Storm Financial Group

[Grey Ghost]

As usual solly is on the ball.

 

[Grey Ghost]

Anyone know anything about these guys. A few of my mates are clients. They are Townsville based . I don't use advisers.

gg

Couldn't let this go by without acknowledging it.
It is exactly a year ago to the day (and almost to the minute if I've got my timing right) since Garpul Gumnut started this thread.
He has proved very incisive with a lot of things over the last 12 months but I bet even he didn't have any idea how things were going to unfold since he started this thread. I won't rabbit on too much more except to say thanks to everyone for all your input especially solly who has done more than anyone else to keep us all up to date with his link postings and insightful comments.
To those adversely affected by all this my best wishes that you get a good outcome and keep fighting you deserve every bit of compensation you can get and more.
I can only hope that everyone is able to put this tragedy behind them before the 2nd anniversary of this thread rolls around.
Good luck and all the best to you all.

 

[Ferret]

you deserve every bit of compensation you can get and more.

I have sympathy for many stormers (not all), but there is so much wrong with the feeling expressed in this quote.

We all take risks when we invest. Generally, the higher the risk, the higher the return. Most stormers believed that storm would provided a high return. Many stormers understood that they were taking a higher risk to get this return. Plenty clearly understood that this higher risk was in the form of double gearing into the share market.

We all should take responsibility for our own actions. When it goes wrong, we do not automatically deserve the right to be bailed out. This right only belongs to those who were truly mislead, had their instructions ignored etc.

 

[Harleyquin]

Thanks Grey Ghost I have sympathy for all stormers too. I don't understand everything that has occurred which has caused us all to lose so much but hopefully as the evidence continues to mount we will get to understand a little more each day. What I do understand though is that we all wanted someone to help us invest our money sensibily and wisely and when the advisors first told us what they proposed I haven't spoken to one person who didn't question this method and yet our advisors assured us that this was safe, when you don't have the understanding to invest yourself or the time to learn you expect a licensed financial planner to be helpful. Alas we have all been sadly mistaken.

Irrespective of who the 'blame' lies with, I hope the law continues to persue them until there is a decent cleaning up of the present system. As an ex-client I now refuse to take any 'blame' for this, I will however say that I put my trust in a financial specialist, who has betrayed me trust in the most callous way.

 

[bunyip]

I have sympathy for many stormers (not all), but there is so much wrong with the feeling expressed in this quote.

We all take risks when we invest. Generally, the higher the risk, the higher the return. Most stormers believed that storm would provided a high return. Many stormers understood that they were taking a higher risk to get this return. Plenty clearly understood that this higher risk was in the form of double gearing into the share market.

We all should take responsibility for our own actions. When it goes wrong, we do not automatically deserve the right to be bailed out. This right only belongs to those who were truly mislead, had their instructions ignored etc.

I absolutely agree.
While I sympathise with people whose lives and dreams have been dramatically changed by the Storm debacle, let's not forget that anyone who is considering an investment has a responsibility to do their own due diligence on that investment before going ahead with it.
In the midst of all the blame being levelled at Storm and the banks, let it not be forgotten that Storm investors did a poor job on due diligence. In fact it appears that many of them did no due diligence at all, preferring instead to leave everything to Storm.
Some of the blame rests with investors who took crazy risks without first putting in sufficient research to find out what they were getting themselves into.
This needs to be taken into account amidst the calls for compensation for Storm clients.

 

[Harleyquin]

Bunyip Ferret and anyone else who thinks along these lines, we will have to agree to disagree on this issue. IMO when you are dealing with financial specialists irrespective of whether they are accountants, planners, advisors or banks they need to be ethically and morally responsible in dealing with their clients. Their clients are not the financially educated. Those of you on this forum who are lucky enough or whatever you call it to be financially savvy would never need to use their services, I'm educating myself, a little slowly and a little late perhaps, but if or when I get there I will have no need for their services either. This idea that investors take responsibility is ludicrous. What responsibility do these people take when they are charging us an arm and a leg for their so called professional services. What professional services?

