Distress with an investment linked policy

A consumer approached me for advice. He invested his CPF savings and regular savings in an investment-linked policy sold to him by a friend. After some time, he found that the value of his savings had depleted by nearly 40 percent. He was concerned and approached me for advice - should he terminate his policy. The friend who sold him the policy had since left the insurance company.

He showed me the names of several funds that he had invested in. He had bought a recurring single premium policy, I told him that the loss could be due to the following factors:

- expenses deducted from the savings to pay commission to the agent
- high annual fees deducted from the fund
- decline in the market.

I am not familiar with the charges that are taken away from each recurring single premium, nor the annual fees deducted from the fund, and for the insurance coverage. But the deduction seemed to be quite high.

I had advised consumers many times to avoid investment-linked policies that have high deductions. I advised them to attend the financial planning workshop and the life insurance talk organised by FISCA. Many consumers did not heed my advice, and went to invest in the wrong products, causing them to lose many tens of thousand dollars. It is a very painful experience.

To attend the talk, you should register now at http://easyapps.sg/assn/Org/Event.aspx?id=5

Prepare your Financial Plan

Here are sample financial plans for people at various ages:

Age 25
Age 35
Age 60

This financial plan shows how much you can withdraw from your savings at retirement to last for a lifetime, net of inflation. It allows you to see the effect of changing your savings and investing them to earn a higher return.

You can prepare your own financial plan using this tool.

Hedge funds can make big losses

When you invest in a hedge fund, you are giving money to a fund manager to speculate for you. The fund can speculate in any type of assets - shares, currencies, commodities. They can borrow money, i.e. leverage, to speculate in bigger stakes. The fund manager can make a lot of profit, but can also make a humongous loss. The hedge fund charge high fees, usually 3% or more of the invested assets, and can also take a large part of the profit, e.g. 20% of the gains. But, when the hedge fund loses big on the bets, they do not compensate the investors for the losses. Hedge funds managers can be multi-millionaires.

It can be reckless for trustees of trust funds or corporate funds to invest their money in hedge funds. But many of them do. This is why hedge funds are so successful. Here is a story of a hedge fund that performed badly this year. 

Financial planning test

How much do you know about financial planning? You can do this test.
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=458&PK=67932871ae14102ea52e240ed918ec56

The economic collapse

Watch these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2tgHW1w1lE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG3zylFeRxk&noredirect=1

Financial Planning Tool and Handbook

You can use this financial planning tool to carry out a projection of your savings and investment yield, net of inflation. This tool helps you to make the right decision for your future. You can read the handbook here.

Unemployment insurance in USA

Unemployment insurance in USA is managed by the states through the state trust funds. Here is a glimpse of what is happening.

..... spending on unemployment benefits fell by 24%, as fewer claims were filed and a temporary $25 weekly increase in benefits expired.
At the same time, businesses paid $12 billion more in unemployment insurance taxes in 2011. Many states have raised unemployment taxes on companies to replenish their depleted UI trust funds.

My view: An alternative to unemployment insurance is for the state to offer a low cost interest loan to unemployed people. They have to pay back the loan, but it will be at a low interest rate (and not the high rate of interest charged by the banks). Some of the loans will have to be written off, but a large part can be recovered from the lenders when they find their jobs in an economic recovery, or when they sell off their house in the future.

Beware of a new type of motor insurance scam

Here is a new type of motor insurance scams that target motorists - and not the insurance companies.

Mr X's car was hit by a van. He reported to an reporting centre. An agent of the workshop approached him and told him that the workshop can handle his third party claim - so that he does not need to lose his No Claim Bonus. Mr. X agreed and sign a few forms given by the workshop.

Six months later, the workshop told him that they could not proceed with the third party claim as the other party had a witness that Mr. X had turned into is lane. The workshop asked Mr. X to pay for the repairs at about twice of the estimated cost. If Mr. X did not pay, the workshop would get a lawyer to sue him. It seemed that the forms signed by Mr. X gave this legal right to the workshop.

Mr. X approached his insurance company to handle the claim, but the insurance company refused - as Mr. X did not meet the policy condition of getting his own insurance company to handle the repair in the first place.

Mr. X is now in a dilemma - having to pay for a claim that should be covered by the insurance policy and now having to pay for twice of the actual cost. Mr. X suspected that the workshop was acting fraudulently and was targeting him in the first place.

Lesson - always leave it to your insurance company to handle the repairs. Do not try to save on your No Claim Discount. It is not worth the unexpected trouble.

Unstable employment and fall in fertility

Lucky Tan wrote this article about the impact of unstable employment on the fertility rate. When people are unsure about their employment, they are reluctant to get married and start a family. In my view, the situation is worse in Singapore than in other countries, so we have one of the lowest birth rate in the world. This is a key reason why the measures taken by the Government to boost the birth rate during the past 25 years have failed to produce the desired results - as they do not address the underlying causes - the unstable employment and increasing cost of living. 

Affordability of housing

IMF figures show that a 70 square meter home in Beijing costs about 20 times the average annual household disposable income, quadruple the national ratio and almost seven times higher than in the United States. Definition: Disposable income is total personal income minus personal current taxes.  

Word Power Vol 1

This is the soft copy of the book. It gives exercises to allow you to improve your vocabulary. It contains 80 puzzles of 20 words each. You can record the time taken to solve each puzzle and the number of correct words.    By carrying out the fun exercises regularly, you can learn more words.

Deceptive practices and hidden fees

President Obama has criticized the bad practices of the banks on deceptive practices and hidden fees. He faced an uphill battle to get the reforms to pass through the US Congress due to the strong lobby of the large banks. I hope that he will get the strong support of the American people.

Means testing is bureaucratic and difficult

Jack Welch wants to introduce means-testing for entitlement to welfare benefits. I do not like this approach. It is better to give the same entitle to everybody, based on age, and to tax those who are well off at a higher rate to pay for the benefits.

It is bureaucratic and costly to implement means-testing, and it can have unfair results. We only need to see how it is being implemented in Singapore. The means testing is based on many criteria, such as income, type of residence, etc. Some retirees - who are not well off - found that they are staying in a landed property bought many decades ago, but are excluded from some government subsidy.

Retirement - Canada vs Singapore

Wing Lee Cheong, a Singaporean who has migrated to Canada, share this story about retirement in Canada, compared to Singapore. He said that retirement is not scary - it can be fun! He wants Singaporeans to be able to enjoy life!

