BFCSA Blog

  http://www.smartcompany.com.au/growth/economy/31196-angry-investors-line-up-to-sue-financial-planners-over-lmim-collapse.html# Angry investors line up to sue financial planners over LMIM collapse Thursday, 11 April 2013 A "steady stream" of investors are adding their names to what could become a Slater & Gordon class action against financial planners who recommended they invest in mortgage funds issued by collapsed Gold Coast-based fund manager and developer LM Investment Management (LMIM). Slater & Gordon had already issued legal proceedings against financial advisors on behalf of a number of those investors and says more proceedings will be issued in coming weeks. LMIM was placed into voluntary administration last month with initial reports suggesting there may be irregularities in how some of the funds operated. http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic.nsf/byheadline/LM+Investment+Management+Limited?openDocument On 8 August 2013 the Queensland Supreme Court appointed David Whyte of BDO as receiver of the FMIF.  Mr Whyte will effectively have control of the winding up of the FMIF. This appointment followed ASIC's intervention in court proceedings...

In the middle of a Tsunami of 30,000 complaints against banks, lenders, financial products and services, ASIC have nothing better to do with their $450 million budget than design a website....to protect consumers you may ask?  Add on to woof woof FIDO page that even Fido does not read?  No No No, something much more important.........ASIC want to name and shame.....waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait for it......name and shame award winning journalists who are game enough to criticise our useless Corporate Doormat Cop for snoozing on the job. The sooner the nation rids itself of the Monolith of Uselessness known as Australian Securities and Investment Commission ("ASIC"), the better consumers will be protected.   If we have to go back to BUYER BEWARE then let it start with Buyer Beware of ASIC....as the so called regulator was never there to protect YOU.  ASIC protects the charletans and banksters....evidenced by the escalating numbers of consumer complaints...

Dear members One of the advantages of being medically retired is we have time to spare, it wasn't planned that way but life doesn't run according to plans.We envisaged in retirement to do the grey nomad thing and travel around Australia by towing a van, we were financially secure and owned everything. Our plans would revolve around my health but we knew if any thing happened while travelling that I would be looked after being covered by DVA. We only invested because a work colleague who was getting spotter fee's unbeknown to us, steered a broker our way, he played the old you can't help your kids physically but financially you have equity locked up in your home not working for you, and like the rest of you the rest is history we had fallen for the spiel. The internet has opened up a whole new world of information to us,...

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-doom-loop-tying-european-banks-to-governments-has-been-reinforced-2013-12   The net exposure of banks to sovereign debt fell 9 per cent in 2011 but then rose 9.3 per cent in the 18 months to June this year, data released by the EBA showed. The data confirms what many already suspected – that banks, particularly in Italy and Spain, have been plowing cheap funds from the European Central Bank into buying more of their own countries’ bonds, a lucrative carry trade that has also helped ensure governments can fund their deficits at sustainable rates. Regulators partly blame a move by banks to rein in cross-border activity and build up new liquidity buffers made up predominantly of government debt as a way of reducing risk. But the EBA’s data – which updated core capital and holdings of sovereign debt and loans at 64 leading European banks – is likely to reinforce fears that the fortunes of the banks and the...

Financial inquiry: currencies and cover ups? Beware the doom loop The FSI draft terms of reference also covers up the dangerous exposure of Australian Banks to what a director of the Bank of England described as a “Doom Loop”. This is created by interbank loans becoming so tight and complex that if one bank fails they could all fail.  Regulators allowed our banks to be exposed to this foreign exchange risk that I identified in my Australian Financial Review article on 3 April, 2008.  The failure of regulators to act required the government six months later to guarantee the foreign borrowings of our banks. This danger still exists but is covered up by the draft FSI terms of reference   Why official money created out of nothing should earn interest is a mystery. It is a mystery why the government has not asked the FSI to investigate this.  Expert economic advisers to...

Aussies just want a fair go, so here are a few tips to ensure all Australians about to sign a Mortgage Application in 2014, are prepared enough to ask their Lender some serious questions BEFORE SIGNING.  Before you sign, tell the Mortgage Seller - these are MY RULES: 1.  Demand the Broker or Bank Manager immediately hand you two copies of Loan Application Form ("LAF") and sign both and RETAIN the second original document for your records.  Ensure the LAF is 11 pages (not the usually presented three pages).  Its a bank scam.  Refuse to hand the signed original over unless there is an ORIGINAL COPY for YOU. 2.  All prospective borrowers MUST receive a phone call from LENDER asking "How much do you earn."  If Lender does not do this after you have submitted the Loan Application Form....then cancel the LAF as a document and process and tell them the reason being "we suspect...

Cricket Fans who are victims of MORTGAGE LOW DOC FRAUD perpetrated by internal frauds within the Commonwealth Bank, must be sickened to see the CBA logo splashed across the Australian Cricket Team's shirts.  If ever there was a good Aussie example of crooked dealers NOT PLAYING with a STRAIGHT BAT, it would be the executive staff at CBA.  It would be like Al Capone sponsoring the Team...................or Charles Ponzi. The EDR's have powers to demand CBA hand over the Loan Application Forms and other parts of the client files so we can see the FRAUD for ourselves. The reason that the "WITCH BANK" has not handed over files when asked is specifically because THERE IS FRAUD.  That is obvious.   If there was no fraud, the bank would not have to hide behind FOS and seek their protection from angry consumers of TOXIC CBA LOANS. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. From a Member who wants...

