- Unofficial sites outside the UK have emerged in recent days, campaigners say.
- Scammers try to get women to enter their personal details on fake forms
- Anyone who has done so should contact Action Fraud, says Waspi campaign
The Waspi campaign has warned that scammers are posting fake compensation claim forms online attempting to steal women’s personal details.
Campaigners say multiple unofficial websites which appear to originate outside the UK have emerged in recent days which wrongly claim that women affected by state pension delays can claim up to £2,950.
The Parliamentary Ombudsman called on the Government in March to compensate women for failing to properly inform them that their state pension age would increase, but has not yet responded to the watchdog’s report.
Waspi protest: During the election, activists urged party leaders to support fair and prompt compensation.
“It is deeply worrying that in recent days a number of websites have appeared encouraging those affected by changes to the state pension age to provide their personal details via false application forms,” says Angela Madden, president of the campaign group Women Against State Pension Inequality.
“The need for compensation is so urgent that it is the most vulnerable women who are most at risk and the Government’s continued dithering is now opening up space for fraudsters to target them.”
Madden adds that any announcement of a compensation scheme for Waspi women would come directly from the Government, but none currently exists.
Urged anyone who has provided their personal details to a potentially fraudulent website to Contact Fraud Action.
Several months ago, the Ombudsman called on parliament to intervene and quickly establish a compensation scheme, led by the Department for Work and Pensions.
It recommended that those affected receive between £1,000 and £2,950 in compensation, which it says would cost between £3.5 and £10.5 billion if paid to all women born in the 1950s.
Many women born in that decade have faced difficulties while waiting longer than expected to receive the state pension.
They argued there were significant failings in the way the increase in the state pension age was communicated.
They also accelerated and scheduled two raises in quick succession in 2018 and 2020, giving them little notice to fill the gap in their retirement finances.
The Waspi campaign says more than 3.6 million women born in the 1950s were affected, with the worst affected receiving 18 months’ notice of a six-year increase in their state pension age.
It claims that tens of thousands of people were left in poverty as a result and that a Waspi woman dies every 13 minutes while waiting for compensation.
During the current election, Waspi’s campaign urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labor leader Keir Starmer to back fair and swift compensation.