Pinnacle Notes Class Action

The US lawyers told me that the a hearing was held on 28 Sept 2011 on whether the case should be heard in US Court. The judges have not given their decision yet. The lawyer will keep me posted when a decision is made. For Pinnacle Note investors, keep your fingers crossed!

Salute to a visionary

Steve Jobs has passed away. Here is my salute to a visionary.

Orbituary to Steve Jobs.
10 ways Steve Jobs changed the world.

Website - make passive income

Hi Mr Tan,

I came across your blog after reading your book - Get value from Your Life
Insurance. I think the book is very informative and has given me more
insights into insurance planning. I also like your posts on your website
about investments and personal finance in general, very informative. I am
also very passionate about personal finance as you can see on my website.

If you don't mind, we can exchange links. My website is about Making
Passive Income. Check it out at
http://www.investinpassiveincome.com

If you are ok, I will place your link on my website and you can place my
link on your site too. I think your blog is very beneficial to readers
from all walks of life.

Calvin
http://www.investinpassiveincome.com

Top 20 blue chips

I asked my stock broker for the top 20 blue chips in Singapore, showing the fall from the recent market highs and the dividend yield. The results are shown here. I shall be investing in the blue chips with high dividend yields, especially if they have shown a drop of more than 20% from the recent high. It should give good value for the long term investor.

Avoid synthetic ETFs

There are two types of ETFs - physical and synthetic ETFs. Physical ETFs are invested in the underlying shares. Synthetic ETFs are invested in derivatives to mimic the index returns. 

Investors should avoid the synthetic ETFs. Some issuers take the cash and replace them with illquid, hard to value products as collaterals. If the investors rush to liquidate their positions, the issuers might not be able to raise enough cash to pay off the investors. The synthetic ETFs also face the counter party risk where the other party to the derivatives may not be able to honour their obligation.

The Straits Times Index ETFs marketed by SPDR and DBS are physical ETFs - which do not have the risk of the synthetic ETFs.

Read this article.

Forex trading courses

I have received a report that some people have paid several thousand dollars to attend a forex trading course on the expectation that they can learn some trading techniques to make money. Most of these people earn up losing money on the trading activities. And they are too shy to admit that they have made a big mistake in entering into this line.

If you have been misled into paying money for the course, and you have proof of the mis-representation, e.g. the trainer has told a lie about the profit made by other traders using his technique or about his past trading experience, you can recover your fees through the small claims court. See this past case.

Test your vocabulary

Test your vocabulary by rearranging the letters to form the correct words that fit the definitions.

Word Power 2-1
Word Power 2-2

I will be launching a new book that has the scrambled words at various levels, suitable for primary and secondary students.

Please give your views on whether this type of exercise can help the student to learn more words and if it is interesting and fun to attract their attention. I have organised the book to have 80 puzzles of 20 words each, in order of difficulty. It allows the student to record the time taken to solve each puzzle and also the number of words that are obtained correctly.

Request for assistance

If you need my assistance, you have to submit a report based on the following:

Mis-selling of financial product
Insurance claim

Warren Buffett and US economy

Warren Buffet said that all the businesses under the Berkshire Hathaway group are booming, except for those connected with the housing market. This means that the US economy is expected to rebound and do well. It is worth watching. Read this report.

Invest in foreign currency

If you find that interest rate is too low in Singapore and you wish to earn a higher interest rate by investing in foreign currency, e.g. Australian dollar, you should be aware of the following:

• You have to bear the risk of currency fluctuation
• You have to incur the cost of converting your Singapore dollars to the foreign currency and to convert back to Singapore dollars on maturity

After you take these factors into account, it is better to avoid investing in foreign currencies. But if you still wish to consider it, you should read this FAQ.

My preference is to invest in blue chip shares, REITS or the STI ETF. You can find shares that give an attractive dividend yield of 3% or higher and enjoy the benefit of capital appreciation. Although these shares may be risky in the short term, the risk is reduced considerably for a long term investor. These concepts are explained in the FISCA workshop on financial planning. Register here. 

•  

Bravo to the New York Attorney General

The New York Attorney General is active in looking after the interest of ordinary people. If they find evidence that a bank has been defrauding its customers, it is ready to take legal action on behalf of the people. It recognizes that the AG office is really the lawyer for the people, and not just for the Government. Read this report.

I hope that our AG office in Singapore and the Minister for Law will recognize that it has a duty to the people of Singapore to uphold justice and to protect the interest of ordinary people when there is suspicion that the business enterprises are set up to defraud the people, e.g. collecting deposits with the likelihood of folding up or designing financial or investment contracts that are unfair to consumers. If they need financial expertise they can cooperate with the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

It is not reasonable to expect that the ordinary people can afford to engage lawyers to pursue civil actions against these business enterprises. Many cases need to be investigated, and ordinary people do not have the resources or the power to carry out the investigation.


  

Financial Planning Workshop

Register early for this workshop.  Do not wait until the last minute, as the workshop will be cancelled if there is insufficient response.

Due to the high cost of booking the venue, we have to cancel a talk if there is insufficient response within one week of the talk. Do not wait until the last minute to register, if you are interested for the talk to be conducted.

Note:
The talk on life insurance scheduled earlier had to be cancelled due to insufficient response. After the talk was cancelled, a few people wrote to me to ask about how to register for the talk. If they had registered earlier, we would have continued the talk.

Profit without tax

It seems that large companies lobby for a tax holiday but does not help to protect jobs. http://www.cnbc.com//id/44769782

A trade war in the horizon?

Will there be a trade war? Here is an event that may lead to this disastrous outcome. Some analysts think that the US government and China will work out a solution to avoid a trade war. But in a conflict, nothing can be taken for granted. Things can go wrong. 

Creating employment in a recession

Read this article. It is a dilemma faced by governments. They have a budget deficit and has to reduce spending by laying off workers. But it is difficult for the workers to find jobs in a recession. The workers will receive unemployment benefits for a short period, but the benefits will run out after a while, and they may still be unemployed.

In a recession, there will not reduced demand for goods and services, as those who are still employed will cut down their own spending. Small businesses will not employ the excess workers. It is difficult for the unemployed workers to start their own business, due to lack of funding, lack of credit and lack of business. It is a vicious cycle.