ASIC have systematically and maliciously placed Consumers in harm's way for the past 14 years!  The allegations and submissions show, this was more than negligence.  We need all ASIC Chairmen to be questioned on why they systemically ignored consumer interests, on whose best interests were they acting upon.  Their bank accounts need to be tendered as evidence............................. By ignoring the cries for help from Consumers, the obvious evidence of fraud,  ASIC will condemn thousands of Australians to LOSE THEIR HOMES, whether full docs or low docs.  ASIC has nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.  Every MP in the country needs to get a  grip on this phenomenon. BFCSA Members will take time over Christmas to reflect as a group on how we can change the status quo of the regulatory and regular rejection of consumer complaints against BANKS & ALL LENDERS.  Every Loan has been tampered with, after it was...

ASIC is blowing hot air, yet AGAIN.  20 complaints?  Our members sent ASIC 150 which its officers refuse to investigate.  The evidence presented with the letters shows that fraud is being carried out INTERNAL to the LENDERS.  The LAFs are being altered after the Broker faxes the paperwork to the credit assessors.  ASIC knows this, as I spent 150 mins briefing the Commissioner.  Its not the Brokers.  The evidence shows its THE BANKS.  Otherwise how do we explain 100% LAF Fraud on all loans Low Docs and Full Docs?   ASIC wants Brokers to turn on each other and trick the industry into believing its a few rogue brokers at fault.  That is false.  How do we then explain why 100% of the LAFs we have uncovered have been tampered with, after they were signed and after they were faxed?  That's why we asked all Members to ask for Bank's copy -...

For those who may think we do not give Consumers a fair go who actually loved dealing with the Australian Investment and Securities Commission ("ASIC") we have been trawling through the Senate Submissions looking for a "Happy User" of ASIC's consumer complaints experience.  SURELY THERE IS ONE HAPPY CUSTOMER?  We thought we had found one in the COMMENTS section of our useful and very public online FORUM.  But not so lucky......You see the comment was obviously written by an ASIC bod who wanted to have a say in favour of ASIC.   Well the bias is obvious but in fairness again I have decided to BLOG this person's anonymous yet exuberant attempts at give ASIC a ten out of ten.  His/Her name is "Hello."  It quotes two submissions:  # 120 (the other is 196) from the Consumer Credit Legal Service that ASIC pays from time to time to compile reports on...

I have been a little busy this week.  I have just read ASIC's ridiculous Supp Sub 45.1  Omissions are in fact a criminal offence and ASIC excels in omissions.  In fact, if you want a good LAF, this report that took 5 luminaries two weeks to write, is a must read.   My team is busy listing the errors in law, untruths, misleading statements and unsubstantiated claims, and yes, we are listing the glaring omissions.  In fact, the ASIC document is an historical and at times hysterical attempt to cover up one of the greatest banking crimes this country has ever seen.   So if there are only 750 of you (1200 people), why don't the lenders pay you right now and BFCSA has finished its job?  Its because the issues we have raised are TOO BIG.  ASIC has to keep all of the evidence swept under the carpet.  It continues its...

In response to comment on SMH 24 October, 2013  I felt I should explain the "warranted panic, for our Banking Industry."  The fraudulent loans are only a sample of the overall market of $57 Billion worth of Lo Doc loans.  The average loans with buffers and top ups by greedy banks now average out at $600K per loan.  But let us lower it to say half a million dollars per loan.  It means we have uncovered $400 million dollar fraud cases so far and not one clean loan amongst them.  These loans were all processed by Skippy the Computer with credit assessors ticking boxes, phoning no-one, verifying nothing other than an A1 credit rating (ie mostly pensioners and low income families enjoy an A1).  In fact insiders tell us that no loan was rejected as long as the hapless victims had an asset - their only asset - their home: ARIPs.......asset rich and...

Well we know what ASIC has been busy with this past decade:  handing out fines to Brokers for "non compliance of its old and new laws."  We have been consistently warning Australian Mortgage Brokers that ASIC will come after you chaps but will not use the 2010 laws against fraudulent loans generated by bank engineered SERVICE CALCULATORS that automatically fudge client income figures.   ASIC have been fully briefed on what is going on but refuse to act against the PROTECTED Bankers.  ASIC have the laws and the powers to handcuff and charge every bank executive involved in LIAR LOAN engineering.  So what is ASIC doing about that gem?  Absolutely NOTHING..........NIENTE......ZIP............In three years the "new" laws are now "old" laws and they are copies of previous legislative tools that ASIC had in its arsenal but failed to use for 14 years.  AUSTRALIAN BANKS have been handsomely profiteering, racketeering from fraudulent LOW...

Jenny Mack CEO of Choice thinks FOS is a good system for consumers.  We deal with the end users of the services on a daily basis.  The long suffering victims of bank generated RESIDENTIAL MORTGAGE FRAUD.  We are not criticising Jenny Mack for her lack of knowledge in this area, as CHOICE mainly deal with manufactured products and not financial services.  BFCSA are at the coal face of dud financial products and services investigations.   Choice do an excellent job but are restrained from "road-testing" financial products.   How do you road test a mortgage and wait 3 years into a 30 year loan for the inevitable IMPLOSION of product?    Jenny Mack needs to be careful not to comment on things she is unfamiliar with other than ridiculous and untrustworthy ASIC briefs.  I say this as I noted "Andy's comments" in today's comment section.    Also comments by Linda Sterling-Levis, at...