Be educated and savvy on financial matters

Why do people refuse to pay $20 to attend a 6 hour financial planning workshop organised by FISCA and yet pay $5,000 to attend a 3 day training course on forex trading or get a free talk by a financial adviser who sells them a financial product that takes away more than $5,000 in commission?

When the investor gets conned of their savings and they come to FISCA for assistance, it is too late. There is little that FISCA can do at that time.

Be wary of high pressure selling

It usually starts with an invitation to a free seminar held in a posh hotel. The invitees are treated with an impressive presentation and free food. After that, the hard pressure selling comes in - and those who are not strong willed ends up signing for an expensive purchase - for a $5,000 training course on forex or property investment, or a $20,000 time sharing unit, or a $50,000 land banking plot, a $20,000 wine investment or whatever is being sold.

All that is needed is for the promoter to get 5 people to sign up and they will earn enough income to pay for the expenses of the event, the advertisement and the commission payable to the many well dressed marketeers who are trained to identify and work on the gullible investors.

Like some other people, I have been the victim of this type of marketing a few times during my life. Fortunately for me, the amounts of the purchase are quite small. My biggest purchase was a massage chair costing $6,000. Quite likely, the real cost would have been only one third of the price that I paid. In this case, it was not an impressive talk at a hotel, but a glib talking sales person at a sales booth.





  

Request for assistance - insurance claims

This FAQ shows the information that is needed by Tan Kin Lian in providing assistance on insurance claims.

Charges for property courses

Dear Mr Tan,

Just read your blog on some of the forex exchange training courses.

Will you be able to touch on the property investment as well? Almost everyday I see advertisements in the Straits Times promoting about property investment courses (where they claim that you can invest with little or no money and own 3 properties with 1 property). These courses are also not cheap at all. People who are unable to buy properties of their own can get together in a group and pool their resources and invest together. 

I have never attended any of these courses before. I'm not sure if this is the legal thing to do in S'pore. Please advise if you can also look into this area besides financial investment.

JL


REPLY
 I did not realize that people pay money to attend property courses as well. It seems to be another way to give away money!

Request for assistance on a bad investment

Here is a guide on the type of information that needs to be provided by the consumer who wishes to seek the assistance of Tan Kin Lian to seek compensation due to the failure of an agent or adviser to give the relevant information on a financial product.

$5,000 for a forex training course

An investor shared this experience of attending a foreign exchange training course. He paid $5,000 for a 3 day training course. The course could have been completed in half the time, but was stretched for 3 days to justify the high fee. He found the training techniques taught at the course to be not successful.

He later obtained a training DVD from another source, for free. It teaches him how to trade using candlesticks. He found this to be more useful. 

Foreign exchange training courses - misleading statements

If you have attended a foreign exchange training course and have paid several thousand dollars, and found later that you were misled, please write to kinlian@gmail.com. I am helping a friend to lodge a complaint about these courses and more evidence is needed.