Trouble is most of the players are in there to serve themselves.
Indeed, all the players, including the "investor". There is nothing inherently wrong with that per se IMO. No one was in the deal for any other reason then to make money.
It would take a very "socialist, nanny " government to have the balls to put your recommendations a into place. But then, when this whole sorry mess is over,perhaps the public will demand such action.
I disagree, people can demand legislative change and disclosure out the ying yang and it won't make an iota of difference except to have reams of paper less and less people will understand, and have politicians crow about protecting their constituents with more laws..sigh
To me, adding complexity is the wrong approach. At the end of the day snake oil con men will still con those who have too much trust and are unable to see the con in front of them. When asked, I told several local people not to have anything to do with Storm for years beforehand, it was entirely obvious to me, with my skeptical mind that the thing was a house of cards at worst and a fleecing operation (due to exorbitant fees) at best, yet even when told this, most people still don't want to believe it, happy to believe they were paying through the nose for quality
For quite some time I was met with muffled laughter about my lack of insight, when they told me how well they were doing... legislation will NOT fix gullibility.
The crux of the entire matter is that their remuneration is the principal driver of the behavior of most FPs (both in a good and bad way). There are a few FPs out there that are fee for service but most people refuse to use them. I do think there are lots of decent FP's out there, like a truffle amongst fungi though, you need to spend time sniffing them out and understand completely what you are doing.
As has been stated before by me and others, it's a horrible situation you guys are in and you truly have my every empathy but to me the blame for it lies completely with the person in the mirror... that said, their does appear to be some suspicious behavior from STORM but unless they have done something illegal, then the fine print will protect them.
bunyip....yes if we were told our margin loans were in fact in buffer...
Where you required to be told, or was the contact person for the banks to be Storm ? I thought you guys had delegated responsibility for decision making to Storm ?
and the websites don't have up to date information (unit prices 2-3 days old) and the
I am personally not a big fan of unlisted funds, I would have gone ARG or STW etc in your situation. Storm had a few too many fingers in the pie to my liking and that should have raised a red flag prior to speculating with them. I use the word speculating as you guys were relying on hoped for capital gains to see you through
, anything the revolves around the
greater fool theory is speculating to my mind. (hell lots of others, including Mr Buffett disagree with me on that but I am quite the conservative
)
We will try...if not for ourselves... then maybe for our kids... lay down and roll over or get up and fight... I have chosen to fight!!!!!!
and truly, best of luck to you, I just hope you don't suffer a double bought of pain and suffering. My disdain for professionals unfortunately starts with lawyers.