LM Investment Victims

Hi, my name is Barry and I’ve read many articles on this whole shambles,regarding the MPF,the way it was run and the thought that Mr Drake is out their living very comfortably on some of MY money. We are only small investors in terms of capital put into this scheme,but for us the loss of 20,000 sterling has been a major blow (probably pocket money to Mr Drake). I DO NOT recall being advised that the scheme was non regulated,this would possibly have been a warning sign, but again was advised that this investment was low risk. What I find very hard now to understand is that with all the legal action going on, administrators doing this and that, running up bills that mean, what money is left is very fast running out and the poor investor,and there are many of us will receive no return. Keep your money under the Mattress because for my wife and I any gain we had from other investments have been WIPED OUT and we now have a big hole in our retirement savings,thank you L&M Australia!!

Was sold a UK SIPP via Brian Smith IFA from Acuma, Abu Dhabi in Oct 2010. Hornbuckle were the Trustees of this Skandia collective redemption bond. Lost 50000 sterling with this LM PMF. Was told this was low risk investment and was never asked about the annual rollover by the IFA. He disappeared late in 2015.

Another sad Mum & Dad investor story, we are 82/74 years old New Zealander.

No longer can we enjoy our retirement, no travel, no new car, etc, we fortunately have our small NZ Superannuation to keep the wolf from our door.

Having worked/saved for 50+ years of married life we were looking forward to our comfortable retirement, nothing flash but no more hardship.

Trusting our NZ registered Financial Advisor Paul Appleby (Auckland) with our small life savings, we were advised LM was the most secure of all investments he could offer us to safe guard our little wealth and we would be protected by pending Aust. legislation, we would be financially secure, an LM Investment would be better than money in the Bank.

In 2006 we were advised to invest 50% of our savings i.e.$480k, with LM Income Protection Fund,we would receive monthly income from LM,the rest is history!!!

At no stage were we made aware our Advisor would be rewarded with bonuses in addition to the regular commission payable, $1 million written Investment returned $100k ,plus Commissions, interestingly no bonus disclosure !!!.

This LM Investment has added to our huge financial distress/loss.

People have trust in their Doctors, Legal Advisors, Accountants, and most importantly Financial Advisors, where was the integrity of Financial Advisor and Lm Directors.

Where are these Registered Financial Advisors now, would even 1 Financial Advisor come forward with helpful advise.
A “Class Action” would be a starting point, those Financial Advisors involved, those who made substantial financial gain, now is the time show some responsibility, show some compassion, at least to their personal Clients… you gained substantially, we lost substantially.
otherwise may you some day rot in hell.

Other NZ Investors have had strong NZ Government support/involvement with NZ fraudulent schemes, but nobody appears to want to know us with the Australian LM disaster, who will act for us, I expect we will go to our grave knowing we have lost our life savings.

Should we go to the NZ Media/NZ Government to highlight our plight, we are in a wilderness, thousands of us and nobody to turn to

Our huge disappointment is exacerbated knowing LM had a NZ National fronting then defrauding us,Peter Drake. We are a trusting, conservative and proud small country, naturally inclined to associate with a fellow NZer.

Unwittingly (in about 2008) our Financial Advisor sent us an email meant for LM, we have it on file: I quote, “I have 5 clients severely over exposed”. This email flagged our attention, suddenly we became anxious and tried desperately to exit the Fund.

Shortly thereafter we receive an email instruction from LM advising withdrawing our investment would cause problems. Stay with LM- LM gave the assurance trading out was achievable.

Where to now ….. anyone out there to help?

Sincerely,

Keith & Shirley Mossman
ksmossman@xtra.co.nz

I had 5 funds in Redemption mode (June 2011) in the LM Performance Fund and LM would not redeem the funds or give me a timeframe for payment.

My Advisor said that Peter Drake was a great family man and that he would understand my situation. So on Feb.22, 2012, I wrote an email to Peter Drake and said that I moved back to Canada to look after my elderly, sick mother and she died in 2011. Therefore, I was left homeless and had to pay funeral expenses so I requested at least repayment of one fund.

