Be careful of your relationship manager

Here are a few frightening stories ....

1. A customer deposited $800,000 into a fixed deposit. He was not aware that the relationship manager placed it in a leverage account which caused a loss of $400,000. The customer was asked to top up the account. The customer is making a Police report. Details are also given to a journalist.

2. Two weeks ago, someone sent an e-mail to me. Her mother lost the entire sum of $500,000 in a dual currency investment. She does not know how it happened. I asked her to get the bank to send a statement to her. I have not heard from her yet. My guess is that the money went into a leveraged account. It is probably leveraged 3 times or more. A 30% drop in the currency, with this type of leverage, could wipe out the entire deposit.

3. A neighbour's relative saw me last night. He was advised by the relationship manager to invest SGD $250,000 in Lehman Brother bonds in April 2008 to earn 4.2%. The bonds are now worthless. Previously, the same RM advised him to invest in a bond, which turned out to be a hedge fund. He has liquidated the investment at a big loss.

I wish to send this message to warn bank customers about the relationship managers. It seems that they have to meet high sales quota and are recommeding risky financial products to their customers, without giving proper advice. As there are so many cases of dishonest acts, we now have to worry about the integrity of the financial institutions and the relationship managers.

If you are a victim, you must lodge a Police report for dishonesty and also a complaint against the relationship manager. We have to act to clean up these dishonesty.