Scam of the week

The first step is to make a complaint to Royal Mail, which can be frustrating as you need to go through the following process:

1 Write to Royal Mail customer services.

2 If you are not happy with its response, contact Royal Mail’s postal review panel. Email postalreview@royalmail.com or write to Freepost, Postal Review Panel.

If your complaint is rejected or you do not get a response within eight weeks, escalate your complaint to the independent postal redress scheme, known as POSTRS. You must make your compo claim to Royal Mail within 80 days of posting the item.

Your last option is the small claims court. But if Royal Mail and POSTRS have rejected your claim, you do not stand a great chance. PENSION scammers are the lowest of the low. They try to con thousands out of vulnerable people.

Many of these scams start with a cold call, text or email.

Before long your hard-earned money is lost. Life savings may be gone or invested in high-risk schemes. But there has been an extremely positive move taken this week to help tackle it.

A pension cold-calling ban has come into force and fraudsters who ignore it could be hit with £500,000 fines.

Anyone who receives a pension cold call should just report it to Actionfraud – after putting the phone down.