There a many many people out here in the real world who want someone they can trust, that's all they ask. We have proof that we asked for a risk free investment and this proof will be used when and where needed. I know that the majority of accountants, planners and banking people are genuine people but there are a lot of crooks amongst them and these need to be weeded out as much as possible.

These financial experts would all be out of a job if they had to rely on the Ferrets and the Bunyips of this world to survive!!!

 

[mellifuous]

I absolutely agree.
While I sympathise with people whose lives and dreams have been dramatically changed by the Storm debacle, let's not forget that anyone who is considering an investment has a responsibility to do their own due diligence on that investment before going ahead with it.
In the midst of all the blame being levelled at Storm and the banks, let it not be forgotten that Storm investors did a poor job on due diligence. In fact it appears that many of them did no due diligence at all, preferring instead to leave everything to Storm.
Some of the blame rests with investors who took crazy risks without first putting in sufficient research to find out what they were getting themselves into.
This needs to be taken into account amidst the calls for compensation for Storm clients.

What's so compassionate about being right?

From an outsiders perspective it seems that some storm investors understand things were not as simple as they were led to believe - like many other retail investors lacking skills that you seem to have, storm clients seem to have been trusting investors.

Remember retail investors aren't supposed to know about 'due diligence', they're not 'sophisticated' investors.

All of us have learnt a lot these past years, storm investors are no exception - many a learned investors has been taken down a peg or two since early 2008.

In any event, if any or all of an investor's loss is attributable to an entity or entities, then that their right to recover - no point sitting back and saying 'oh.. I didn't do due diligence, I'll give up'.

 

[bunyip]

We have proof that we asked for a risk free investment and this proof will be used when and where needed.

Harleyquin

You seem to hold the opinion that by going to a so called 'professional' for advice, you no longer had any responsibility to think for yourself.

Did you honestly believe there was such a thing as a 'risk free investment'??
I mean, c'mon....I know you had little knowledge of investment, but surely, even with your limited knowledge, just the tiniest bit of thinking would have told you that no investment is risk free - particularly when the investment is associated with the stockmarket.
Even if you'd had zero involvement with the stockmarket prior to getting tangled up with Storm, someone of your age must surely remember the 1987 crash. And you surely would have heard of the 1929 crash that led to the Great Depression of the 1930's.
You surely must have known that markets don't go up forever, that sometimes they go down, quite dramatically in fact.
How then did you ever allow yourself to be convinced that any investment could be risk free?

Some of you are bound to get stung again unless you change some of your thinking and attitudes.

 

[Harleyquin]

Bunyip I know I'm going over old ground here but I no longer care. When I go to a professional ''anybody'' for advice, it's not a question of thinking for myself it's a question of listening to what the experts have to say, questioning them, weighing up the pros and cons etc etc etc. When you are not a finance whiz that's all you can do. All financial planners have to get us to fill out the paperwork so that they know what level of risk and reward we were prepared to take. Over the long term we wanted low risk and have filled out paperwork and signed it to this effect.

When I go to any other profession I would do the same and I discuss my options - that's what we did with storm

I've got a health problem - I go to a doctor.
I've got a problem with my teeth - I go to a dentist
I've got a problem with my car - I go to a mechanic
I've got a problem with my electrical appliances - I go to an electrician

I had a problem with our finances - so I went to a financial planner...end of story.

All of the other professions guarantee their workmanship.
On storms paperwork they say they will look after our investment and that's what we paid them to do and personally I see nothing wrong with that.

Obviously we've all heard of the stock market crashes and yes I've never invested in shares prior to going to storm so when they suggested this strategy we had many concerns. Namely 'what happens if there is a crash in the market' Storms answer 'we employ a team of experts to constantly monitor your investment and we take advantage of the highs and lows in the market thus growing your investment', so we paid them and their team of experts to do what they said they do best.

