Am I Being Scammed? — Quick Checklist

If you're unsure about a call, message, or offer involving your pension, work through the six questions below. Answer honestly and calmly — there's no rush, and no wrong answer. If you tick "yes" to even one, stop before doing anything else and read the guidance underneath. This page is designed to be quick to use and easy to come back to, whether you're checking something happening right now or looking back at an approach from a few weeks ago that's been sitting uneasily in the back of your mind.

• 1

  Were you contacted out of the blue — a call, text, email, or social media message you didn't ask for?

• 2

  Were you offered a "free pension review" by a firm you've never dealt with before?

• 3

  Were you pressured to act quickly, or told an offer would expire soon?

• 4

  Were you promised guaranteed, fixed, or unusually high investment returns?

• 5

  Were you offered access to your pension before age 55 (or 57 from 2028)?

• 6

  Is the firm or person hard to verify, or missing entirely, on the FCA register?

If you answered "yes" to any question

Stop. Don't sign anything. Don't transfer any money. Don't provide any personal or pension details you haven't already given. Take a breath, and follow the four steps below in order — none of them are urgent enough to skip, but none of them will take long either.

• 1

  Stop the conversation. Hang up, don't reply, and don't agree to a further call or meeting.

• 2

  Check the FCA register yourself at register.fca.org.uk (the Financial Conduct Authority, the UK's financial regulator) — type the address in yourself, never use a link or number the caller gave you.

• 3

  Contact MoneyHelper on 0800 011 3797 or moneyhelper.org.uk for free, impartial guidance on what you've been offered.

• 4

  Report it to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or actionfraud.police.uk, especially if you've already shared details or sent money.

Why each question matters

Every question above maps to a specific, well-documented pattern in pension fraud, so it's worth understanding briefly why each one is on the list, rather than treating them as arbitrary rules.

Question 1 — unsolicited contact. Cold calling about pensions has been illegal in the UK since January 2019. A call, text, or email you didn't ask for is not just unusual, it is against the law, and no legitimate firm needs to break that law to reach genuine customers.

Question 2 — the "free review." A free offer from a stranger is designed to get a conversation started at no apparent cost to you, which lowers your guard before anything is actually being sold. Genuine advice usually comes with a clear, upfront fee structure, agreed before any work begins.

Question 3 — pressure to act fast. Genuine pension decisions are never so urgent that you can't take a few weeks, or take advice, first. Urgency exists specifically to stop you checking or asking anyone else.

Question 4 — guaranteed high returns. No legitimate investment can guarantee a fixed, high return. All real investments carry risk, and any promise otherwise is either a misunderstanding or a lie.

Question 5 — early access. Accessing your pension before 55 (57 from 2028) outside a genuine ill-health exception is called pension liberation. It can trigger a tax charge of around 55% of the amount withdrawn, on top of losing whatever was invested.

Question 6 — the FCA register. A genuine adviser is always listed, and will happily wait while you check independently. A missing or suspiciously similar entry is one of the clearest signs of fraud there is.

If you answered "no" to every question

A clean run through this checklist is a good sign, but it isn't a substitute for checking the FCA register for yourself before making any final decision, especially if a transfer or investment is involved. Scams do occasionally avoid every obvious warning sign, so treat a clear checklist as reassurance to proceed carefully, rather than as a guarantee that everything is completely safe. If anything about the situation still feels slightly off, even without a specific tickbox to point to, it's still entirely reasonable to pause and get a second opinion from MoneyHelper or someone you trust.

What to do depending on your situation

A closer look at cold calling and the law

Since January 2019, it has been illegal in the UK for firms to cold call people about their pensions. This covers phone calls, texts, and emails from a firm you have no existing relationship with. The rule has narrow exceptions, mainly for your own existing pension provider or an adviser you've already given clear consent to contact you. Outside those exceptions, a first-contact approach about your pension should never happen. If it does, treat the contact itself as a warning sign, separate from whatever is actually being offered.

A closer look at pension liberation and the tax charge

Pension liberation means accessing your pension before the normal minimum age of 55 (57 from 2028) outside a genuine exception such as serious ill health. It is one of the most costly forms of pension scam, because it combines two losses at once. First, the money is often placed somewhere fraudulent or unsuitable. Second, HM Revenue & Customs can apply a tax charge of around 55% of the amount withdrawn, because the withdrawal counts as unauthorised. Someone who releases £30,000 early could face a tax bill in the region of £16,500, on top of losing the original sum. This is why question five on the checklist deserves extra caution, even if every other answer was "no."