The solution to a recession is for the government to employ more people, and not to lay them off. These people can be used to provide the public goods and services, that are needed by the population at large, in health, education, security, infrastructure and other useful activities. The government needs the money to pay for these services, and it has to come from taxation of those who are employed and those who are well off.

The people who are employed by the public sector do not need to be paid high wages. They only need to be paid enough to get by. When the economy recovers, they can find better paying jobs in the private sector. In the meantime, they should be kept usefully employed.

The advanced countries are now suffering from the current economic system - low taxation, wide income gap, globalisation, high unemployment and budget deficits. The current system is not sustainable. The leaders need the courage to change the system - but the challenges are really big.

Tan Kin Lian

Improve the public transport system

The Minister of Transport, Lui Tuck Yew, has announced that the quota for increase in motor vehicles will be reduced from the current 1.5% per annum, but will state the exact figure at a later date.

I agree with this decision to reduce the growth in vehicle population. In fact, I believe that we already have too many vehicles in Singapore - judging from the congestion on our roads and the difficulty in finding parking spaces at the homes, workplaces, shopping malls and other destinations.  It is appropriate to start reducing the vehicle population, e.g. by not allowing some of the expiring permits to be replaced, but I do not think that the Government will take this step.

More important, we need to improve public transport, especially the local transport that brings commuters from their homes to the MRT stations or bus terminus. This can be done by issuing licences for local bus and taxi services that operate within a town. These services can be exempted from taxies and other fees, so that the cost to commuters will be kept low through competition. It will also provide employment opportunities for older people who have a driving licence.

I have written about these ideas in this paper on local transport and also in another paper on the public transport system. I have sent the papers to Minister Lui, but he had replied to me at that time that he is too busy to study them. I have not heard from him since.

Many people have to buy cars due to difficulty in getting public transport, especially if there do not live close to the MRT station. If there is a good system of affordable and convenient local transport, they may be willing to forego the expense of owning and using a private car,

Tan Kin Lian

How modern economics have failed us

This is an excellent article which explains that modern economics did not follow the teachings of Adam Smith. It has been allowed to stray from from the what the free market should be - i.e. freedom with responsibility. It explained how the financial sector made a lot of profit through excessive speculation and did not add any value in the process. Modern economics have operated on wrong principles and lack of morality.

Eckhart Tolle’s saying and Tommy Wong’s books

Eckhart Tolle said “Do you need more knowledge? Is more information going to save the world, or faster computers, more scientific or intellectual analysis? Is it not wisdom that humanity needs most at this time?”

Looking for wisdom? Read Dr. Tommy Wong’s books “Wisdom on How to Live Life”.

Tommy Wong’s books can be ordered here.

Solving the shortage of nurses

Hi Mr Tan,
There is a problem but isn't there any "localised" solution;

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1156669/1/.html

Who is bold enough to initiate mandatory National Service Nurses programme?  If no policy maker is willing to initiate NS for female, then perhaps tapping on the NS guys to be NS nurses might be better than tapping on FTs.  Cheers.

Eugene

Tell the truth

Politicians should tell the truth and not mislead the public by controlling the flow of information. Who wrote this article? Kishore Mahubani, Dean of LKY School.

Word Power - test your vocabulary

Test for vocabulary by rearranging the letters on the left to form the correct word that fits the definition on the right.

Occupy Wall Street

There is a growing group of people in America who are demonstrating against the greed of Wall Street and politicians .... " yet its two weeks of noisy occupation has lured a sturdily faithful and fervent constituency willing to express discontentment with what they feel is an inequitable financial system until, well, whenever." 

To keep or terminate an existing life insurance policy?

I have been asked quite often on whether a specific life insurance policy taken previously should be terminated for its low yield. The right approach is to calculate the yield on the policy for the next (say) five years and to compare this yield with the yield from alternative investments, e.g. an ETF or a REIT.

This paper explains how to calculate the yield on a life insurance policy. Although a life insurance policy gives a poor yield for its entire duration, most of the expenses are deducted upfront. After the initial loss is written of, the running yield on the policy may be quite acceptable, e.g. close to 4% per annum. In most cases, it is better to continue the existing policy (although the consumers should have avoided it in the first place). 

Mobile apps to desktop

I am some apps developed on the mobile platform (iPhone and Windows Phone 7). I wish to develp the same apps to run on the laptop. Can it be done by adapting the mobile apps or does it have to be completely rewritten? Please send your answer to kinlian@gmail.com.

A wonderful person

Here is a video of a wonderful person, Warren Buffet. He is a multi-billionaire but he thinks for the common people. And he continues to support Barack Obama, in spite of the difficulties that the US President had to overcome. And he is optimistic that the US economy is coming out of a recession. I hope that he is right!

Political cartoons

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Singapore-Says-Political-Cartoon/139514912744152

Casino and money laundering

I heard that casinos are used for money laundering. Here is my guess on how it works.

The customer brings "dirty" money, e.g. obtained through corrupt or illegal means, to the casino and converts them to non-negotiable chips. When the customer uses the chips to bet. When the customer wins a bet, the customer is paid with negotiable chips. The customer can convert the negotiable chips back to cash and is given a receipt by the casino. The customer can report that his wealth comes from winning at the casino. He does not have to report the money that is brought in for the gambling.

Is this how it works?

Read this article on money laundering. There is a mention about betting in a casino.

Occupy Wall Street

There is a protest in New York called the "Occupy Wall Street". 


It is targeted at "bankers and traders who run the financial markets and their enablers in Washington have hijacked the system from ordinary Americans who just want a decent job and a home of their own."


More details here.

High cost of living and low wages

In this article, Leong Sze Hian pointed out that Singapore ranked as the 10th most expensive city in the world and the wage level of the people ranked at 42nd. This is why many Singaporeans had to work hard and for long hours just to earn enough to pay for the cost of living.

Pursuit of justice

Lucky Tan wrote this article about the pursuit of justice in Singapore.

Challenges facing Singapore

Here is an excellent article by Lucky Tan who writes about the problems that will be faced by Singapore in the near future, as we have many of the characteristics of America that has caused huge challenges to their government. I agree with his views as stated in this article.

New rules on evidence

The Ministry of Law is seeking public views on several changes to update the rules on evidence to be submitted in court. I welcome this move to move with the times. It is an encouraging step.

There are many other areas on updating our laws and enforcing our laws. I hope that the Ministry will be more active in these areas, as the administration of justice in Singapore leaves much to be desired.

