Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Blatant cheating

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Blatant cheating

Some insurance agents cheat their customers blatantly. I have just received an e-mail from a consumer who was asked to invest $40,000 from cash. Originally, she was supposed to invest from the CPF account but was later persuaded by the agent to pay in cash.

She was shocked to learn that the investment had depreciated by a lot for 1 year. Now, she received a notice to pay an additional $40,000. The agent must have sold her an annual premium policy. She certainly could not afford this amount of annual premium.

From her e-mail, she is quite ignorant about the policy, and signed for the policy only on the vague promise by the agent that it will earn a higher interest rate than CPF (which is also a blatant lie, as there is a large amount deducted to pay commission).

I advised the consumer to write a letter of complaint to the insurance company and to MAS and will assist her to draft the letter.

9 comments:

BforBryan said...: The agent's name should be disclosed and SHAMED publicly so as not to let more people fall prey to him/her and to discourage other agents from doing such despicable acts.; December 05, 2010 10:57 PM
zhummmeng said...: It should be a police case..
It is a regular ILP using CPF.
Report to MAS and get this agent's license revoked. My friend had a similar case whose CPF was wiped out by half after one year and the company sent a notice for another same amount..
The modus operandi is the mode of payment is not disclosed or told to the buyer and customer is given an impression that it is a single premium investment when actually it is regular.
It is cheating and it is a crime.; December 05, 2010 11:05 PM
Vincent Sear said...: Regular premium ILP has been disallowed from CPFIS for ten years. The case looks more likely to be a recurring single premium ILP where market losses are incurred.

Whatever, if the client doesn't know that annual lump sum premiums are required, the agent ought to be hanged.; December 06, 2010 9:47 AM
sgtrader said...: Does the policy allow the client to stop premium payment any time he wants? I invested in a similar product some years ago, using CPF special account, deducting $1500 each year. After 2 years, I found the interest returned was less than 4%. But I was allowed to stop making future premium payment, while still maintaining the policy as it is without terminating it.; December 06, 2010 11:23 AM
Spur said...: CPF funds not allowed for regular-premium insurance products (whether monthly or annually etc) since 2007. So this may be a criminal case.

The customer must report to both CPF and MAS immediately. Let the authorities investigate and take up the matter with the insurance company and the agent. At least if it is clear cut criminal or against the written law, the authorities will take action.; December 06, 2010 11:28 AM
yujuan said...: A daylight robbery under the very noses of our sleeping Regulator.; December 06, 2010 1:49 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Earlier, the consumer give me the impression that she was investing CPF money. I just met the consumer and she said that the agent asked her to invest cash, instead of CPF - giving some excuse (i.e. cock and bull story).; December 06, 2010 3:20 PM
ron said...: Amazing!.. I wonder how can anyone go to sleep at night?

Can the office administrator who handled the policy sleep?

Can the actuary who calculated the premium sleep?

Can the agent's manager or
supervisor who takes a cut via an overiding commission sleep?

Ethics and professionalism surely cannot sleep..

I suppose we measure success by the number of sales... at whatever cost as long as its not My cost!; December 06, 2010 4:56 PM
Zi Rong said...: Is the $40K used to top up the margin requirement? I doubt the lady even knows she signed up for a leveraged investment scheme.; December 08, 2010 5:58 PM