Common myths about this checklist

Some people assume a checklist like this is only for older or less experienced savers. It isn't. Company directors, teachers, retired police officers, and financial professionals have all been targeted and, in some cases, scammed. Others assume that if a firm has a professional website or a confident, friendly manner, checking the register is unnecessary. It isn't — appearance and authorisation are simply unrelated, and a polished website costs no more to build for a scammer than for a genuine firm. A third common assumption is that ticking "no" to every question means an offer is definitely safe. It's a good sign, but it's still worth checking the register yourself before committing any money.

What happens after you report to Action Fraud

Reporting to Action Fraud takes a few minutes online at actionfraud.police.uk, or by phone on 0300 123 2040. Your report is passed to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, which looks for patterns across many reports to help identify and act against organised scam operations. Reporting doesn't guarantee your money will be recovered, but it genuinely helps protect other people from the same scam, and it can support any action your pension provider or bank takes to trace or freeze funds. You'll usually receive a reference number, which is worth keeping for any follow-up conversations with your provider, your bank, or MoneyHelper.

Talking to a family member about this checklist

If you're worried about someone else, this checklist works just as well applied to their situation as to your own. Share the page directly, rather than summarising it from memory, so they can work through it themselves at their own pace. Ask calm, specific questions rather than making a judgement for them — "did they call you first?" lands better than "that sounds like a scam." Most people respond better to a neutral, factual checklist than to an urgent warning, especially if they've already begun to trust the person or firm involved.

Why speed matters more than working out how it happened

If you're worried you may already have been scammed, it's natural to want to understand exactly how it happened before doing anything else. Try to resist that instinct for now. Contacting your pension provider and reporting to Action Fraud quickly gives the best chance of a transfer being paused, funds being traced, or other potential victims being protected, and none of that depends on you first working out the full story. There will be time to piece together exactly what happened afterwards, with support from MoneyHelper or Citizens Advice if you need it — right now, speed is what matters most.

If you're checking this on someone else's behalf

Adult children checking on a parent's situation, or friends helping a colleague, often reach this page looking for a way to raise a concern without causing offence. Framing it as a shared, quick check — "shall we just run through this together, it only takes a minute" — tends to work far better than a direct accusation about the firm or person involved. Most people are willing to check the register together if it's presented as ordinary due diligence rather than as a challenge to their judgement. If they decline, it's still worth gently sharing the FCA register address and the MoneyHelper number, so the option to check independently, in their own time, remains available to them.

This is not about blame

Nothing on this page is intended to suggest you should have spotted a scam sooner, or that ticking "yes" to one of these questions means you did something wrong. Pension scams are specifically designed by people who do this professionally, often full-time, to get past exactly this kind of careful checking. Feeling embarrassed is an understandable reaction, but it shouldn't stop you from getting help quickly — the people at Action Fraud, MoneyHelper, and Citizens Advice deal with situations like this every day, without judgement, and their entire purpose is to help, not to assess blame.

Using this checklist for a specific investment or transfer

This checklist works just as well if you're already partway through a decision as it does at the very first point of contact. Before signing any transfer paperwork, or moving money out of a workplace or personal pension into something new, run through all six questions again with the specific details in front of you. Look closely at how the return was described, whether a time limit was mentioned anywhere in writing, and whether the firm's FCA reference number appears clearly on any paperwork you've been given. If a number is present, still check it yourself on the register rather than assuming its presence alone proves anything, since reference numbers belonging to genuine firms are sometimes quoted by scammers pretending to be them.

Where each of the key contacts can help

A calm final word

Working through a checklist like this one can feel unsettling, especially if one or more answers were "yes." Try to treat that discomfort as a sign the checklist is doing its job, rather than as a reason to panic. Nothing about answering "yes" to a question here means money has definitely been lost, or that a mistake has definitely been made. It simply means it's worth taking the calm, practical steps set out above, in your own time, with support available at every stage from people whose entire job is to help with exactly this kind of situation.

Keep this checklist to hand

Pension scams often develop over more than one conversation, so it can help to come back to this page, or bookmark it, rather than trying to remember every point after a single read. If you're approached again, or a follow-up call arrives days or weeks later, run through the six questions again from the start — a "no" the first time can sometimes become a "yes" once more detail is shared, particularly around timing, returns, or early access. This checklist is also a useful thing to revisit periodically even without a new approach in mind, simply as a reminder of what to watch for, in the same way you might periodically remind yourself to check a smoke alarm or renew a password — a small, calm habit that costs almost nothing and quietly reduces risk over time.