Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Prompt reply to help "lost" investors

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Prompt reply to help "lost" investors

Dear Mr. Tan,

I wrote to you and you give me a reply to read this blog:
http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2008/10/individual-advice.html

I understand that you must be very, very busy to attend to some many people, like me, who ask individual questions. We do so, because we are lost and do not know where to turn to.

But I understand that you must be facing a lot of pressure and take a lot of time to read some many personal problems. What I want to say is that, in spite of the pressure, you did bother to give me an immediate reply. This is wonderful.

I want to tell you that even the simple standard reply is helpful to me. I will attend the Saturday meetings at Speaker's Corner in Hong Lim to meet other investors in the same situation as me.

Thank you once again. Keep up the good work. Please consider to stand for President.

5 comments:

Singapore Short Stories said...: Dear Mr Tan,

The raft of cases involving the loss of the premiums invested in Lehman products by investors has brought to the fore the importance of representations by financial advisors.

Investments in some really good products seem to be one of the best tool to earn returns which could beat inflation but as the recent episode has shown, investments in some 'good' products come at a risk, for the definition of 'good' subjective: it all boils down to how well the sense of 'good' is commnunicated to the customer of the product. The more convincingly the seller of the financial product is to the customer on the 'goodness' of the product, the more the customer actually perceives the product as good.

Things, including financial products are what we perceive them to be. Its all about perception and this is applicable to many facts of life too: example whether a person is really good or not depends on whether you perceive him as good or not.; October 18, 2008 8:43 AM
Anonymous said...: Thank you Mr. Tan
If not for you, many old folks & retirees would be suffered in silence.
To add insult to injuries, after lossing their living savings or hard-earned money, they were being accused of "deserved it",
"greedy", "stupid".
See how "heartless" some of these people could become!!!; October 18, 2008 10:41 AM
Anonymous said...: Dear Mr Tan,

I attended your talk at NUS last night.

Everything you spoke about, was published on your blog for a good long time. =) I was there to make sure i do not miss out anything new.

We need people like you in our country. We are a long way from the "CSR" ideal society. Please lead us there. Besides, you still look pretty young to me.

Do seriously consider running for the parliament. Remember you have the support of the people.

In the classic novel by Louis Cha, "Duke of mount Deer", Wei Xiao bao commented to colleague, "being an upright honest official, you cannot expect others (corrupted) to be as clean as you, you have to learn to play the game" Having said that, we still need figures like you to help steer Singapore to a better future.

Thank you once again.; October 18, 2008 12:08 PM
Anonymous said...: If you don't understand the products, then don't buy it.

Ask yourself this question :
You mean all of you are that "dumb". Did the relationship manager force you to buy the products? At any point in time, did they force you to sign on the dotted line? Or do you mean they forged your signature? Or are you implying that they guided your hand when you are signing?

I am very sure all my questions are answered as "NO".

In such situation, how can you say you are mislead? If you are determined and not easily swayed by the extra interest given on products, would you have signed?

All these happened because you are greedy. Greedy because of the extra few percent of interest. You could have state your point and tell the counter lady that you want to continue with your FD. But you didn't. So can you blame anyone now??

If Lehman had not collapsed, I am sure you all will still be collecting the interest given and continued with the product.

So don't because something happened now, then you blame everyone else.

Don't be such a loser. Accept things as they are.; October 18, 2008 7:33 PM
Anonymous said...: I guess EC is not affected by the loss or at the receiving end of the RM's recommendation and persuasion.

These products were sold as alternatives to fixed deposits. For holding them for the stipulated 4 to 7 years, the investors are paid ~3% more than fixed deposits. They were sold as very safe products and there was no mention of the high risks involved.

Most of the investors are either retirees or men in the street who are very risk adverse (that is why they put their hard earned savings in FDs in the 1st place). Alot of them are uneducated or lowly educated who do not understand English and basically trust the banks and their RMs to provide the right recommendations.

Even for the educated ones, there is no way they will know that 1 rotten egg will sink the entire ship. They also depend on the banks for relevant and correct information.

If u study the leaflets or the prospectus, I doubt that there is any CLEAR statement to the effect that if one bank in the basket collapsed, the entire investment is gone.

The additional ~3% interest does not justify the EXTREMELY HIGH risk involved. I doubt anyone will buy this product if they are informed of this risk.

Thus, it is not fair to call people greedy and loser and to accept the losses. If you are in their shoes and invested say $100,000, will you just accept the total losses?; October 19, 2008 7:47 PM