Tim Newark

So this is a problem that affects us all. Of course the root of this national tragedy is that savers have been forced to take greater risks with their cash because of a decade of near zero interest rates. Faced with often earning less than one per cent income on their money it is not surprising that many savers have been beguiled by promises of higher returns if only they take a chance with a riskier scheme.

Many savers depend on the meagre returns from their pension pots to take care of everyday expenses.

A Daily Express reader recently wrote to me describing the anguish caused by continuing rock-bottom interest rates. “I am a 77-year-old lady who has saved all my life,” she said, “denying myself things in order, so I thought, to have a comfortable financial old age.”

But then thanks to the financial crisis of 2008 interest rates were dramatically cut and have stayed ridiculously low for a decade.

“The likes of myself now have virtually no income at all,” the lady told me. “Whereas before I could buy things, now I scarcely have enough finance even to pay my cost of living bills.”

She added bitterly: “Did the bankers suffer? No they did not! Still have their fabulous salaries, bonuses, pensions…”

Indeed taxpayers bailed out

ALSO, a majority of mortgage holders are still in jobs generating an income whereas many older savers do not have a revenue from work. The return on their savings is their income. It is not unfair to expect interest rates to simply return to a normal level after the emergency measures of 10 years ago.

Ultra-low interest rates have mainly benefited the rich and done nothing for the modest saver. Until that fundamental issue is dealt with older people will continue to be vulnerable to the prospect of better returns on their pension pots offered by conmen.

The menace of cold calling in general continues to plague the elderly and the housebound, causing unnecessary anxiety and distress. In the past the government has responded to this by introducing greater rights to removing personal contact details from company records and insisting that nuisance phone call numbers be identified. They also removed the legal requirement that a call must be proven to have caused “substantial” damage or distress.

But a crisis in saving sparked in part by government policy has now encouraged an outbreak of pension targeted cold calling which it must stop.

It must enact its long awaited Financial Guidance and Claims Bill now. Otherwise many more vulnerable savers will lose the ability to fund their old age because that money has been stolen by cold calling fraudsters. In an era when we’re all expected to live longer that is a threat to us all.

‘Savers were forced to take greater risks’