Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Donation to FISCA

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Donation to FISCA

An anonymous reader criticised me for asking for the donation of $1,000 (in return for accepting an invitation to listen to a presentation by a land banking company) to be given to the Financial Services Consumer Association (FISCA). He said that I headed FISCA and that it is more proper for the money to be donated to a charity.

FISCA is a volunatary, non-profit association of members, with the goal to educate the pubmic on financial matters, so that they can void being cheated on their investments in bad financial products. It needs funds to operate and pay its expenses.

I hope that the public will donate to FISCA and also be its members.

Go to http://www.fisca.sg/.
.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...: Some people think they are entitled to free freebies or advice services, without paying a single cent.
People heading FISCA have to sacrifice time and effort to educate and give advice to investors, so this opportunity costs have to be taken into consideration.
Maybe the two people who passes malicious comments against TKL's blog are the ones who will take any chance to attack Tan.; June 17, 2010 10:56 AM
Anonymous said...: i cannot see the rational for the criticism

Somebody invite you to listen to their marketing, and you accept the invitation on the conditions of 1,2,3... One of this condition is a donation to the organisation.

It is all very transparent. If they don't like it, then don't donate. It's willing parties making informed decision and calculated risk

In Singlish, my time not money meh? Personally, i would ask that organisation to pay for the transportation fees!; June 17, 2010 12:22 PM
Lye Khuen way said...: Mr Tan, as others said, ignore that busy body. If the Land Banking company cannot accept your conditions, no need to withdraw your request for donation to a Non-profit Organisation.

They are just going to wayang their
"transparency".
Maybe, you could invite a representaive from MAS to go with you, if the company accepts your conditions !; June 17, 2010 1:07 PM
Anonymous said...: Mr Tan. You cannot please everybody. If you do, you will end up doing nothing - which will then also be criticized by somebody.

So don't try to please everybody. Instead do what's right, follow the path of the light, or if you like Google, "Do no evil".; June 17, 2010 1:48 PM
Anonymous said...: A lot of people are jealous that Mr TKL has the guts and freedom to talk the way he talks. These people because of their obligations are stuck and have to go along with the system, so they are jealous that there are other people that have this freedom.; June 17, 2010 2:45 PM
Anonymous said...: I think Mr Tan's request is very fair, considering his widely-read blog and the possibility of good exposure if that land banking company is really providing a fair and good value product.

That company will definitely need to pay much more than $1K if they run an advert in straits times or even Today paper, or even do an online marketing campaign.

The question is whether the land banking products are worthwhile in the 1st place. If the company is not even willing to cough up even $1K, then it is most telling about its confidence in its own product and whatever merits land banking may have.

I won't be surprised if the land banking company will want to ask Mr Tan to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement drafted by a well-known law firm! ha!; June 17, 2010 3:26 PM
Anonymous said...: Mr Tan, first of all, I am a fan of your blog and read it on a regular basis. However, with all due respect, I have to agree with the criticism that you should not have accepted the 'donated' monies to FISCA. I believe this is a controversial move that should be avoided.

While you claim, and I believe, that the FISCA is a volunatary, non-profit association, it is also 'not regulated' and the FISCA books are not 'open' thus, cannot be totally transparent.

Does FISCA really need the $1000? Will it benefit the organisation or its members significantly? Or is it more important that FISCA maintains a high integrity and sets an example to the public and its members that it is not a bias organisation. By accepting monies, especially from a company that sells financial products, FISCA will not be able to claim as such.

Now that you have set a precedence and taken the monies from the land banking company, other financial companies will jump on the bandwagon and offer FISCA the same deal or maybe even more monies. Will you then also accept monies fron these companies? Will FISCA then still be a 'volunatary, non-profit association'?

Sincerely,
Freddie; June 17, 2010 4:57 PM
Anonymous said...: Mr. Tan, For 2 hours, you should have asked for at least 2,000. By the way, I regret to inform you that MS has advised us that Pinnacle notes 6 & 7 Have failed. Hope the US class action is moving nicely.; June 17, 2010 5:14 PM
Anonymous said...: The person who criticised you is the type who makes a lot of noise but dont do anything, good at finding fault with people and good at moralising.

To the person who criticised
Mr Tan:
FISCA is a voluntary organisation whose objective is to educate the public "freely", they need money to operate not for salary!!

I dont see any issue with Mr Tan's approach.; June 17, 2010 7:15 PM
Anonymous said...: Freddie,
Mr. Tan is NOT asking for money to support FISCA. Mr. Tan is selling his time FOR or to benefit FISCA. This is fair. You want my time to listen to you you pay for it but donate it to FISCA.There is no obligation, right?; June 17, 2010 8:16 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: To 8L:16 PM

Thank you for articulating my position correctly.

I have received countless invitations to attend presentations of land banking, time sharing and MLM and have always declined.

I do not wish to spend time on a presention with the aim of explaining their business model, unless the land banking company is willing to pay for my time.

Some people who give a negative slant to my intention are actually working for land banking companies, and they include insurance agents. They take the opportunity to criticise me.

Some others are genuine in misundersting my intent. However, they are quite free in giving their advice to me.; June 17, 2010 8:33 PM
Anonymous said...: Would FISCA accept a donation from Profitable Group? ;)

It's 2 different issues altogether I suppose?; June 18, 2010 7:41 AM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Reply to 7:41 pm
If any land banking group wants me to attend their presentation, they have to make a donation to FISCA for my time. It will not be free to them. They can explain their business model to me, but they will find me to be not a gullible person.; June 18, 2010 8:01 AM
Anonymous said...: Naah, this land banking company won't take up Mr Tan's offer. Actually I'm very surprised that they even bother to "extend invitation" -- are they so naive to think that Mr Tan won't grill them until they are black & crispy? Maybe they are so used to operating a business model that involves convincing naive consumers that it has affected their brains too.

Sounds to me like some naive (or over self-confident) land banking salesman/woman trying his luck to convince the well-known Mr Tan, and hoping for a marketing publicity scoop.; June 18, 2010 4:32 PM
Anonymous said...: I urge Mr Tan accept this invite and take this opportunity to grill these land banking companies and cut them down to size for the interest of the general investing public.

If the company do not want to donate the $1000, I am sure most readers here and victims of land banking scam would be more than happy to chip in and raise the $1000 to compensate for Mr. Tan's valuable time.

Many readers here are ardent supporters of Mr Tan and are not free loaders that just want free service and advice from Mr Tan. So let's put our money where our mouth is and donate to FISCA this $1000 and get this meeting going for the benefit of everyone.

Also, I request that the meeting with them be recorded and transcripted so that it can serve as an tool to educate the investors on how to ask the proper questions when approach with this form of investment proposal.

Any takers?

Qing; June 19, 2010 12:12 PM