A ban on cold calling to sell pension products will be introduced in next week’s autumn statement, after changes brought in by former chancellor George Osborne led to a surge in scammers tricking people out of their retirement savings.

The chancellor, Philip Hammond, will use his first budget statement to announce the new rules, with the intention of ending approximately 250m scam calls a year leading to pensions fraud of almost £19m in 2015.

There has been a surge of fraudulent cold calling targeting pensioners since Osborne’s reforms of the pension system to make it easier for people to withdraw sums without penalty.

The scams tend to be presented as unique investment opportunities, such as putting your pension pot into a new hotel in an exotic location or supposedly ethical projects that promise huge returns.

Under the changes due to be announced by Hammond, all calls relating to pension investments where a business has no existing relationship with the individual will be forbidden. Similar rules already cover cold calls relating to mortgages.

Companies flouting the ban could face fines of up to £500,000 from the information commissioner, although the watchdog does not have powers to tackle firms operating outside the UK.



Pension firms will be given more powers to block suspicious transfers, preventing people’s life savings from being transferred without any checks. The rules will also stop small self-administered schemes from being set up using a dormant company as the sponsoring employer.

Some research has suggested that scammers could be behind as many as one in 10 pension transfer requests.

Hammond appears to be acting after a petition signed by thousands of people, including former pensions ministers Ros Altmann and Steve Webb, Martin Lewis of the website Money Saving Expert, and a number of independent financial advisers, requested pension cold calling be made illegal.

Michelle Cracknell, head of the government’s Pensions Advisory Service helpline, also called for a ban, saying every customer should refuse to take pension cold calls.