I do not blame the consumers for being careless to fall into the trap of unethical sales practices by insurance agents and the marketing officers of banks.
My family members had fallen into the trap a few times. They visited a bank and were told by a marketing officer about a special product. After listening to the presentation, they were convinced that it was a good product.
The trouble was - the presentation was misleading. The marketing officer could be deliberately telling a lie or was innocently giving a wrong picture of the product.
In some cases, my family member was able to cancel the contract after consulting me. In other cases, they were caught in the bad product and had to wait 5 years to get their money back, with hardly any return.
I blame the Monetary Authority of Singapore for allowing the financial institutions to sell these bad products that cheat the consumers of getting a small return on their hard earned savings.
My family members had fallen into the trap a few times. They visited a bank and were told by a marketing officer about a special product. After listening to the presentation, they were convinced that it was a good product.
The trouble was - the presentation was misleading. The marketing officer could be deliberately telling a lie or was innocently giving a wrong picture of the product.
In some cases, my family member was able to cancel the contract after consulting me. In other cases, they were caught in the bad product and had to wait 5 years to get their money back, with hardly any return.
I blame the Monetary Authority of Singapore for allowing the financial institutions to sell these bad products that cheat the consumers of getting a small return on their hard earned savings.
MAS is a hopeless and useless regulator. Talking about BALLANCE SCORE CARD (BSC) what happened to it. Do you think all the financial product insurance salesmen and conmen could meet the requirement? Or is MAS covering up? Is MAS serious about leveling playing field or just wayang?
ReplyDeleteThe truth is MAS is not serious but pretending to regulate while protecting the insurance companies and their insurance agents. Come on , the govt has a lot of interest in the insurance companies and financial institutions, do you think MAS dare to spoil the Government's interest ? The consumers must protect themselves
Dun understand why folks here still believe in MAS, esp after the Lehman Bros Minibonds saga.
ReplyDeleteMAS is here only to protect Banks who form our Financial Centre System backbone, and the Insurance Companies, the latter 2 taking full advantage of the lax regulations to hoodwink the average Joe.
When the Minibonds outcry was in full swing, ex MAS MD and present Finance Minister Heng Swee Kiat, went into hiding, LKY had to bail him out.
"You go in with your eyes open", said LKY, and that's precisely what the MAS conveniently take up as their motto.