Reading this forum it is obvious that those of you who are astute investors do the same. I know that I don't have the skills at present to do the investing, the monitoring and the growing but I was prepared to pay an expert to do that for me. I don't want to risk my money with my limited knowledge of investment. I placed my trust in a licensed professional and I still see nothing wrong with that and that's why I now refuse to 'take the blame' for this. We paid someone who was supposedly far better at this than we could possibily have been. Their investment strategy was ok with the financial organisations of this country and there are many who still say there is nothing wrong with this strategy.

The problem I have is with the extremely high level of risk - we asked for a low risk investment.

I have a problem with the lack of monitoring of our investment on their part - they promised us they would do that and we paid them to do it.

I have a problem with the fact that they didn't 'grow' our investment by selling high and buying low.

I have a problem with the fact that they were able to borrow enormous sums of money without us ever seeing or contacting a bank.

I have a problem with the lies that have been told to cover their own incompetence.

We were told by storm not to interfere in the way that they invested into and out of the market because it was better for us to trust them as they knew what they were doing - I was more than happy to let their experts do the job they were 'trained' for - now we are finding out that very few of them were trained in anything

I have a problem with the level of corruption and fraud which was obviously part of this debacle.

I have a problem with many things in relation to this investment need I go on.

If you are an astute investor and you know how to monitor or whatever you do best that's fine I'm very happy for you but we are not all the same. I need to find someone to help me and I'm having trouble trusting anyone ever again.

If I was a high risk investor who understood all of this I wouldn't be sitting here wondering where it all went wrong, I would have don't something about it long before any of this happened.

 

[Julia]

I've got a health problem - I go to a doctor.
I've got a problem with my teeth - I go to a dentist
I've got a problem with my car - I go to a mechanic
I've got a problem with my electrical appliances - I go to an electrician

I had a problem with our finances - so I went to a financial planner...end of story.

All of the other professions guarantee their workmanship.

First I've heard of all other professions guaranteeing their workmanship.

Perhaps I might now go back to all the doctors who have misdiagnosed many health problems, the vet who failed to correctly diagnose my dog, thus allowing her to die, the dentists who have offered shonky work, the mechanics who - despite charging extraordinary amounts - have failed to adequately do the basic work required, and claim compensation from all of them!

And, hell, we haven't even considered lawyers!

The good news is that I don't think any electrician has ever failed to do what he was paid for on time and as quoted.

Harleyquin, if you seriously imagine consulting any so called professional in any capacity means it absolves you from any responsibility whatsoever for evaluating the common sense aspect of their advice, then I agree with Bunyip that you're doomed to repeat your mistake.

 

[bunyip]

Bunyip I know I'm going over old ground here but I no longer care. When I go to a professional ''anybody'' for advice, it's not a question of thinking for myself it's a question of listening to what the experts have to say, questioning them, weighing up the pros and cons etc etc etc. When you are not a finance whiz that's all you can do. All financial planners have to get us to fill out the paperwork so that they know what level of risk and reward we were prepared to take. Over the long term we wanted low risk and have filled out paperwork and signed it to this effect.

When I go to any other profession I would do the same and I discuss my options - that's what we did with storm

I've got a health problem - I go to a doctor.
I've got a problem with my teeth - I go to a dentist
I've got a problem with my car - I go to a mechanic
I've got a problem with my electrical appliances - I go to an electrician

I had a problem with our finances - so I went to a financial planner...end of story.

All of the other professions guarantee their workmanship.
On storms paperwork they say they will look after our investment and that's what we paid them to do and personally I see nothing wrong with that.

Obviously we've all heard of the stock market crashes and yes I've never invested in shares prior to going to storm so when they suggested this strategy we had many concerns. Namely 'what happens if there is a crash in the market' Storms answer 'we employ a team of experts to constantly monitor your investment and we take advantage of the highs and lows in the market thus growing your investment', so we paid them and their team of experts to do what they said they do best.

