Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Vitamin Account

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Vitamin Account

Dear Mr. Tan,

I have invested $X in the Vitamin account from a large local bank for the past 2 over years. I received a total payout of 4.1% to date, and the value of my investment is now 89.5% only. This means that I will lose more than 6% if I withdraw my investment now. Instead of getting a positive return for the past two over years, I get a negative return.

I made this investment because it is principal protected, but I did not realize that I will have to suffer a loss if I withdraw early. Looks like I will have to be stuck with this bad investment until the maturity date.

REPLY

Many people have invested in this product, and they are now stuck. Some have decided to withdraw their money and take a loss.

I understand that the return is quite low. If the return is more than 3%, the bank has the right to redeem the investment. If the return is negative (as is the case now), the customer is stuck for 5 or 6 years.

This does not appear to be fair. Perhaps you can complain to the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...: I am one of the many poor customers who were conned into investing in this stupid vitamin.

The bank marketing person did not explain the product properly to me. She just told me that there is no risk and I can get a good return.

What a lie. I don't know why our MAS allowed the banks to cheat poor customers in this way.

Already, the interest rate is so low, and yet the bank cooked up these type of investments to cheat us.; January 29, 2008 8:46 PM
Anonymous said...: The poor people are always victims of sales people. Because they are easy to bluff, insurance agents and bank financial consultants prey on them.
Last years both chalked up about 720 complaints between them.
You should lodge your complaint with MAS and register your grievances .
These 2 groups of people should be cleansed of rogue salespeople. You can read from the postings that you are not alone. There are many who are victims of malpractices.; January 29, 2008 11:36 PM
Anonymous said...: A common sales tactic to bait the naive and gullible is that they will say first year the return is guarantee 8 or even 10 %. True but it is actually return back of your money, not on investment. If you cash all out you will lose part of capital. And they got stuck for 5, 6 years with little or no returns. This tactic and sales is most prevalent during periods of low and falling deposit interest rate, where people are most vulnerable and susceptible to anything that offers better than the miserable deposit rates.; January 30, 2008 3:29 PM
Anonymous said...: Actually we should not just blame the sales people. They are not the ones who cook up these plans. These plans also require management approval before they can see daylight.; January 30, 2008 9:21 PM
Anonymous said...: Isn't revosave from NTUC the same?
Huge poster screams $5000 guaranteed cash back. It is misleading and it is intended to mislead to entice enquiry. It is actually putting $12000 a year to get back part OF your money($5000) after 2 years. And in order to earn about 1.9% return you have to stick with the plan for 25 years.Any premature termination means you lose a huge sum because the huge payout(about 5 times) is at maturity. This is a damned dirty trick which is not disclosed. Many customers blindly went into it without realising it.I gather that some are taking this matter to CASE
for non disclosure and mis representation and mis-selling.; January 30, 2008 10:39 PM