Home › Forums › Australian Financial Services Licensing (AFSL) Forum › Cold Calling and SMSF › Reply To: Cold Calling and SMSF
Concerned Adviser
Hi Guys, I have also came across this recently (I am an adviser). I was asked by a lady to look through all the documents that were sent for her to sign to make sure it was legitimate. She was cold called, spoken to about SMSF’s, and all of a sudden was sent paperwork to set one up, including corporate trustee documents. The basis for establishing the SMSF was supposedly to access crude oil, dax, gold & silver trading. It was going to cost them $15k to set this up, $12k of that related to a 3 year membership with this trading group. She was not told about the obligations of trustees, the need to pay for annual tax returns / audits, insurance or given a comparison of features / costs between her existing funds. She in fact did not know a thing about investing and after some simple questions I determined her existing Australian Super fund was most likely the best option for her.
I found it concerning that not only was she cold called about setting up this complex structure, but when I spoke to the guy who sent her all the paperwork I asked if he had prepared a statement of advice (as all the questions she was asking me would’ve been addressed by this crucial document.. He then went on to say that he had acted on a execution only basis (transaction without advice), and that personal advice had been offered but was declined. I found this extremely hard to believe when she was the one targeted in the first place.
He then went on to say that because they had $170k between her and hubby in super that it was a better setup for them as it could make more money (citing that retail and industry funds make 5% returns. I disagreed obviously.
Seems there are many cowboys out there taking advantage of all this SMSF buzz. There must be so many people falling for this $hite.