During lockdown, some have turned to running or crochet – others have made catchy cover songs in the name of fighting financial crime.
Nottingham band Goose McCoy have recorded ‘50 Ways to Lose your Pension’, which has turned into something of a Twitter sensation nearing 10,000 views.
The idea came from the band’s drummer Ian Beestin, co-founder of financial education video platform Money Alive, the clients of which include Tilney, Mazars and Succession Wealth.
Mr Beestin was on his daily walk, having worked that afternoon on scripts for some educational videos about scams, and was listening to Paul Simon.
“I have always loved the song '50 Ways to Leave your Lover',” he told thewealthnet.
“As I was listening to Paul Simon list the various ways to dump someone, I was thinking about my writing earlier and the words just came into my head. When I got back, I typed them up and arranged a call with my band mates.”
The band had missed playing together during lockdown and had already dabbled with remote recording in 2020.
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Goose McCoy are a Nottingham band Mr Beestin has been playing with for 30 years – “it's like a band of best friends which makes it a real pleasure to be part of”.
Mr Beestin is part of The Transparency Task Force, the Secretariat to the All Party Pensions Group on Pension Scams. He also recently met with Stephen Timms, chair of the work and pensions select committee, to discuss the challenges and potential ways of reducing people's vulnerability.
“Having seen the chaos pension scamming was having on the industry and the utter misery it is causing victims – sometimes so unbearable it leads to suicide – I have got involved to try and move on the thinking about how potential scam victims could be made more aware of the threat,” Ms Beestin said.
Fans of ’50 Ways to Lose a Pension’ include Margaret Snowdon, Yvonne Braun and Guy Opperman.
New data from Action Fraud shows people lost more than £78 million to investment scams last year – with the average “clone” scam costing the victim just over £45,000.
Reports of clone firms rose 29 percent from March to April 2020 – as the UK entered its first coronavirus-induced lockdown.
