they said vulnerable investors will get help from the banks..but how do they dtermine whether its ‘vulnerable’???

vulnerable=primary school education..

so isnt it like not saying anything at all? sooner or later, the banks is going to say, people who can pick u pt he pen n sign will be deemed as not vulnerable…

You should rest your case because no matter how much due diligence you do in conducting financial investigation, you can never outsmart the market. Even town council believe such scammy product , and can you tell me that these town council did not do any due diligence prior to investing in these scammy product ?

Will anyone believe Tan Kin Lian then when a local trusted bank like DBS sell such product ? Hardly as DBS is name people trust.

Let’s not blame the investors and believe it is their fault. If even the government body like Town Councils can be deceived into investing these product after conducting due diligence, what can be worse about investors who lack financial judgement and reply on RM for investment ? Even then the RM rely on the too-good-to-be-true brochure for selling…

If it is really a scam product perpetuate by reputable entity who choose to believe it is not a scam product but commerical product , no matter how much diligence and guard you have will be next to useless when it comes to such investment.

in the world of finance, there is no such thing as ‘no’ risk

‘no risk’ does not exist in the vocabulary

period

not even fixed deposits in a bank guaranteed by the government

in choosing to believe it’s true and not doing your own due diligence and then crying foul when the ‘truth’ is revealed……i rest my case

it’s your own money. if you’re not interested in doing your own due diligence to protect your own money, how can you fault someone else for not doing it for you?

defies logic

The Biggest Winner – Lehman Brothers
Astronomical monetary gain with a scam legally approved by different government & gladly supported by financial institutions.

The Medium Winner- Financial Institutions
Attractive monetary gains at expenses of loyal customers.
Aftermath- From now onward, who dare to trust them?
They are not the only FI around. We have many others to choose.

The Small Winner- Unscrupulous Relationship Managers
(There are honest ones around. Not fair to paint all RM with a single brush)

Attractive monetary gains at expenses of trusting customers.
Aftermath is people have now lost all their trust in them. Your customers trusted and supported you but you misled them. Some even cursed customers in forums calling them greedy!

The Biggest Losers – Misled Investors
Squeezed dried for being too trusting. Additional comment is not necessary.

Potential Losers– the Regulatory Bodies
People will lose their respect for them if their (RB) action continued to be tepid. If they still insist to pretend to care for the people, one day the people may also pretend to support them. Hope this day will never arrived because then whatever things they do, no matter how good, how logical or important, will be scorned.
Just look at Thailand or Taiwan politics.

To all winners and losers of this saga
Only 10,000 victims but MANY MILLIONS observers!

The issue is this. At the time when Lehman comes out with the structured product, is the Lehman is in the verge of bankrupty and serious financial problem that is not revealed publicly. Did the US knows about this FI but chose to remain mum and yet approve it to other countries like Singapore who gov happily digest whatever US says ?

to me, this is no different from scam and con job. If FI is on verge of collapse and still sell something too good to be true anyway as last resort, don’t that qualify as scam ? Notice that Lehman plays on the assumption that it wil be bailed out at any cost, and therefore choose to gamble with the product anyway. It fails to get bail and the scam job exposed.

No country is without Laws and Regulations as freedom tends to be badly abused by the unscrupulous in any society. High calibres and if possible the best are elected and picked to run a nation, these calibres are to be able to pre-empt whatever foreseeable contrivement and scheme. They are tasked, by nature of their appointments(parliamentary), to look into every injustice, solve them and cover every loophole arising from any incident, it is a duty they have to fulfill to the maximun. Every society is latent with frauds and felonies, the REASON FOR GOVERNMENT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

What we Singaporeans are witnessing in our country is that our parliamentarians are involved in running PRIVATISED STATE ENTERPRISES IN INVESTMENT AND BANKING(financial), ESSENTIAL GOODS AND SERVICES, HEALTHCARES, TRANSPORTATIONS, EDUCATIONAL AND EVEN FUNERAL SERVICES. Of course conflicts of interests are everywhere, an aspect of governance where all RULERS ARE DUTY BOUND TO ERADICATE AND IF NOT, ENSURE THAT THEY BE AT THE LEAST DAMAGING.