Mobile website for FISCA

FISCA is now trying a new website that is suitable for access by mobile phones, and also through the browser. You can access it at http://fisca.mviso.com. Try it with your mobile phone.

New scam on motor insurance claim

A consumer approached me on this problem. He had a minor accident 8 months ago. He decided not to make any insurance claim and carried out his own repairs. He has now received a large claim from the other vehicle with a witness report that placed him in the wrong. The claim was inflated and the witness was probably ,making a false statement.

He submitted the third party claim to his insurance company - but the claim officer rejected the claim as he did not make a report at the time of the accident. He is now in a dilemma and does not know how to handle the third party claim.

His only recourse was to engage his own lawyer to fight the claim, but it would be costly. It was likely that the claim was fraudulent but it was quite sad that his insurance company was not assisting him on this matter.

New scam on time sharing

A consumer shared this story with me. He bought a time sharing unit several years ago. The marketing company disappeared after collecting $7,000 from him. He wrote off the loss.

Recently, he was contacted by a service company who claimed to act for the developer. The told him that he had outstanding service payments on his time sharing unit and that the unit had some residual value. He was convinced to pay the fee to this service company to terminate the contract and claim back what was due to him.

After paying the service fee, he did some research and found that the service company was not connected with the developer. He had been scammed again.

Consumers should be careful and not attend presentations or meet people that they do not know. There are too many scams happening around. Some Singaporeans are easy targets due to their naivety.

Labour churning has social and economic cost

Here is an excellent article in Yawning Bread.

Most Singaporeans will not have much idea of the economics of the foreign worker recruiting system, since our daily lives are far removed from this issue. What I can’t figure out is whether civil servants at the Ministry of Manpower know much about it. If they don’t, the question would be: But isn’t it part of your job to know? If they do, then: How have you managed to ignore the injustices, and social and economic consequences of such a dysfunctional system for so long?


Read more.

Fallacies about Singapore Welfare System

At risk of simplification, this static thinking about our social welfare can be roughly summed up in a few statements: Singapore is not a welfare state and should never be, because the Western welfare state is doomed to fail and social welfare is fundamentally un-Asian. As a small country with no natural resources, we have no choice but to define our own style of social welfare, which by and large has worked over the years. So why fix it if it ain’t broke?  
Underlying these statements are four powerful ideas about social welfare and Singapore society. In the spirit of critical reflection, let us now examine the truth in each of them. [Ng Kok Hoe].


Read his article here.

Financial system gets less stable

When you go out to buy your next television set, it is likely that you end up with something better than your existing TV sold for the same price. Like many things around us, man made systems tend to improve over time - if you take Boeing's newest aircraft, The Dreamliner, you will expect that to be build with more safety features than the old Boeing 747.


There is however one exception, our financial system - it seems to get less stable with each passing year and generates crisis, turmoil and recessions much more often that in the past yet we seem to accept this all encompassing system because most of us are born into or do not really understand what goes on in the banking system. Here is an interesting video that explains quite clear how money is created, how it drives the economy and why we are seeing so many crisis and so much in stability in the current system [Lucky Tan].


Read this article.

Look back at the Pinnacle Notes

Here is an interesting article written nearly two years ago, about the Pinnacle Notes Series 3. Here is another explanation.

Retirees should keep the mortgage

In a low interest rate environment, it is better to keep the mortgage and cash in the bank, or keep invested.
See this article.

How to solve the messy CPF Life scheme

Many people find it difficult to choose among the four options given by CPF Life. Many of them do not like the CPF Life scheme for reasons that are peculiar to their personal situation. Here are my suggestions on how to get out of this messy situation.

Financially sound retirement

Read this article about how to prepare for a financially sound retirement. Several tips refer to the tax situation in America which does not apply to Singapore. Some of the other tips, e.g. do not have debts, how to spend within  your means - are relevant. 

Class action on Pinnacle Notes

An important decision on the class action for the Pinnacle Notes in the USA will be decided soon - the hearing will start on 28 September.


By GRACE LEONG (Business Times)
A lawsuit involving allegations that Morgan Stanley & Co Inc sold rigged Pinnacle Notes as 'safe, conservative' products to a group of Singaporean investors including Singapore's oldest credit cooperative, costing them US$154.7 million in investment losses, is making its way through federal court in Manhattan.


A hearing is scheduled for Sept 28 in which the US District Court for the Southern District of New York will decide whether the case can proceed in the US or whether it should be dismissed and heard in Singapore, The Business Times has learned.


If approved, the Singapore investors will seek class-action status.


NOTE:
Under a class action (in the USA), any compensation received will be shared by all investors in the class, including the investors who were not involved in lodging the original complaint. There is no provision for a class action suit in Singapore.

Volatile gold and silver prices

Gold an silver prices can be quite volatile. Gold dropped 8% in 3 days and is expected to rally. However, there is the risk that it may drop much further. The drop in silver is more severe. This is an example of a speculative and volatile market. Be careful.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-09-27/gold-rallies-after-biggest-three-day-drop-since-lehman-collapse.html

Here is a bearish view:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44667027

How to use private bankers

In some countries, financial advisers or private bankers can advise their wealthy clients on tax and estate planning, so that they can minimize the tax payable on their income or on the estate that is transferred to the dependants.

It is difficult for these advisers to help their clients in market timing or stock selection - as this is speculation and a zero-sum game. In fact, after allowing for the cost of transactions and fees, it is a negative sum game for the clients.

The best way to get a good yield on the investments is to invest in an index fund and to invest for the long term - to average out the good and bad years. There is little that the advisers can help the client to achieve a better yield.

I have seen many cases where the investor who had relied on the financial adviser to pick the manage the investments on their behalf - only to be disappointed with the bad results. The financial adviser probably did their best, but when the market is volatile, some investors will be at the wrong end, and the results can be disastrous. For each winner, there will be a loser - and after deducting fees and expenses, most investors (actually speculators) will be worse off.

To avoid speculation, you should learn how to invest for the long term. Read my book on financial planning (www.tankinlian.com/ishop) or attend the financial planning talk organized by FISCA (www.easysearch.sg/fisca).

Advisers acted honestly but gave bad advice

Many people had bought a bad financial product from an agent or adviser whom they know and trusted. They learned later that this was a bad decision.

