensions and on sensible next steps, at no cost at all. Citizens Advice can help with practical and legal questions too, including anything to do with paperwork or contracts you may have signed. Talking it through with someone else, even briefly, often makes the next steps feel a little more manageable.
Never pay anyone who contacts you promising to help recover your lost money for an upfront fee. Action Fraud, MoneyHelper, and Citizens Advice offer their support completely free, always.
Looking after yourself matters too
Dealing with a pension scam can be exhausting, on top of everything else going on in your life. It is completely normal to feel distracted, tired, or low over the following days and weeks. Try to take the practical steps above at a pace that feels manageable, rather than all at once.
Speaking to a trusted friend, a family member, or one of the organisations listed on this site can help you feel less alone with it. You are dealing with the actions of a criminal, not a personal failure, and support is there for exactly that reason.
If they contact you again
Scammers sometimes contact people a second time, often pretending to be a different company. This second approach may claim to help you get your lost money back, sometimes for an upfront fee. This is very often another scam layered on top of the first one, so treat any unexpected follow-up contact with the same caution as the original approach.
Do not pay any upfront fee to anyone promising to recover pension money for you. Genuine organisations that can help, such as Action Fraud, MoneyHelper, and Citizens Advice, never charge for their support. If a call, email, or letter asks for payment before it will help you, treat that as a serious warning sign and stop contact straight away.
If you are contacted again, note down the details in the same way as before, and report this new contact to Action Fraud as well. It is useful information, even if it feels like reliving something upsetting.
If your workplace pension scheme is involved
If the scam involved your workplace pension, rather than a personal pension you arranged yourself, The Pensions Regulator may also be relevant. They regulate workplace pension schemes and can look into concerns about how a scheme has been run or targeted by fraud.
Your employer's HR or payroll team may also be a useful point of contact, particularly if the scam involved someone claiming a connection to your workplace scheme. They may already be aware of similar approaches affecting other colleagues, and can sometimes help confirm what is genuine.
If you already signed paperwork or agreed to a transfer
Many people feel that once paperwork has been signed, nothing more can be done. That is not necessarily true. Signing a form does not remove your right to report what happened, to ask questions, or to make a complaint if you were misled about what you were signing.
Tell your pension provider clearly that you believe you were misled, and ask them to explain exactly what stage any transfer has reached. Even after paperwork is signed, some transfers still take time to process, and providers are increasingly alert to signs of pension fraud during this window.
While you wait to hear back
After you report to Action Fraud, it is normal to hear nothing for a while. This can feel unsettling, especially when you want answers quickly. Silence does not mean your report has been ignored or lost. Reports are reviewed centrally, and cases are prioritised based on patterns across many reports, not on how much noise any one person makes.
While you wait, it can help to check in with your pension provider every so often, to confirm the status of any transfer and whether anything further is needed from you. It can also help to keep your notes and documents together in one place, in case anyone follows up later and needs more detail.
If you feel you are not getting anywhere with a particular organisation, Citizens Advice can help you understand what to expect from each step, and can sometimes help you word a follow-up query. You are allowed to ask questions and to chase up gently. That is a normal part of this process, not an inconvenience to anyone helping you.
Try to avoid checking constantly for updates, if you can. Set yourself a realistic point to follow up, such as once every couple of weeks, rather than every day. This can help protect your own wellbeing while things move through the proper channels at their own pace.
A short summary to keep nearby
Stopping contact, reporting to Action Fraud, and speaking to your pension provider and MoneyHelper are the most important actions today. Recovery is not guaranteed, and nobody can promise you an outcome, but reporting quickly gives you and others the best chance. You are not the first person this has happened to, and you will not be the last, but taking these steps now is the most useful thing you can do.