Peter Drake redirected the email to his assistant and they refused to redeem my money even under extreme hardships.

Drake would not redeem investors money but he was able to take millions of dollars for himself. He stated that interest is still being paid but your capital was delayed without a definite time frame.

I have been waiting since 2011 for my money ( $250,000) and now it’s gone.

Thank you Peter Drake for ruining my life.

A sad repeated story, but here is mine.

Am a single mother bringing up a teenage son, who was working in Bangkok Thailand for several years. Moved my old company pension overseas from a “safe” UK scheme to a QROPS, a regulated UK overseas
pensioners scheme.

PPI Advisory invested 50% of my pension pot into LMPF, with all the assurances that it was a safe investment, which is what I wanted.

The massive loss is too painful to even think about, every time I have asked the advisor I get a lot of legal bumpf and helpless shaking of heads, but nothing concrete – passing the buck to the Australian authorities, who are doing little by all accounts. Or very slowly at the very least.

Am taking this complaint to the Thailand securities commission. What more should I do?

Like others I was advised by an IFA to put my money into the LM First Mortgage Income Fund with the assurance that it was as safe as a bank account. I remember vividly the conversation that I had with the IFA, telling them that I needed something simple, safe and secure. I still have saved e-mail conversations subsequent to the investment being placed, asking the IFA if the LM FMIF was still a safe place to leave my money.

I consider myself less unfortunate than some, given that my capital was acquired by way of inheritance. I couldn’t imagine how I would be feeling if it was hard-earned life savings. On the other hand, it was a particularly large amount – more than AUD750,000, money that was supposed to secure my future and that of spouse and my children.

Since 2009 when the fund was frozen I’ve been living in hope that I would see a reasonable chunk back, but the receiver’s announcement on 4 Dec that the fund has now depreciated to between 0.13 to 0.19 has finally put an end to that.

It’s easy now to look back and be stunned by one’s naivete, but the reality is that there are many people like me – with little aptitude or interest in the process of investing, who rely on professionals for help. The way I looked at it at the time was that if your tooth hurts, you don’t read up on the internet and self-medicate – you see a dentist and follow their advice.

For what it’s worth, my experience illustrates that financial advisors are are often as ill-informed as their clients, and that it is essential that anyone with a substantial amount at stake become properly informed and to never, ever, take advice at face value.

I have been asked to add my personal story to the sorry saga of investing in LM Investments and have spent the last few days wondering what best to say about the last five years of stress, worry and frustration that my husband and I have been through with our LM investment. We are retired and live in the Sydney region of Australia and our money invested in the LM Wholesale First mortgage fund (WFMIF) represented a large chunk of the money we hoped to live off for the rest of our lives. Living off a state pension has never been part of our plan and we have worked for every dollar we have managed to save for retirement.

We originally invested in the WFMIF back in 2004 for which we received a reasonable interest distribution every month. However, things fell apart in 2008 when the GFC hit and although we asked for a total redemption of our investment in June 2008, no part of it has ever been returned to us. The fund was frozen in March 2009 and although we were promised interest distributions up until December 2010 we have never received any beyond April 2010.

We have not only had to put up with the loss of income and capital, but in the last one and a half years have had the further indignity of watching companies like Trilogy, FTI and LM fighting over the control of our money. Yes, OUR money. All done in the guise of producing a better outcome for investors, but in reality lining their own pockets for the foreseeable future. What a farce it has all been. At long last it appears that ASIC are taking a serious look at Peter Drake’s and other director’s parts in the loss of investor’s money. A shame they didn’t take a look much earlier on.

The FMIF is now in receivers hands, which I feel in the circumstances, is the best possible outcome. I am not at all confident that we will get back much of our investment – we will be lucky to get 10%, but I want to see an end to the debacle. We need to put it all behind us and move on. I have had enough of the stress and grief caused by watching pure greed exhibited by the many actors who have had, or tried to have, their sticky hands on our money.

