Monday, February 15, 2016

Bad investment in Profitable Plots

I met a security guard in Midview City. He is bitter about losing all his savings (more than $200,000) in the UK land sold by Profitable Plots. Because of this loss, he now has to work as a security guard.

He spoke to me about this matter two years ago. This is the first time that I saw him again, after two years. He is bitter that the government allowed this type of company to operate in Singapore and sell the overpriced land to the people.

He said that he still holds the title to the land plots and asked me if there is a hope that the land will appreciate in value when the UK government gave approval for rezoning to residential land.

I said that the real value of the land is probably one tenth of what he has paid for it. So, it will be difficult and will take a long time and some good fortune for the land to show a profit.

It is sad. But there is nothing that can be done now. I asked about his family, and he said that his children are now doing okay.

I hope that the government and MAS should be more proactive in preventing this kind of businesses to operate in Singapore.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

He was attracted by the promise of high return. He was greedy. There is no such thing as high return without high risk. He should have been told but I guess he was too greedy to listen. Many fell into this trap of high return not realising the trap is deep and dangerous.
He is in this problem because he was wasn't savvy financially and secondly the adviser was a salesman whose interest was making making a sale to get the commission same as what most insurance agents are doing today..
Whose fault?

Anonymous said...

Mr. Tan, now the company you used to helm is now resorting to deception to mislead the public in this latest publicity stunt that went awry. The paid actress is made to announce that she is 'retiring' from acting and at the young age of 29. The intention is to create about 'retirement planning' awareness among the young people.
1.It is a dirty way to create awareness.
2.Ntuc Income has very few qualified 'consultants' who can do retirement planning and the rest are product salesmen and women.
3.Income has limited suite of so called retirement products. They are endowment disguised products which can NEVER help the young people to retire. EG. How can you ask a young fellow to invest in an endowment which returns only miserable 2.5% over the donkey 40 years?
3.Their ILPs suite is very limited and which is the ONLY way for young people to reach their retirement goals.But the salesmen are product salesmen and are not qualified to advice on these products. I heard many are fearful of these ILPs. Only the greedy ones will go for them but using regular Vivolink vehicle which pays high commission and this product has very long breakeven time. Salesmen go for products that pay high commission, right?
4. There are very few retirement planners in NTUC Income and the rest are 'retirement product salesmen and women' who are disguised as "financial Consultants" to mislead the public that they are personal finance experts.
5. The top financial 'experts' use rebate(which you disdained) to entice their
victims to make up for their incompetence.
This is the situation now in this once a upon a time a cooperatives for the ordinary folks but has now morphed into a money eating machine that preys on the unwary, trusting and gullible folks like ah peks, aunties and uncles under the guise of social enterprise. What is social enterprise? Is it a bird, a plane? Or is it a money eating monster?
Imagine aunties with tiles like Senior or Executive Financial Consultants planning your retirement? Gosh!!! You better run as fast as you can or better keep your hard earned money under your mattress.
MAS, you have a job here....to audit them and quickly before they flush down the toilet bowl.
by Concerned Member of the public.

Anonymous said...

NTUC Income used to boast that 'Honesty is the best policy' as if other insurers are not honest. But now what do you think ? Is NTUC Income being honest when it tried to hookwink the public with the false "I am retiring' stunt by media corp actress?. I wonder how much she is paid to pull the stunt.
The former cooperative insurer is getting from bad and to worse since the change of CEO. It is getting very much into the 'commercial practice' of deception and falsehood. It also changed its salesmen's title of DOs to "Financial Consultants' which none qualifies to be called by that title and competence. Isn't it deceitful? to con the public that these salesmen are financial experts? They are only financial product salespeople.
Retirement planning is very far off their competence. If they are not , it misleads the public and they are hazardous to the financial well being of their customers. MAS should stop them and haul them up for prosecution.

Anonymous said...

1.Buy from Fundsupermart and Provident at DIYinsurance whatever insurance you want and get a rebate of 30% from commission.
2.Best buy free of commission products from www.compareFirst.sg and
compare endowment products at this portal and you will be shocked to see that you have been cheated by your so called trusted insurance agents.
Wake up, consumers. Your agents are not telling you the truth.

Anonymous said...

When buying insurance, do your homework. Even those so called DIY sites may not be the cheapest. Ask for quotes from DIY sites and directly from the insurance company. You will know what I mean. This world is circulated around "interest". Do your homework. Period.

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