The adviser might have acted honestly but gave the wrong advice, due to being naive. The advisers desperately needed a job, e.g. they have just graduated. They were taught about the positive aspects of the financial product (e.g. life insurance policy or structured product) but did not know about the negative aspects (i.e. the high charges and high risk). They honestly sold the financial product to their friends and family members thinking that they are giving good advice.

When they learned later about the negative aspects, they felt quite bad about letting down the people who trusted them and left the business quietly.

Their agency managers knew the full picture, but exploited the ignorance of the newcomers. Some advisers or agents, who later learned the tricks, decided to continue the game and make a lot of money for themselves.

I do not wish to imply that all agency managers or experienced advisers are dishonest. I know of a few who are honest and acted in the best interest of their customers. But there are dishonest or naive advisers as well, so consumers should be wary.

Life insurance book

The life insurance book is now available at a reduced price from i-shop
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=375

Order here: www.tankinlian.com/ishop

Unscramble the words

Here are some familiar words that have been scrambled. Can you rearrange the letters to get the correct words?

tseiyco
crposse
nalruta
neetpsr
uspelim
crupoed
sgutisd
teliwsh
atnesgr
rlatehe


Additional scramble words and the answers can be found here. 

Word Power - test your vocabulary

This book contains scrambled words. You can test your vocabulary by rearranging the letters to form the correct words. Suitable for children and adults.

The answers are found here.

Consumer Protection and Fair Practices Act

This Act is administered by the Consumer Association of Singapore. Some bad business practices may be disallowed under the Act, e.g. forfeiture of life membership of gym. Read the legislation here:
http://www.case.org.sg/cpfta.htm

Read the details of the unfair practices here.

Here is a specific practice that may be relevant to the gym membership:

11  Taking advantage of a consumer by including in a consumer agreement terms or conditions that are harsh, oppressive or excessively one-sided so as to be unconscionable       Bullying a consumer by using oppressive terms in the sales contract       Example:       Consumer signed agreement for some renovation works. Consumer changed his mind the next day and was willing to compensate contractor on any cost incurred. Renovation company insisted that consumer must pay a termination charge equivalent to 80% of the total renovation sum as stipulated in the agreement

Distribution cost

A consumer came to see me about her investment. She wanted to invest her salary for retirement. A financial adviser sold her an investment plan. Later, she learned that it was a life insurance policy. She did not realise that the benefit illustration contained a number called "distribution cost". This was defined to be the expenses of the insurance company.

As the monthly savings is large, the distribution cost amounted to $40,000. The financial adviser did not explain that this amount is taken from her savings to pay commission and expenses of the company. The consumer realised it after contributing for 18 months (as the charge is only shown after 18 months). By that time, it was too late for her to stop the policy. Even if she terminated the policy, there is a surrender charge that takes away the balance of the distribution cost. It was a big shock to her - to lose so much of her savings - representing her hard earned saving for 18 months!

Many people bought a life insurance policy without knowing what the distribution cost really is. To learn about it, they should attend the FISCA talk on life insurance. Be aware, so that you do not lose so much money.

Dealing with the global crisis

I expect the global economies to go through a difficult time over the next two years. Many analysts and economists are worried about the debt crisis in USA and Europe and the slowdown of the economies in the advanced countries.

We should be prepared for a difficult time for the Singapore economy. We can expect more people to become unemployed.

If I were the Finance Minister, I would implement the following measures:

• Allow unemployed people to make monthly withdrawals from the CPF account. The amount should be sufficient to meet their monthly expenses. This can be for a period of 12 months and may be extended.
• If there is insufficient balance in the CPF ordinary account, allow negative balance to be accumulated (with interest at 2.5% per annum). The negative balance will be recouped from future contributions, when they find a job. If it remains negative at the time of retirement, it can be a charge on the property that has been purchased with CPF funds
• The monthly repayment of the mortgage loan can be deferred during the period of unemployment.

If the unemployed people are not required to sell their property during this distressed time, the property market need not collapse - which was what has led to the problem in the USA and Europe. 

Tan Kin Lian

Live streaming of talk on life insurance

This talk will be streamed live at 9 pm tonight (Friday 23 September).
http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2011/09/life-streaming-of-talk-get-value-for.html 

Teaching character and values in schools

 I welcome the decision by the Minister of Education to teach values and character in the school syllabus. This is an important lesson to be taught to your young people. It gives them the confidence and guidance on their future decisions.

I advocate teaching of the values of honesty, fairness, positive attitude, courage and public service. These are the values that have guided the important decisions in my life. With these values, I am confident of spending my mind on many issues. They guide me on differentiating what is right from wrong, good from bad. These values form my personal character.

Different people may wish to give different emphasis to other values, such as respect, compassion, care for others and innovation. It is all right for them to choose these other values. I believe that these values are already embedded in  my five core values.

I chose my five core values because I found them to be rather lacking in our society and will make an important contribution to improving life in Singapore.

Tan Kin Lian

Forfeiture of Lifetime membership of Gym

Hi Mr. Tan,
Did you notice the series of letters to ST Forum on the lifetime membership of a fitness club. Some people paid thousands to get the lifetime membership, to have it revoked later (presumably without refunds) because they forgot to pay the annual admin fees of a few dollars. The fitness club makes it not so easy to pay the fees (eg. no giro payment).


I wonder if this can be classified as a scam. But it definitely highlight another issue of prepaying for a product/service.


REPLY
I think that this is an unfair contract term. There is a law against such unfair contracts. I believe that this law is being handled, in some ways, by the Consumer Association of Singapore (CASE).

Active discussion in Facebook

If you wish to discuss some of the issues posted here in my Facebook page, you can create a profile by following the instructions here,

Successful claim for refund

Here is a case 2 years ago, where the people who attended a trading course and paid large fees were able to get a refund, due to misrepresentation. http://www.asiaone.com/Business/News/My%2BMoney/Story/A1Story20090319-129590.html

Be educated and savvy on financial matters

Why do people refuse to pay $20 to attend a 6 hour financial planning workshop organised by FISCA and yet pay $5,000 to attend a 3 day training course on forex trading or get a free talk by a financial adviser who sells them a financial product that takes away more than $5,000 in commission?

When the investor gets conned of their savings and they come to FISCA for assistance, it is too late. There is little that FISCA can do at that time.