Poster Anon(#89) has succinctly described the wish and expectation of the investing public and it simply means an effective and efficient regulator. A regulator that is impartial, neutral with wisdom in dispensing justice.

Over the years, our Government has evolved into the largest, strongest and most aggressive entrepreneur within the confine of our geographical boundary. It is a giant cartel in everything edible, useable and MOST IMPORTANTLY ESSENTIAL.
Pardon me for the digression.

Food manufacturers have to ensure the safeties of their products, failing which they are liable to answer to the Laws or a regulator as an intermediator between both. A regulator, as can be seen here, is neither the manufacturer non the Laws(Government/Judiciary) so the role of a regulator is like that of the police in modern day administrations. The Police is not only to enforce Laws and Orders and to bring law breakers to justice, on top of this specific duty, the POLICE IS DOING CRIME PREVENTION.

PREVENTION OF FLAWS, FOULS AND UNDESIRABLE DEEDS(MISDEEDS) IS CLEARLY THE LEGISLATED DUTY AND FUNCTION OF ANY REGULATOR. A regulator that fails to fulfill its’ duty is liable to negligent or failure of duty, it could also be failure of diligence and competency. Here we are talking about an agency made up of professionals and not an individual with definite power and wisdom.

patriot

For this investment, you need to place your money with us for 5 years.
We will give you 5% interest per year. But if there is a credit event*, you lost all your money.

Credit event* – we reserve the right to classified anything we deemed to our advantage as credit event.

In addition, we will not be responsible for what our relationship managers said to you.
They have every right to tell you half truth, full lies, half lies.

Once you have signed on the dotted lines, we are protected from all liabilities.

However, in an event of dispute, we being honest and honourable people will give a fair compensation to customers from the vulnerable group.
A customer must have ALL the following attributes before he can be qualified as vulnerable.
1 At least 95 years old
2 Never being to school
3 Head of an organization with not less than 50,000 staff and assets not less than $500 million
4 Birthday is on the 31st April every year
5 Knows how to jump down 10,000 m from an airplane without a parachute

I think the crux of the issue is if the product pushers were giving out false information. If that is found to be true, the each and every customer should be compensated to the fullest extent, without discriminating against their age, ethnicity, intelligence or supposed ‘vulnerability’ rating.

Yes, investors should be aware of what they are investing in…

However, if the facts were hidden or not fully revealed to them, then can they still be said to be investing with open eyes?

And are such complicatedly structured products even meant for retirees and other people with very low risk tolerance?

Yes, there is always the risk of something bad happening – that’s life – but to mis-state the chance of it happening is already wrong…

Reasons:
1. It was clear there is mis-selling.

2. Due to Blind Trust culture, even the educated have fallen into the trap.
Have we considered the sales tactic used?
Does it mean an educated person can NEVER be given false impression?
If so, why are educated people in this world still need to engage lawyers to fight cases where they have been cheated? In short , being educated does mean they cannot be victims. The System needs to prove beyond reasonable doubt that educated people need not be compensated.

so, People, lets make this the last Blind Trust sad incident to happen to us by ALWAYS QUESTIONING everything that you have any doubt. When you are the Customer, please please! QUESTION EVERYTHING! DEMAND for Black and White of what the ’salesman’ PROMISED, SAID, SUGGESTED, INDICATED. Its your RIGHTS as a CONSUMER! But you can give up this right and allow to be a VICTIM and then cry and cry for help later!

QUESTION EVERYONE, on EVERYTHING! Get Black and White evidence!
After this, you may choose to sign on the dot. Remember Salesmen are salesmen. They are nice to you, talk nice to you, appear like decent people and honest and man of integrity and sincere. But ultimately they want your sales. Else why a totally stranger smile at you like your father or mother? Come on!

