OK – you’ve got me!
Yes – I am Jill Rogers, Co-owner of SMC , Responsible Manager of our AFSL, and Principal of our RTO - and I am not hiding behind an alias, like the former poster ‘Prawn Trader’.
Both Graeme and I, as SMC owners, have had much advice not to post replies on this forum from colleagues and legal representative, as it ‘would perpetuate the negativism of anonymous and questionable content’. And we were prepared to take that advice – but no longer. When malicious, slanderous and untrue statements are made about my Company, my staff, and my family…..enough is enough, and I am retaliating.
How interesting that Prawn Trader knows so many ‘facts’ about SMC and the financial industry – makes me wonder if he is an ex-employee who is being investigated for activities which represent ‘questionable’ ethics. However, I am not going to be dragged down to a level of innuendo BUT I am going to honestly answer the poisonous, untrue and slanderous statements made in this previous post.
B]Mis-statements
1. Yes, Karl Scott slept at the office on two occasions – “Prawn Trader’ obviously didn’t sleep with him, or he would have learnt that it was the result of an altercation with his girlfriend and subsequent copious intake of alcohol! – it made for some jocularity around the office and even made our blog! Oh, and if there was someone saying you would make millions out of trading CFDs, then you should run a mile! Our main course units concentrate on equity trading and investment strategies, as well as Exchange Traded Options. We educate our members in the risks of CFDs and very rarely promote them except for risk management purposes.
2. The Immigration Department is not investigating SMC – Yes – we did have a UK institutional trader apply for a position and Yes, we did sponsor his working visa – more fool us because he then gained a highly paid position with a Sydney Fund Manager once he had received it! Beware any businesses out there who choose to do the same! ( not that I think any true business owners would read this forum)
3. Jason Sidney – Jason, I believe , is one of the most professional and talented technical analysts we have in the country. Originally the head trainer for Safety In The Market, he holds RG146 qualification and Cert IV in Training and Assessment - as a representative of SMC’s AFSL, he is qualified to give general financial securities advice for all of the products covered by our licence. Jason has had many health struggles in recent years but continues to be a hard-working, loyal member of our staff and his knowledge is unquestionable.
4. ASIC has never raided or visited the offices of SMC, at Kangaroo Point, although we did receive a rather dubious phone call from a ‘reporter’ who said they were at the office - proved to be a hoax when investigated by the police.
5. Yes – SMC is communicating with the Ombudsman on two cases – they are not about losing money, or trades –and I would think that to only have two cases in dispute over a period of 17 plus years would put us in a minority of financial services providers.
6. Sonray Capital Markets was certainly a thorn in the side of our business history – and No, you won’t see SMC as an investor creditor, but you will certainly see the Rogers Super Fund as one. Yes – we trusted in the Company so much, we placed our fund on their platform and in doing so, lost as much, if not more, than many others. And, PrawnTrader (what an apt name!) also forgot to mention to you in his myriad of knowledge, that SMC was an unsecured Trade Creditor and lost a revenue source which we worked hard for, with less than an hours’ notice – so l challenge PrawnTrader to come out of hiding and prove his statement of being given advance warning , because if we had received such warning, all of our clients would have been withdrawn. As an addendum to this, we DID get all of our clients away from BBY when we heard rumours that they were in trouble – let’s think logically- why wouldn’t we? – our members are our business.
7. Graeme has no obligation to prove to anyone that he is an electrical engineer – that belonged back in his days at Dampier with Hamersley Iron (now RIO) – how PrawnTrader purports to be knowledgeable about back in the mid-seventies is a mystery, but then, so are most of his mis-statements. We don’t have to prove this fact – our friends know it and that’s enough, and totally irrelevant. Oh!, and by the Way, Graeme has held a Diploma in Financial Services ( Fin. Planning) for six years and is a Responsible Manager for the AFSL, or maybe you don’t think that should count.
8. I am very happy to supply our Contact with the ANZ bank who will confirm our arrangement with them , even though we do not promote this facility any more – and it was in response to some request from business people who know that it was a smart strategy to use debt to create equity . Most educated people know of this wealth concept.
9. The statement about Graeme and I using client’s funds is totally slanderous and untrue – and shows Prawn Trader’s dubious nature and lack of knowledge, aside from his malicious intent - we do not hold client funds. Every client has their funds in their own bank account, as are their investments in their own name and possession. They can view their bank account in both the trading software or online to the bank site at any time. Our mission is to teach them how to invest their own funds wisely into quality instruments and manage risk. I ask anyone that may doubt this to come and meet with us – not to do anything but see our Accredited course content and our operations, and talk to real members who are happy to relate their experiences, not those who have to hide behind false aliases and make up malicious untruths as many have in this forum.
10. Owning a business in the environment of the last decade has been hard, as any business owner will confirm – the GFC, the Queensland floods ( where we were out of our premises for over eight weeks) and the subsequent lack of confidence in the community all lead to this – we, as owners, have not been immune to this. We deliberately took measures to sustain the business through these times – measures that involved our personal assets and none of others – and we are proud that we have been able to do that and keep our staff employed. We do not have to prove anything to anyone other than an annual audit by an ASIC approved auditor as per the conditions of an AFSL holder.
11. 11. The personal attack on my family and staff will be vigorously acted upon. Yes – our son is the COO of SMC. No– he was not a kitchen-hand but a qualified chef at Burswood resort in the mid-eighties. Thankfully after a few years, he saw the light and began his IT career, thus joining us in the business. Yes , he has IT Certificate IV qualifications, and Yes , he has RG146 ASIC qualification, and Yes – he has been privately trading for some years. Having four children he is still saving to buy a house, because, contrary to your comments, Prawn trader, we don’t use client monies to live off! No, he does not approve recommendations, that is my job! And now, Prawn Trader, you have stupidly identified yourself ! Shame on you when your activities were so easily exposed.