So what of the future? Well, we are lucky in that various companies still require my husband’s expertise and thus he is working part time, something which I will add, he is really enjoying, keeping the old brain cells going and bringing in a small income. For my part, my faith in trusting other people with the investment of our money has been really shattered, not that I blame our financial advisor for the choice of LM back in 2008, but I reckon I can do just as well, if not better, with my own abilities and for no fees. To that aim, I’m trying to educate myself on getting the most out of company financial statements and keenly following the methods of Warren Buffet.

I am taking the stance that we will see no return of our money and then any payment that we do get will be a bonus. That is the only way I can cope with the issue from now on. I can’t grieve forever about it, but I am hoping that any person who has had an unlawful hand in the loss of investor’s money will eventually get their just desserts and have their lives ruined, just like they have wrecked the lives of thousands of investors.

I am not married and have worked as a nurse for 30 years and a trusted couple got me invested in LM.

I new in Feb 2011 that there was a problem because LM would not redeem my funds and no time frame

I lost $200,000 and I won’t retire

Unknown author (via a comment)

Well here we are, almost three months on since my last proper blog which was posted three months ago.

A fair bit has happened since then, some good and some bad, and my mood has swung from bordering on the suicidal, to feelings of relative equanimity.

The stark fact is that in every day that passes, the prospect of recovering even a tiny percentage of my savings is fast disappearing. The initial guarded optimism on the part of my IFA, seems to have now transformed itself into making angry protests against the liquidators and the Australian regulators who, according to the IFA’s are not working in the best interests of investors.

This may or may not be the case, but quite frankly, I regard it all as just so much hot air which is designed to be a smoke screen to mask the reality of the dire situation, which is that we have all lost our money for good.

My savings are gone and I have to get used to living what remains of my life without them. I now pay scant attention to any of the bulletins and emails I receive regarding my lost money as it only depresses me and I have read enough to realise that along with 4,500 other investors, our hard earned savings are in the throes of disappearing down the proverbial plug hole – all of it that is, save any ‘residual recoveries’ which will be eaten alive by administrators, liquidators, lawyers and God knows who else.

So unless there is anything significantly positive to report on this front – which I very much doubt – the subject of my lost funds will not occupy very much space on future blogs. I have to get on and forget about it.

There have been several reasons why I decided to suspend my blog for a while, not least of which was a 3 week trip to the UK to see my family and my subsequent return to Thailand with my youngest daughter and her husband, both of whom I took to the airport early this morning for their return flights.

In case you are wondering, all these air tickets were booked and paid for back in January, before my financial crisis, and up to a month ago, I was seriously considering cancelling the trips to save money. In the end I decided to ahead with the visit as my family was looking forward to us going , (yes, Noo came with me), and I decided that I would try my best to curtail my spending, which to a large extent I was successful in doing.

I will write more about this trip in the coming weeks, and I have many pics to accompany my trip notes.

Another reason I decided to suspend my blog was my deteriorating state of mind. I think you can see what I mean, by reading what I wrote back on July 11th, a month after I wrote my last blog:

I know it sounds ridiculous, but I think I’m mourning the loss of my life savings in the same way as someone might mourn the loss of a loved one.

It has all the familiar symptoms: initial disbelief, a refusal to accept the truth, and then the slow, terrible realisation that I have indeed lost something very big that was close to my heart and provided the very means of my existence.

Along with this acceptance is the additional realisation that I will never be able to replace this loss, in much the same manner that someone in their later years might lose a loved one and know that it is all over – that the person can never be replaced. It is far too late for all that.

Over the past few months I have been through wild mood swings, but the truth is that on the whole, my moods have simply become darker and darker. There are times, in the early morning, when I first wake up, when for a few precious, blessed seconds I feel at peace. Then, without warning, the memory of what has happened floods my consciousness and my stomach starts to grumble and I feel terrible.

The thoughts of my ‘loss’ pervade my every waking moment. I cannot remove it from my mind, no matter how hard I try. I live continuously with the awful knowledge that hundreds of thousands of pounds which were intended to keep me in reasonable comfort in my old age have been cheated out of me, and will never return.