In a pro-business environment, the responsibility lies in the Consumers. Poor thing! So, lets Demand proof. Never accept verbal words. Take it with 10 pinches of salt. Consumers are rarely lawyers or contract specialists. Its very difficult to fully understand all the fine lines. So, as the smaller fish, we need to protect ourselves and do the right thing.

I urge businesses make contracts clearer and fairer else when all consumers demand black and white in everything you said, believe me, your sales will drop.
In this Singapore RECESSION, STI at 1600, you better wake up your ideas!

regards
Kang Ah Loo

They cannot claim mis-selling, and neither can they file a claim against their own banks.

How many of them actually made up the 10,000 unfortunate investors?

Worse still, they are now cast as the evil-doers in this incident.

Do they have any hero to fight for them? Of course one can say that they have reaped the bonuses from the sales. But they too have lost a lot, and they sold the products with genuine belief of the worth.

I fully understand that it can sometimes be very difficult to get people to see things from your points of view. It gets even more frustrating when people chooses not to understand.

I have found that it is good, at times like these, to take a step back to see what is it that the people do not understand.

In your case, if you may allow me to offer my humble opinion, it is your stand that that the points of contention – the wording of the contract and the ‘tell-tale’ signs of higher returns – are plain and clear, for all who know how to read, to see. And, by such logic, you pointed out that it is the investor’s fault for not making the effort to understand fully what he is getting himself into – even if the risk is 0.0001%, there is risk. you made a decision to invest, you pay for your mistake. period.

The reason I see why the debate rages on is because of these points of contention. Logically, there is no contest with the manner in which you have argued your case.

However, the situation here defies logic. We have the banks and FIs cleverly crafting their prospectuses and putting in place a scheme to sell the product with maximum impact given to amplify the gains and down-playing the risks to the extent that seemingly there is NO risk.

To understand the ‘down-playing’ of the risk factor, I would liken it to someone telling you to put your money in POSB – nothing to worry about, it has the govt’s backing and should the bank collapse — ha! has! added – unimaginable right?

Sales statements like this point clearly to the fact that the intent to mislead is apparent; thus, mis-selling or misrepresenting – both the product of dishonesty.

Yes. It is flawed to have relationship managers to take up the role of financial advisors. What’s the point of having relationship managers to provide financial advisory when there is conflict of interest and the prospectus attempts to deny the responsibility of relationship managers in how they effect their sales. This would suggest that banks and other financial institutions are already aware of the conflict of interest prior to the sale.

No so, only 1000 or less at Hong Lim Park, where are the other 9000? The impact would be more dramatic if the whole of Hong Lim Park is filled to capacity!

between risk free rate of 0.5%pa and 5% is a whopping 4.5%pa difference….something must be in it for someone to pay you so much more

the investors were greedy for the 5%pa yield and forgot there’s such a thing called risk and murphy’s law

even if there’s only a 0.0001% chance of a failure, it’s still a 0.00001% chance

and unfortunately, that 0.0001% came true for those investors

too bad..move on

but unfortunately, singaporeans will take this opportunity to cry mis-selling, it’s not their fault, they want their money back,…dishonesty and no integrity to admit when it’s their greed to have put all their money into something they didn’t understand

in my opinion, the investors should be segregated into two lots

the low IQ, defined as the intellect of a 6-year old and the rest of the world

which camp do you fall into?

we are talking about a product that we now know has been mis-sold. whether the group falls under the vulnerable or non-vulnerable category must then be a secondary consideration when the banks take steps to ‘do the right thing’.

the onus should not fall on the investors to prove whether they are ‘vulnerable’ or not. instead, it must be the banks who must prove that the product was not mis-sold.

even if there is a small percentage of mis-selling, the banks must then acknowledge that the possibility of the product being mis-sold even to non-vulnerable investors is real. compensation should then be assessed accordingly and paid to all investors.

in short, it is the banks that must prove that they had not mis-sold and not the other way around.