Be wary of high pressure selling

It usually starts with an invitation to a free seminar held in a posh hotel. The invitees are treated with an impressive presentation and free food. After that, the hard pressure selling comes in - and those who are not strong willed ends up signing for an expensive purchase - for a $5,000 training course on forex or property investment, or a $20,000 time sharing unit, or a $50,000 land banking plot, a $20,000 wine investment or whatever is being sold.

All that is needed is for the promoter to get 5 people to sign up and they will earn enough income to pay for the expenses of the event, the advertisement and the commission payable to the many well dressed marketeers who are trained to identify and work on the gullible investors.

Like some other people, I have been the victim of this type of marketing a few times during my life. Fortunately for me, the amounts of the purchase are quite small. My biggest purchase was a massage chair costing $6,000. Quite likely, the real cost would have been only one third of the price that I paid. In this case, it was not an impressive talk at a hotel, but a glib talking sales person at a sales booth.





  

Request for assistance - insurance claims

This FAQ shows the information that is needed by Tan Kin Lian in providing assistance on insurance claims.

Charges for property courses

Dear Mr Tan,

Just read your blog on some of the forex exchange training courses.

Will you be able to touch on the property investment as well? Almost everyday I see advertisements in the Straits Times promoting about property investment courses (where they claim that you can invest with little or no money and own 3 properties with 1 property). These courses are also not cheap at all. People who are unable to buy properties of their own can get together in a group and pool their resources and invest together. 

I have never attended any of these courses before. I'm not sure if this is the legal thing to do in S'pore. Please advise if you can also look into this area besides financial investment.

JL


REPLY
 I did not realize that people pay money to attend property courses as well. It seems to be another way to give away money!

Request for assistance on a bad investment

Here is a guide on the type of information that needs to be provided by the consumer who wishes to seek the assistance of Tan Kin Lian to seek compensation due to the failure of an agent or adviser to give the relevant information on a financial product.

$5,000 for a forex training course

An investor shared this experience of attending a foreign exchange training course. He paid $5,000 for a 3 day training course. The course could have been completed in half the time, but was stretched for 3 days to justify the high fee. He found the training techniques taught at the course to be not successful.

He later obtained a training DVD from another source, for free. It teaches him how to trade using candlesticks. He found this to be more useful. 

Foreign exchange training courses - misleading statements

If you have attended a foreign exchange training course and have paid several thousand dollars, and found later that you were misled, please write to kinlian@gmail.com. I am helping a friend to lodge a complaint about these courses and more evidence is needed.

Save on interest payment

It is important to have an emergency fund that can be used for your unexpected payments. This can save you a lot of interest payment.

Suppose you need $5,000 in an emergency - for medical expenses or disruption in your income. If you borrow $5,000 on your credit card, you have to pay interest of $100 a month (2%) on the roll over. If it takes you 2 years to make the repayment, you would have spend an additional $2,400 in interest payment, on top of the $5,000 that you borrowed (and have to repay).

If you have emergency fund that you can draw down, you can save on the hefty interest payment. But you should have the discipline to repay the borrowing back into your emergency fund - just like you have to repay an external lender.

You should  build an emergency fund of 6 months of your earnings. If you earn $5,000 a month, your emergency fund should be $30,000. You should keep the emergency fund in liquid investment, such as fixed deposit or short term bond. You should avoid investing it into a life insurance policy or structured product where there is a high upfront cost (which becomes a penalty on early withdrawal).

Remember - building up the emergency fund is your top priority - above buying a car or other discretionary expenses.

Foreign exchange training courses

Dear Mr. Tan,
I am a Singaporean PR with a background in the financial services sector. I am quite appalled at much of what goes on here in terms of mis-selling of products and services by the finance-related sectors. I am glad that you have managed to take on some of these issues and wish that the various authorities here in Singapore would be more active.

For the last couple of years I have had various dealings with such groups as MAS, ABS and CASE in my efforts to have some of these bad practises stopped and have had periodic successes.

However there is one issue that I just can't seem to make any headway on that I feel is something that somebody really needs to tackle and that is the selling of "get-rich-quick" type foreign exchage trading courses. This activity has been going on for years here and is essentially an on-going fraud that takes place in full public view, most notably via advertisements in the Straits Times.

The groups behind these schemes have made millions and millions of dollars here carrying out an activity which would be banned in most countries. It saddens me every time I open the newspaper when I see these advertisements because I know that it means yet more people will today be conned out of their hard-earned savings, or taken into debt, in order to attend one of these courses.

I would like to urge you to try to tackle this issue. I think that if you could do so you would be doing the Singaporean people a great service. Many millions have been swindled, but lets not let this practise go on for yet more years. I have realised that my efforts with the MAS, CASE, ABS etc are coming to nothing in this area so I realise it needs somebody of your status to be involved in this if anything is to change.

Please let me know if you would be interested to look into this issue and I would be very happy to help in any way I can starting by briefing you on what I believe are the illegal practises carried out by these groups in full public eye,

Concerned

Social inequality in Singapore

Yee Jenn Jong is a non-constituency Member of Parliament from the Workers' Party. He writes regularly on social and economic issues. Read this article on social inequality in Singapore.

Social insurance - to pay for large medical bills

My friend asked me to help publicise an appeal for a little girl called Chloe who has a rare disorder called Pompe Disease and needs $200,000 to $300,000 a year to be treated. This is a lot of money and is likely to be beyond the means of compassionate, ordinary people.

This issue raises the following questions:

• Should something be done to help people like Chloe who are borne with a rare disorder? 
• Should the state take this burden from the parents?
• Can a solution be found using private insurance?

I must first rule out private insurance as most people are not likely to take up insurance against the unexpected and undefined risks of life - until it happened. There are other problems associated with the profit motive of insurance companies, leading to dispute on claim settlement or unfair rejection of legitimate claims.

The best approach is through social insurance, i.e. insurance provided by the state. It should cover all  eligible people and be funded by taxation or compulsory contribution (that can be adjusted based on actual experience) or a mix of both sources of funding.

Some issues to be considered by the state are:

• Should the social insurance pay for expensive treatment that boost the profit of pharmaceutical companies?
• Should there be a cap on the amount that are to be funded by the state?

Some possible approaches that are helpful are:

• The compensation should be for the actual cost of treatment and can be subject to a cap of say $100,000 and should be used under proper guidance.
• The cap may not be sufficient to meet the needs of serious cases, but it does help to provide some relief to the parents. It may be possible for the pharmaceutical company to reduce the cost of the drugs. 
• More importantly, there could be many cases where this type of compensation would be helpful to the parents.