Reading this forum it is obvious that those of you who are astute investors do the same. I know that I don't have the skills at present to do the investing, the monitoring and the growing but I was prepared to pay an expert to do that for me. I don't want to risk my money with my limited knowledge of investment. I placed my trust in a licensed professional and I still see nothing wrong with that and that's why I now refuse to 'take the blame' for this. We paid someone who was supposedly far better at this than we could possibily have been. Their investment strategy was ok with the financial organisations of this country and there are many who still say there is nothing wrong with this strategy.

The problem I have is with the extremely high level of risk - we asked for a low risk investment.

I have a problem with the lack of monitoring of our investment on their part - they promised us they would do that and we paid them to do it.

I have a problem with the fact that they didn't 'grow' our investment by selling high and buying low.

I have a problem with the fact that they were able to borrow enormous sums of money without us ever seeing or contacting a bank.

I have a problem with the lies that have been told to cover their own incompetence.

We were told by storm not to interfere in the way that they invested into and out of the market because it was better for us to trust them as they knew what they were doing - I was more than happy to let their experts do the job they were 'trained' for - now we are finding out that very few of them were trained in anything

I have a problem with the level of corruption and fraud which was obviously part of this debacle.

I have a problem with many things in relation to this investment need I go on.

If you are an astute investor and you know how to monitor or whatever you do best that's fine I'm very happy for you but we are not all the same. I need to find someone to help me and I'm having trouble trusting anyone ever again.

If I was a high risk investor who understood all of this I wouldn't be sitting here wondering where it all went wrong, I would have don't something about it long before any of this happened.

You seem to be absolutely 100% convinced that your thinking was sound when you went to Storm.

By all means continue with your belief that all the blame belongs to someone else.
I won't waste any more of my time trying to convince you otherwise.

 

[oztrades]

Firstly as a professional I carry indemnity insurance to cover myself in regards to risks. Did Storm, as professional investment advisors, have this insurance as I haven't heard any word of this?

Secondly I have a busy professional life so I either have no time or inclination to pursue certain activities in life. However I would always ask myself is this project and its outcomes reasonable. Also as this involves my money I should get a second opinion and give myself time to be comfortable with the project. Do my practitioners make my life easier or harder while the project is going along?

Finally I agree that we should be able to go to professionals and receive impartial, commonsense and advantageous support from them. However in the real world this just doesn't seem to exist, so we must be careful otherwise we should just do it ourselves and save the fees. The failure of professionals must discredit its very own industry and highlights the ever growing demand for more enforcement and regulation.

NB: Even though I am not a lawyer, we all have redress through our own actions or the Law. Your professionalism determines your avenue in those cases.

 

[Judd]

You seem to be absolutely 100% convinced that your thinking was sound when you went to Storm.

By all means continue with your belief that all the blame belongs to someone else.
I won't waste any more of my time trying to convince you otherwise.

Me thinks that you/we/others are wasting our time, bunyip. However, next time that people arrange for tax return to be submitted through an accountant, ie a finance professional to whom fees are paid, try telling the ATO that it was the accountant's fault that the income has been understated, etc, etc.

Blah, blah, blah and so on and so on.

 

[Harleyquin]

You're quite right you will never convince me that I am wrong. I have been fortunate not be have a misdiagnosis with a health professional. As a dog lover Julia I would be extremely angry with the vet unless it was a difficult diagnosis but I certainly wouldn't blame myself and I'm not blaming myself with storm either. I'm sure there are professionals who aren't as professional as they should be and we found the ultimate sinner in storm and their partners in crime. When you pay a professional for his or her advice and they agree to look after you, I expected just that - to be looked after and our wishes taken into consideration. They weren't and we have been devastated in the most devastating way possible with their so called one size fits all investment strategy which we only became aware of how risky it could be after they crashed, we had no idea. I was so sure they would gear our investment to suit our needs...they didn't...and I am extremely angry and feel that I have every right to be.

 

[Harleyquin]

Oztrades as I understand it from media reports storm did have about 20 million in indemnity insurance but because of the circumstances surrounding storms collapse we are yet to see what insurance will be paid. As there is reportedly 3 billion lost by investors we'll be lucky to see a cent in the dollar!!! It has also been reported that storm took out some form of insurance after they became insolvent but before they crashed which is apparently highly illegal...and which is proving to be one of many illegal 'acts.'