12. The SMC Review site contains only unsolicited testimonials, but of course, few on this forum would believe that – it is not taken down and still exists. And Laura was a SMC member for ten years before she asked if she could work with SMC and share her experiences with others, but of course, you wouldn’t believe that either. If anyone wants to check this out, please give me a call and I will be happy to have them contact you.
13. Gosh, it’s interesting to be told we have sold all our assets – mind you, I know a lot of business owners who have had to do exactly that, BUT Lo! – what is that sitting in the water at the back of our property on a pontoon!!! Oh, yes , it’s a boat – and if anyone doubts that, please give us a call and we’ll take you for a real boat ride – promise it won’t sink. And before you start thinking how it was paid for, Yes – all from our money and hard work!... but then you probably won’t believe that either!
14. As for our office at Kangaroo Point – it is not luxurious, but it is neat and functional – open plan and informal, which is just what our members enjoy as they feel free to pop in at any time to spend time with the trainers or advisers. Oh! – and we do have a fully back-to-base alarm system – how on earth did Prawn Trader miss that?
15. Prawn Trader seems to be obsessed with CFDs and Fx – Yes – our accredited unit contains all of the warnings and guidelines of trading them, as well as links to other sites – as mentioned before, we don’t promote them heavily – we’ve been caught by the unscrupulous companies like BBY and Sonray as well – you see, CFD’s are not the real problem, it’s the companies who provide them and the conditions under which they are traded – the provider risk a.k.a. Sonray, BBY, Opus Prime. Thankfully, if our members do want to trade them, we are able to see when they don’t apply the right risk management and ring them to urge them to do so. That’s part of the protection and mentoring program we are proud of. And if you believe that a newspaper journalist doesn’t misrepresent a person’s statement to make an article more sensational, then I cannot help that.
16. Data charges – SMC does not receive these charges, D2MX, the software provider does, and they are not for data alone – they are for technical support team at D2MX, and the IRESS platform.
17. There are many other misleading statements in the prior post that do not even deserve a response and they will be acted upon by our Solicitor – you know, that one in Sydney who’s a ‘one man band’ – Oh! – but wait, who are these other people working with him that have ‘Associate’ beside their name!! I can assure you he is a very prominent and highly thought of name in the Financial services industry – if you doubt this, please call me and I will show you where you can link up with his profile.
18. SMC holds and delivers an accredited Course which contains a unit that has been designed for Self Managed Super Funds, - as such it is an allowable deduction for Funds Trustees. The product of specific SMSF education has been discussed at many SMSF conferences and has been accepted by the industry professionals, Accountants, Auditors etc. In the past many years, we have not had a member who has had this expense dis-allowed as an investment to assist the Trustee to manage the fund’s assets effectively. We now have many accountants who recommend our product to Trustees so they can gain the knowledge required. Our Trustee’s Workshop is compliant with the ATO’s guidelines and is delivered in the SMSF unit. Our Australian Financial Services licence covers Superannuation products.
19. And, finally, to me, Jill Rogers. I commenced this business back in 1996, with a passion to show people what they could do if they decided to take control, rather than hand it away. At the same time, I ‘walked the talk’, gained my knowledge inside a broking house, embarked on a journey, not just of education and gaining qualifications ( Diploma of Financial Markets, Diploma of Financial Planning, Cert IV in Training and Assessment, and others), but I immersed my time with true leaders in the industry, real experts who taught institutional traders, and broking CEO’s – people who not only had the skills and knowledges, but knew how to impart it. More importantly, I was a trader of equities, derivatives and invested our own SMSF – being in the market for that many years teaches you far more than any qualification can. I took the step of applying to become a Registered Training College – not that it has benefited us much, but it gives our members the confidence to know that we have quality assurance programs and continual improvement of course content etc – the Department of Education / ASQA, as the controlling body, demand high standards of processes and standards to remain a private RTO and we have been accredited for the longest allowable time frame three times now. This, in an environment, when many RTO’s have collapsed. When we decided that we should have the facility to mentor our traders ‘on market’ we took the measure of acquiring our own AFSL, once again coming under a lot of compliance regulation but showing our members we were committed to be at the forefront of compliance requirements. In spite of all of the above, I remain as passionate about what we deliver as I have ever been, as Graeme, Josh and all of our staff do. Yes – we might make some mistakes sometimes, but they are never deliberate, and we continue to learn. But I know one thing, we are not dishonest, we do not mislead, we do everything to assist our members to get the knowledge to make a difference in their lives, and we are passionate about client service. Our trainers, Solution Partners and Presenters who deal with our clients are fully qualified, and maintain their skills with our internal training program, and this must be displayed at each annual audit, along with their training records.
So there you have it, warts and all. I abhor the people who hide behind forums such as this, and who have made their personal vendetta against the college evident in this thread, above all the prior PrawnTrader’s malicious and misleading post with personal attacks on me and my family, apart from those about SMC. I invite and encourage anyone to call either Graeme or myself up and come into the College to discuss any issue you may have. We will happily show you all of our operations, course content and processes, and you can meet our staff. I also challenge ASF to place this post where many past enquirers can see it, and hopefully see another side of this thread, instead of the dubious and untrue comments made. I note in ASF’s Code of Conduct, the following statement ‘Any information that you post must be true or accurate to the best of your knowledge’. I also note in my ‘Welcome’ email from ASF describing ASF as’ a positive and constructive online community and we expect everyone to treat other members with both courtesy and respect. If only that were true!
I make no apologies for my remarks, and assure you that I have given you the absolute true state of things and as such, have not chosen to hide behind anything, or indeed, to make snide and vicious comments about things about which I have no knowledge.