It may be difficult to design a social insurance scheme, but this should not stop us from giving attention to this matter. If nothing is done, then the burden has to be met by the parents or family members (who may not have the financial means) or the patient will not be treated due to lack of funds. 

It is not a good approach to leave these problems to charity. Apart from the high cost of collecting and accounting for the donations, there is the risk that some of these cases may be exploited by unscrupulous people who wish to make a personal profit from the effort. (However, in Chloe's case, I find that the donations will be administered by the hospital).

Tan Kin Lian

Mobile optimized website

Dear Mr Tan,
My company is launching an exciting mobile marketing platform to local companies and entrepreneurs to help them reach out to large and increasing mobile market in Singapore.

Qrion Entreprise specializes in designing mobile-optimised websites that can be saved as mobile apps by customers.

We would like to seek for a business opportunity with your esteemed organisation to market your events, mobile applications and book publications on a mobile platform that people can access while they are on the move. One of the key benefits of this mobile platform is that interested parties can call/ SMS/email the organizer directly from their mobile phones.

We strongly believe that harnessing mobile platform to publish events will gain popularity as more people are getting themselves connected to the internet wirelessly through portable devices such as smart phones and tablets.

Qrion provides the enabling platform for event organisers to design their mobile websites with our easy-to-use Mobile Site Creator and Content Management System. We can also design mobile websites upon customer request.

You can view our sample mobile website indicated below (Note: please view by smart phone or tablet):

- Event Publicity (http://eventhub.mviso.com)
- Products/Services Showcase (http://raffles.mviso.com and http://meiosis.mviso.com)

If it is convenient, we will also appreciate very much if you can mention our mobile marketing services in your public blog.

William Ng
Director
Qrion Enterprise

Outsourcing and drop in standard

I went to Paris for a board meeting. The company arranged for me to be picked up at the airport. I was to look for a person holding a sign with my name.

When I arrived, I could not find the pick up person. I searched for him. He arrived 15 minutes later and was clearly not a local person. After driving for some time, he appeared to be driving me to the wrong destination. I checked with him and gave him the correct address.

I reported the matter to the hotel for investigation. Apparently, they have arranged the pick-up to a contractor who must have outsourced it to a third party (who used an immigrant to do the work).

This was probably done in the interest of brining down the cost or making a bigger profit margin. This has led to a drop in standard and quality. There is a need to have better control on outsourcing!

Buying a property on dual income

Many people depend on dual income to calculate the affordability of their property purchase. This is highly risky as any one party may lose the income, causing financial difficulty. Read this article.

Tip: when you use dual income to calculate affordability, you should apply a discounting factor for the dual income. I suggest a discount of 30%. You should take only 70% of the dual income to calculate the amount of the property that you can afford to buy. 

Buying gold bar at inflated price

Mr. Tee had a friend who introduced an attractive investment scheme to him. The friend, whom he trusted, told him to invest in a gold bar. It promised to pay 2% interest every 3 months. After 12 months, the company promised to buy back the gold bar at its full value. This allowed him to earn a return of 8% for 12 months. There is also a certificate for him to take out the gold bar from a trusted third party if the company did not honour the buy back promise.

At the end of the period, the company did not buy back the investment. Mr. Tee took out the gold bar and found that he had paid for the gold bar at a price that is 50% higher than the real value of the gold. He was not aware that the price, quoted in $ per gram, was much higher than the price in USD per ounce that was quoted in the world market.

Fortunately for Mr. Tee, the value of the gold had appreciated, so he did was somewhat compensated. But, he could have made a larger gain by investing in gold directly, rather than investing in this scam. The friend who sold the investment to him was honest and did not realise the scam. She had also invested her own money and found out later about the scam.

There are many investment scams of this kind. They distract the investor with some gimmick, such as an attractive yield and a buy-back scheme. There is usually a catch that the investor was not aware of.

Life insurance - past and today

I have been asked many times about why I find life insurance policies to be a bad investment, when I had been selling life insurance for 30 years.

The life insurance policies sold during my time gave a yield of about 5% per annum. The expenses were low and high rates of bonuses were distributed to the policyholders. This was an attractive yield.

Today, the yield for most policies is about 2.5% per annum. This is unattractive when it is possible for the consumer to earn more than 4% per annum from other types of investments, e.g. in an index fund or exchange traded fund.

If you can find a life insurance policy that gives a yield of 4% per annum today, it is all right. But 2.5% is too low.

High reduction in yield

A life insurance company in Singapore specialised in selling investment linked policies (ILP). They also advertised regularly to improve their corporate image - as caring for their customers.

In my book on life insurance, there is an example of a typical policy that is sold by this insurance company. The projected cash value based on an investment yield of 5% gives a net yield of 1.2%. The reduction in yield is 3.8%. Based on an investment yield of 9%, the net yield is 4.8%, giving a reduction of 4.2%.

Any investment that takes away more than 1.5% in yield (to provide the investment service and insurance coverage) is bad for consumers. The reduction of 4% is far too much.

The difference in payout at the end of 25 years, based on a reduction of yield of 1.5% (which is far) and a reduction of 4% (which is far too much) is 40%. If your cash value at the end of 25 years is $200,000, you should be getting $280,000 under a fairer contract. Most consumers do not even know the difference! The insurance agent does not tell you about this.

You can find a few examples of this type in my book, Get Value from your Life Insurance.

The Finnish education system

Here is an interesting comparison of the Finnish system and the Singapore system - may by a Singaporean who now works in Finnland.

Live streaming of talk - Get Value for your Life Insurance

CHANGE OF DATE.
Live streaming of Talk - Get Value for your Life Insurance
Channel http://www.ustream.tv/channel/straight-talk-with-mr-tan-kin-lian
Date: Friday 23 September 2011
Time: 9 to 10 pm
Click here to get the handout for the talk
Questions can be submitted via on-line chat and will be answered at end of the talk.

Why employers prefer to employ foreigners

Dear Mr. Tan,

There are a few reason that companies like foreigners than singaporean. A lot have been pointed out - just name a few here.