 

[oztrades]

Harleyquin
I respectfully suggest you stop posting and contact the administrators and direct your attentions there.

 

[Ferret]

we had no idea

Harleyquin,

This theme runs through all your posts. It is not an excuse for you losing money - it is the reason.

If you persist in believing you can hand all responsibility for your financial affairs to others, you are certainly going to get hurt again.

 

[bunyip]

Harleyquin
I respectfully suggest you stop posting and contact the administrators and direct your attentions there.

Harleyquin

I too respectfully suggest that you stop posting on this forum. Your constant diatribe about how you're absolutely blameless is starting to wear a bit thin, as is your continual ranting about how all the blame belongs to others.
You were fed a lot of unrealistic nonsense by Storm....nonsense that you swallowed, hook line and sinker. You came in like the tide. You didn't work on the common sense principle that if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is too good to be true.
Investment knowledge or no investment knowledge, if you'd employed just a small amount of thought and common sense, you would have seen right through the charade that was Storm Financial.
In the world of finance and investment, money flows from gullible and uninformed people to those who are knowledgeable and informed. If you want to join the latter group, then your thinking and attitudes need to change.
The people whose ideas you describe as ludicrous are the ones who were cluey enough to avoid getting reeled in by Storm Financial. They're the ones who got out of the market at the appropriate time with the bulk of their profits intact. Some of them even played the short side and raked in handsome profits from the falling market. (yes, falling markets do offer significant profit opportunities for those who know how to play them).
Maybe, just maybe, these people are the ones you should be listening to and learning something from, rather than disagreeing with them.

 

[bunyip]

In any event, if any or all of an investor's loss is attributable to an entity or entities, then that their right to recover - no point sitting back and saying 'oh.. I didn't do due diligence, I'll give up'.

Neither I nor anyone else I'm aware of is suggesting that you sit back and make no effort to recover whatever losses you incurred as a result of illegal activity by any party.
We're simply saying that it's unrealistic to toss all the blame on to someone else, while at the same time accepting no blame yourselves for the various stuff ups you made.
Yes, Storm stuffed up big time, and to some extent the banks stuffed up too. But so did you Stormers.
All three of you....yourselves, banks and Storm, are responsible for the mess you now find yourselves in.
Put forward whatever arguments you want, but nothing changes those facts.

 

[mellifuous]

Neither I nor anyone else I'm aware of is suggesting that you sit back and make no effort to recover whatever losses you incurred as a result of illegal activity by any party.
We're simply saying that it's unrealistic to toss all the blame on to someone else, while at the same time accepting no blame yourselves for the various stuff ups you made.
Yes, Storm stuffed up big time, and to some extent the banks stuffed up too. But so did you Stormers.
All three of you....yourselves, banks and Storm, are responsible for the mess you now find yourselves in.
Put forward whatever arguments you want, but nothing changes those facts.

Oh.. I'm not a 'stormer', I did my dough with City's FMF, and I'm working to get some of back - but, I'm far from poor and I didn't throw in any of my property. I come here to learn and participate where possible.

I just think you're being hard on people who (1) feel the need to grieve about their substantial losses, and (2) are seeking restitution from those believed at fault. A lot of 'stormers' were financially decimated by Storm.

If I was a 'stormer' I'd be out to get as much as I could back from whomever I could - that's a natural reaction. I can see the reality of risking homes, but nevertheless, if the banks and Storm at fault, then they should pay.

Look, I kick my toe on a something I don't see, and I blame the object I kick - what is so humanly wrong in externalizing blame anyway?

Acceptance of loss takes time - for some it's relatively quick, for others it takes time.

I can see that on this thread there a people whose lives have been shattered, there is no point 'manhandling' them into 'reality'.

My point, is this - so, what if you're right? so what? It doesn't matter.

Sometimes being right simply doesn't matter.