Maybe after a few more weeks I will start to feel a bit better. Maybe, as the memory of what has happened starts to fade a little, there will be hours, or even days, when it won’t dominate my thinking in the way that it does right now.

I have no appetite, although when food is placed on front of me I manage to force down about half of what is on the plate, but if I don’t eat, I don’t miss it. Some days I have gone right through to the late afternoon without eating a single thing.

I also have frequent panic attacks – my heart and stomach flutter wildly and I am in a generally agitated state, although nothing in particular has triggered them.

At other times I feel much better and more cheerful; for in spite of my dire circumstances, things could be so much worse. If I hadn’t had the foresight to take out a lump sum from my savings last years to pay my expenses for a full 12 months, I would probably have sold my car by now to put food on the table. In particular I have the wonderful and incredibly loyal Noo who is sticking by me and does everything she possible can to cheer me up and encourage me not to worry too much. Honestly, without her, I very much doubt whether I would still be around to write this blog.

I am seriously thinking about taking some anti-depressants, but can’t quite make up my mind on this. If my state of mind improves over the next week or so, then I will try to soldier on without. But then again, maybe I should take something – who knows for sure?

I am pleased to say that my mood has improved considerably since I wrote that piece and I am rapidly coming to terms with the fact that I am 67, nearly broke, with precious few options on how I can survive with Noo in Thailand.

So now that I have completed my UK family responsibilities, I will turn my attention back to seeing what I can do to generate a bit of income and supplement my very meagre pension. I have mentioned before that my main hope is to rent out my pick-up truck and I will now re-double my efforts in this regard. High season in Pattaya is just around the corner so let’s see what I can do.

I’m giving myself about 6 months to see if I can find a way to make ends meet over here and if my efforts fail then I will be faced with the stark choice of having to return to the UK and throw myself at the mercy of the social services.

In these days of extreme anti-immigration measures in the UK, there is no chance whatsoever that I can obtain a residence visa for Noo to go with me –not even if I married her – and if anything, the prospect of having to part with her, maybe for ever, is even more distressing than the bleak prospect of going back broke and homeless to England after decades of living in the tropics.

“Mobi”

I have been trying to ignore news on LM, as it’s always been bad, never a shadow of light at the end of the dark tunnel we’ve all been taken down, not just this year but in the years leading up it this eventuality.

It’s ironic that my investment in the LM MPF would cause my wife and I to be audited due to my undeclared gains on the funds I had invested (only ever paper gains mind you). 10% was being withdrawn by the Australian government, which raised a red flag with the local tax authorities.

I had a feeling I should have been declaring my investments abroad but was told not to worry about it, “it’s large companies that the tax authorities chase” I was constantly told. Besides it was rather complicated to do in a country in which you don’t speak the language.

I was hit with a huge tax bill due to the penalties and unpaid taxes, so I decided to redeem all LM investments in 2011. Unfortunately I couldn’t yet I continued to pay taxes on them…now I hope I can at least claim my taxes back!

Working long hours, almost always 12 hour days, sometimes more in order to achieve an early retirement no longer seems to be a reality I can afford myself.

I gave up spending time with my children in order to better provide for them financially. As my wife chose to be a stay at home mum, I felt I needed to work the extra hours and invest wisely.

You read these stories about people loosing their life-time savings and think, wow, poor bloke. Then think, he should have seen it coming or why was he so foolish to put all his savings into one investment?

While this is a major setback, it’s not life debilitating. Surprisingly I haven’t suffered nearly as badly mentally as I thought I would…perhaps it’s yet to fully sink in.

It does depress me to think about this, so I don’t. I like to get out into the fresh air and feel grateful for what surrounds me. I’m hopeful this loss will change me to be a better person. Money doesn’t buy you happiness, it’s just a materialistic thing…our lives are controlled by money and it’s not right…I’d love to experience a nomadic lifestyle – I was hoping to do so on my own terms and for a period of time I’d determine, rather than it being a necessity…but perhaps that’s the hand that’s been given to me so I just have to accept it.

“Billy”