For Paul, Denise Brailey at http://www.bfcsa.com.au, (Banking and Financial Consumer Support Association, a voluntary organisation) has been assisting people in Australia and New Zealand to get justice in the banking and financial sector and their regulators. BFCSA have also been working with the media to get the message out there about Lo Doc loan and bank maladministration. I recommend you join the BFCSA. Good luck with the CBA!

The bank argument for withholding interest rate drops from customer has always been that it is preserving the profits for its shareholders, and very laudable this is too Still, it got me wondering about the overlap between the shareholders and the bank customers. More specifically, the Super Fund holdings of the major banks.

As everyone who is or has been in work should have a Super Fund, and given that the default balanced Super Fund contains about 50% Oz shares, it seemed likely that the big bangs would make up a healthy portion of this.

Anyway, here are my rough initial calculations based on some very big assumption. Happy for any correction of errors or comments! I have taken the CBA as the example.

CBA Market Cap $83,000,000,000
Total Super Funds Under Management (Oz) $1,800,000,000,000
All Ords Market Cap $1,200,000,000,000
Big Assumptions here:-
Balanced Fund % of Oz Equities 50
CBA Market Cap as % of All Ords MC 7
All Ords held in Super Funds (50% of total Super FUM) $900,000,000,000
CBA Portion held in Super Funds (7% of Super Funds Equity holiding) $63,000,000,000
%of CBA held by Super Funds 76

So, 76% of the CBA is held by the Super Funds. Seems a bit high, but the point is that *WE* are the shareholders *AND* the customer. A 10% dividend on our Super share holdings is worth very little compared to a 0.5% drop on our Mortgage! Surely as majority shareholders we should be able to influence their commercial decision making

Gordon

Not sure if many people know this, but a number of lenders including CBA, NAB, and St George will waive the LMI requirement for certain professions such as doctors (and those in health care) for loans up to 90% LVR.

The sad thing is that many brokers dont even know about this and the lenders themselves will never go out of there way to tell you about it. You need to do a lot of your own research to avoid LMI.

Over the last 6 months I have developed that complaint into an offer from them to buy my silence. I won’t sign it.

So here is a summary, this is all from Senior Customer Service staff, including the head of that group.

One of their staff stated in a letter that, for CFS, “We are aware you have been given incorrect information”. On asking what he was doing about that his answer was “We have asked”. I asked again. “What have you asked for and who have you asked?” Question avoided at all levels.

The call centre staff for both CFS and CBA do not know a thing, they make it up. My partner rang for the first time a few weeks ago to ask for a withdrawal and the first answer she got was “You get NO money”. That from a Thai girl. I took over the call and told her the facts. My partner now has had a partial withdrawal done.

Another Senior Customer Service staff member made this admission and offer :

“After reviewing all of the available information in regard to your complaint, I would like to offer you a refund of all adviser fees paid, totalling $2,558.59, as a goodwill payment in full and final settlement of this matter. In addition, we will remove the adviser listed on your account and ensure that adviser fees cease from this point. If you would like to accept this offer, please sign and return the attached settlement agreement to us by post so that payment can be arranged. This can be posted to me:….

“We recognise that although you received and proceeded with advice provided by Ms xxxxxx in 2005 (a blatant lie as she put it into a fund I did NOT want at all), the ongoing service provided to you has not been of the standard that we aim to provide CFPL clients. Based upon this, we would like to extend this goodwill offer to you in order to settle this matter. ”

Goodwill? From a bank? Have you ever heard such crap? They never make goodwill payments unless it is to avoid their real obligation, far more than they can count in this case. Notice also she said full and FINAL. It weasn’t final at all and you see below.

In other words she admitted that the so called “financial advisors” actually never give advice but they deduct fees from all accounts once a week at rates applicable to your amount.

That is, they do not perform any function but still take the fees for doing nothing. That is why I was offered refund of my fees. Because none of them earned a cent.

At one stage, in 2008, I was forced to ring Colonial First State as they had frozen that fund, stopping withdrawals.

CFS told me to ring my financial advisor upon which I told them I didn’t have one. Their advice” Ahh, but you do and you have had a succession of such advisors, all of whom have taken fees for their benefit from your account.” I asked who my current one was and rang him. After explaining the problem and asking for his financial advice his response was “I can’t help you. Ring CFS.” He continued taking fees.

As CFS and CBA are one and the same I found that less than amusing and just told him to “Go away”. No swearing, that occurred after I hung up.

I pursued that offer further and refused it and signing any waiver. Eventually it was referred to their boss who offered me :

A full refund of my fees,
Estimated payment for lost interest, and
$1000 for the “poor service” and suffering throught their lies (my words that last little bit.

She had asked me, by email, what amount I would accept to settle this matter. I told her and she reduced it. Anger, deceit.

So, you see. All you have to do is tell them you know their advisors do nothing and provide no service and, as such, exist in name only, not a service at all.

Then insist on a full refund of your fees, lost interest and compensation for having been defrauded.

You will get an offer. I still won’t sign it as I want to give this story to the media so the whole charade is exposed fully.

I have no doubt no other bank’s “advisors” do anything either.

Ask yourself if you have EVER had one word of advice from these “advisors”. DId they ever even tell you they were your advisor.

Get off your backside and rip into this bank, and others.

It’s way past time we fought back and got OUR money back. All of it.

As an example of how much they are ripping off, say they have 1000 clients with $1 million in their account. They deduct an amount every week. My partner has $35 deducted every week and she has only $100 k in there. WHich equates to .018% per annum. These are only the trailing fees mind you.

Those 1000 with $1 milion in their accounts woud have deductions of $18200 each per annum. For 1000 of them that would be a deuction of 1.82 million dollars. For doing nothing and providing no service.

Just to check the rich weren’t getting some service the poorer of us don’t get I asked a profession psychiatrist I know who has funds in there and has most of his career. I asked him “Have you ever heard from your financial adviser? Have they ever advised you of anything?” The answer was “No, never”.

So just imagine how big this fraud is.

Please spread the word and make sure you tell people to persist and escalate the problem as initially they will deny everything. You must persist and, at times, become aggressive to get a result. The meek inherit advisor fee deductions only.

I have approached one media outlet, just today but will be approaching as many as I can think of. Including the senior politicians on both sides as they would love to rip into bansks. Especially Mr Swan.

If you wait for media exposure and admission and negotiation etc you wil get far less than you would now while they are still trying to contain the damage.

To be blunt, it’s worse than the Mafia. At least they tell you to bend over first, don’t they?

Three possible options for getting around this are:
1. Get a 20% deposit (then Genworth or any other LMI doesn’t get involved)
2. Try a bank that uses QBE LMI. They and Genworth are much of a muchness, but sometimes their policies vary slightly enough that you get passed with one but not the other.
3. Try going through a few different channels to apply for your loan. Sometimes it just takes the right mortgage broker to get you through. Seek Home Loans have helped others with this in the past and they might be able to help you.

Hope this helps! Good Luck and let us know how you go!