Excerpts from Mr Tan Kin Lian’s speech:
“The main purpose of the meeting is for the investors to get together and according to which bank you buy from, so some of them will put up their signs, ABN Amro, DBS, Hong Leong, so that you can go and meet them and exchange your opinion on how to lodge the complaint.”
“It is very important you should lodge your complaint. You don’t lodge your complaint, you get nothing. You lodge your complaint, you still get nothing. Maybe you will get something. Only 1000 people have lodged their complaints which means there are still 9000 people who have notlodged yet.”
“These are the complaint forms. You can ask them from my volunteers later. You can fill up the form here or bring the form go back and fill up. These forms are to complain to the banks you buy from. So take this information and go and complain to the bank. You must fill up these questions honestly.”
Watch the video here:
1. Lodge your complaint
The first step is to lodge your complaint with the financial institution that sold the product to you.
Be
honest. In your report, you should state honestly what you were told
and what you were led to believe, when you decided to invest in the
product. Many investors were assured that the structured product is
“safe” and “low risk” and is a good alternative to “fixed deposit”. If
this is the case, you can state it honestly.
Do not worry that
you have signed forms given to you by the sales representative (or
relationship manager). If you were not told about the content of the
form and did not get a clear explanation on what the statements meant,
you can state it in your report.
The most important point is to state how you were misled, and what you were told by the sales representative.
I
have printed the forms for you to collect the relevant information to
complete your complaint. You can get the assistance of the volunteers,
if you are not clear about the type of information that is needed.
Read this advice:
http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2008/10/general-advice-to-investors-of.html
2. “Non-Vulnerable” Investor
Many
investors were unsure about how they will be treated, as the fall
outside of the “vulnerable” group. So far, MAS and the financial
institutions have not stated how these investor will be treated.
Let
us take it one step at a time. You should lodge your complaint and
attend the interview arranged by the financial institution. You can
state honestly what is contained in your statement that you lodged with
the financial institution.
If you do not wish to attend alone, you can bring a family member, friend or fellow investor to accompany you.
3. Dispute Resolution Center
If
you are not able to get a satisfactory compensation from the financial
institution, you can bring you case to Financial Industry Dispute
Resolution Center, FiDREC (www.fidrec.com.sg). You pay a fee of $50.
FiDREC
will form a panel to consider your complaint. FiDREC has the authority
to pass a judgment that is binding on the financial institution. This
decision is NOT binding on the consumer. The consumer still has the
right to take the case to court.
At present, FiDREC has the
authority to decide on claims up to $50,000. It can hear larger cases,
subject to agreement of the financial institution.
4. Open Forum with Financial Institution
I
suggest that investors should get together, according to the financial
institution that sold the product to you, to request the financial
institution to hold an open forum with the investors to discuss the
following:
a) How the investors were misled by the information given by the sales representatives
b)
How the financial institution can compensate the investors for their
loss, caused by the bad advice and mis-information.
5. Petition #4
There
are a potential of 10,000 cases to be handled. So far, just a handful
of cases under the “vulnerable group” have been handled. It will take a
long time for these 10,000 cases to be resolved, using the “case by
case” approach. Many of those affected have still not lodged their
complaint.
I will be organizing another Petition #4 addressed to
the chairman of MAS. This is to ask MAS to help find a collective
solution to the mis-selling by the financial institutions. A collective
approach will reduce the stress on the individual investors in making
the complaint and will ensure that fair compensation is given to all
the affected investors, according to the category that they fall under.
6. Legal action
Some
investors wish to take collective legal action. I like them to be aware
that it can be costly and risky to take this action. It should be
considered only as a last resort.
Before the investors decide to
take this action, they should be aware about the cost and the chance of
winning the case. They must also agree on the approach. They may be
able to get different estimates of the cost from other lawyers.
Mr Tan today informed the investors who attended the meeting at HLP the url for theonlinecitizen.com
Most of these investors appear like 1st time hearing this Blog name. they then began to write down the url.
Now I understand why people have no comments on social issues. They work work work and not aware of what is going on. Thus, no idea what to comment on. they parents brought them up not to comment.
If the media was free, there would be no such ignorance of social affairs.
But the media in Singapore, ranked 144th is controlled by PAP regime to serve their state agenda.
The agenda is to keep the people depoliticised and under the control of the state.
If majority of people are politicised, PAP cannot remain in power.
This is a fact.
Free up the people of Singapore, this is the cause of JBJ and Chee Soon Juan.
Let them think.
Let them be politicised.
Let them organise.
But Lee Kuan Yew won't allow these things of course.
He will never allow.
He will forever want all the people in Singapore to follow his dictates.
Well, they are probably more interested in Xiaxue's blog which has a traffic ranking of 117, more than Straits Times and TODAY !