 

1) lower cost for compaines

2) no ns liability

3) foreigner willing to work longer hours

 

But I think the main reason is employment agnecy. The facts is that if the companies wanted to employ a staff, they would out source to the employment agency to get the employment done. But here is the different, employer do not need to pay the employment agency to hire if they get the foreigner as foreigner pays thousands of dollars to comes to singapore to work. If the employer wants to get a singaporean to work, then they have to pay for the services rendered by the agency - up to 1 month of the pay.

 

Solutions: Government should pass a law that required  all employer to pay the agency a fix amount of dollars to employment agency if they engaged their services. And all successfully employed person have to pay up to a month of their salary to the agency as well (can be pay in installment) . Thus this two combination works out to be almost the same income for the agency, which they would switch their mindset to get singaporean employed.

 

What is your view on this, Mr Tan.

William

Many people put their savings in a life insurance policy as a form of investment. Unfortunately, the policy is a bad investment, as it takes more than 10 years to break even, after paying off the commission and other expenses and finally gives a poor yield - not enough to cover inflation.

It is easy to invest your money on your own. You can open an account with a stockbroker and buy any of the following:

• Exchange traded fund, e.g. STI ETF 
• REITS (real estate trust)
• Blue chip shares, e.g. DBS, SingTel, SPH, SIA, Starhub

It cost your $3,,000 to buy 1,000 units of the ETF. You may have to save for a few months (in your bank account) before collecting enough money to buy the ETF. 

You can learn about these investments by attending the FISCA workshop on financial planning. Details can be found here.

Investment banks hire risk takers

This article explains the difference between commercial and investment banking. There was a law in USA called the Glass-Stegall Act that required them to be separated. It was a good and sensible law, which was unfortunately repealled.

Risk taking is the same as gambling. When you bet in a casino, you are taking a speculative risk. When you trade stocks or currencies, you are also gambling. It makes no difference whether you gamble in a casino or work in the trading desk of an investment bank. There should be a law against banks engaging in gambling!

Critical year policy

Many policyholders bought a "critical year policy" in the belief that they can stop paying premium after that period. They were disappointed to learn that they had to pay premium for longer than the expected period and cannot get the insurance company to honour the "promise". What has happened?

If the policyholder read the actual policy document, he would have found that the word "critical year" is not mentioned in the policy. It was actually a marketing presentation. The insurance agent took the dividends paid in the past and assumed that the same rates would be paid in the future, and also that it was possible to accumulate the dividends to earn an interest rate of 6% per annum.

The actual rates of dividends paid were lower than projected, due to the low investment yield. The interest rate credited on the dividends were also lower than the 6% projection. With both impacts, the accumulated dividends were not sufficient to stop the premium payment.

There was an example of this policy given in my book, "Get value from your life insurance policy". You can buy the book here. You can also learn about some of the other policies to avoid.

Immigrants and fake degrees

Hi Mr Tan,
The community is beginning to experience such cases of fake degrees involving the Chinese (perhaps, immigrants) which hardly occurred in the past.....
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/18-chinese-nationals-jailed-over-fake-degrees.html

Hope that the govt is able to weigh the consequences.  I am sure Singaporeans do not need such acts/behaviour to be around to influence our students/next generation or to cause any damage to our image.  Cheers.
Eugene

Relevance of Dr. Tommy Wong's books

Tommy Wong's book, Wisdom to Live your Life, is relevant to the people who have lost money on the mini-bonds and other credit-linked notes.

Tommy talked about the greed in the materialistic world where the following people make a lot of money (and in the process made other people poorer):

a) politicians

b) top CEOs
c) bankers

He also talked about how to find happiness in the spiritual world by living on certain principles. This came give some comfort to those who have been made poorer by the greedy financial institutions.

His book has relevance to the situation in Singapore. It is easy to read. You can buy his book online here.

Buying the right life insurance policy

A lady in the mid 30s was sold a whole life policy with premiums payable for 30 years. It covers $100,000 payable on death, permanent disability and dread disease. The annual premium was $3,850. The agent said that it was a good policy, as the premium stops after 30 years, and the policyholder will remain covered for life.

The cash value at the end of 30 years was projected to be $161,000 on an optimistic basis (assuming an investment yield of 5.25%). This looked attractive, compared to the total premium paid of $108,000.

However, if the policyholder were to set aside 5% of the premium to buy the cover against premature death or dread disease and to invest the remaining 95% of the premium to earn a yield of 4.5% per annum, the accumulated amount at the end of 30 years would have been $233,000. This would have been 45% higher than the cash value payable under the policy.

When the accumulated saving is $233,000, you do not need the $100,000 of life insurance protection that is paid under the policy. This type of honest advice is not given by the insurance agent who sells the limited premium policy.

You can read a few more examples of this type in my book entitled "Get value from your life insurance policy" which can be ordered here. You can also attend the talk organised by FISCA.

Consultation with Dr. Tommy Wong

Dr. Tommy Wong offers consultations on personal growth and happiness, based on the concepts in his book, "Wisdom on how to live life".

If you are highly stressed with life and need some guidance on how to deal with your problems, have a chat with Dr. Wong.

Loss of $100,000 within a few days

Two years ago, a retired couple approached me for help. They trusted  $200,000 from a retirement gratuity to a relationship manager of a local bank. The RM told the couple that the bank would lend them $800,000 and the total of $1 million would be invested in certain currencies to earn a higher rate of return, compared to the interest payable on fixed deposits.

The RM invested the money in A$ which fell by 10% within a few days during the global financial crisis. As the total investment was $1 million (including the $800,000 lent by the bank), the investor suffered a loss of $100,000 within a few days. As they were not able to top up the loss, the bank closed their position and they realized a loss of $100,000.

They could not lodge a complaint with the bank as they had signed documents that absolved the bank from responsibility for the investment loss. Their mistake was to trust the RM who was not really experienced in managing this type of investment. The RM had to meet certain sales targets to sell the investment products. It was also a mistake to invest with borrowed money (i.e the $800,000).

There is also another bad aspect of this type of investment. If the A$ had gained 10%, the investor would NOT have earned $100,000. At most, the investor would have earned a slightly higher interest rate, due to the unfair nature of these "dual currency investments". If there is a gain, a major portion would be pocketed by the bank that issued the financial product - which may not be the same bank that sold the product. If there is a loss, the investor takes the full loss.

Tan Kin Lian

Risky investment products

This letter talks about the risky investment products that are being sold in the market. It is important for consumers to be savvy to avoid these products. Attend the talks conducted by FISCA to understand what are the products that you should avoid.