A cold call is when someone rings you, who you have never heard of, claiming to be from an investment company offering amazing results with very little input.

The information I am about to give you comes from my own experience. Many years ago when I was a lot younger and as it turns out quite naive and vulnerable, I allowed myself to be cheated of US$16,000 in an international investment scam.

These organisations are a sophisticated group of talented individuals who are extremely persuasive. They have extraordinary marketing skills and websites they will direct you to that are extremely professional and very realistic business profiles.

The way the system works is you get a random phone call from someone asking if you would like to learn more about an investment strategy which offers high returns with no risk. They then explain that one of their investment advisors will call you to discuss the investment. The caller will be Australian but the company will operate from overseas.

A couple of days will pass and you will get the second call. This person explains the strategy with quite an astounding level of detail and professionalism. At this point they tell you that you’re such an important potential client that they will refer you to their institutional division where you will be treated as an extremely important portfolio.

If you have come this far through the process, it’s fair to say they have got you and you are about to lose a lot of money. Generally you will be told your investment type is an option contract or a futures contract which expires in 30 days.

Their paperwork is an impeccable fraud to the untrained eye and they have people claiming to be from the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in the USA explaining what you are about to enter into and that the company is registered with them, to give you the secure feeling that you are dealing with legitimate people.

As soon as you transfer the money into their overseas bank account it will be gone forever!

It is worth noting that there are legitimate companies that engage in cold calling but they are invariably Australia companies which can be checked out by the Australia Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC).

What I now know is that the best brokers and investment companies don’t engage in cold calling because their business thrives on its reputation and they consider it unethical.

My advice to you is that if anyone cold calls you to be firm and even rude if necessary and tell them never to call you again. Store their number and hand it on to the Australian Federal Police to investigate.

Bye for now

Tim

There are a lot of mum and dad investors out there who are completely overwhelmed by investment choices and different companies offering different products. Often they don’t have the confidence to manage their own investments and are looking for someone they can trust to manage their life savings for them.

There is nothing wrong with that and if you don’t have the confidence to manage your own investments then you probably shouldn’t.

One option in this case is a term deposit or a safety deposit bond. These are very safe and generally come with a guarantee. Remember thought that anything which is safe and particularly guaranteed will be very low return.

This is where people can leave themselves open to catastrophic failure because although they like the safety of these products, the income is too low so they will risk their portfolio by investing in higher return products without understanding what it is they are investing in.

This doesn’t mean you are stuck with low performance investments. The key is to learn what questions to ask of the fund manager when assessing a particular fund. This way you can make an informed decision and properly assess the risks.

Never ever invest in anything purely on recommendation of a friend or family member unless that person is an experienced professional in that type of investment.

Remember you are dealing with your life savings! Think about how long it took to accumulate it and what impact it will have on your life if you lost it. Given that it has taken your whole life to accumulate it, why wouldn’t you invest a fraction of that time to educate yourself on how to protect it?

A few basic and simple questions to ask when assessing your investment products will help you make an informed and confident decision:

- What are the exit fee’s if I wish to get out of the investment?
- How long has the fund been operating and show me proof of its performance?
- Is it just shares or a combination of shares, property and other business interests?
- Is the property commercial, industrial or both?
- Is the property in Australia or some overseas?
- Is the share portfolio on the Australian market or overseas market or both?
- Are the shares protected with a put option?
- Are the shares blue chip or speculative – show me proof?
- Do you write call options on the shares?
- Is the property portfolio tailored for capital gain or income?
- If the property portfolio is tailored for income, what is the occupancy rate?
- If the portfolio underwritten, if so who is the underwriter?
- Are there any margin loans on the shares and what percentage is financed?
- What fees are involved?
- How does the fund manager get paid? Is it commission or percentage or both?
- What reports will I receive and the frequency?
- Will I get to make decisions on my portfolio?
- How do I contact someone and who do I contact to discuss my portfolio?

If you ask some of these simple questions the fund manager will quickly assume you are not a mum and dad uneducated investor and his body language will change. If he takes a defensive position he either can’t answer because he doesn’t know or he has something to hide.

If the fund manager doesn’t know about the investment portfolio, how safe do you think your money is?

In my experience a professional in the industry will recognise an educated investor and will open up and freely give information. Professionals want to deal with educated people because they make confident informed decisions.

It doesn’t take much to learn the basic principles of investing but it is the only way to guarantee peace of mind.

Bye for now

Tim

Everybody’s heard of ‘mum and dad investors’, but what does it really mean?

This is a subject that I am extremely passionate about and if I had one goal in life it would be to help turn every mum and dad investor into an astute and well educated investor; so that they could guarantee the safety of their life savings and provide them the lifestyle I so strongly believe they deserve.

That is what the essence of this website is all about!

So if my words in this passage seem strong I apologise but it rips my heart out to think that a little education can save these people a lot of pain and yet it keeps happening.

It saddens me to know that these are the most vulnerable people in any investment market and the people who deserve to be ripped off the least.

To me a ‘mum and dad investor’ is the typical household parents (generally baby boomers) who have worked hard their whole lives, saved as much money for retirement as they possibly could while at the same time making sure their children have every possible opportunity by sacrificing their own. These people are the back bone of our society and a group I have enormous respect for!

Unfortunately their whole life right up to retirement is so focused on just getting to retirement that they never had the opportunity to properly educate themselves on what best maximises the return on their life savings in retirement while at the same time minimising the risks.

Too often to their own detriment they seek advice from ‘experts’ without knowing what questions to ask or they will settle for a low performance safety deposit bond not providing the income they had hoped for in retirement.

I couldn’t begin to imagine how gutted these people must feel when some worthless cockroach rips them off and leaves them with nothing or worse, a pile of debt.

The good news is that all investors, not just mum and dad investors can completely protect themselves from this type of event. This can only happen through proper education. I believe that I am obligated to pass on the information I have as a successful and well educated investor to the most vulnerable group of people to protect them in return for the free and abundant society loaded with opportunity that they have provided for me.

Purely through lack of education a lot of people planning for retirement don’t even realise that they have the opportunity to bring retirement forward in some cases to today just using the assets they currently own with virtually no risk.

I have made it my mission in life to change the fate of as many mum and dad investors as I possibly can and to show them how to educate themselves to recognise good from bad opportunities and how to protect their hard earned and well deserved retirement lifestyle.

Bye for now

Tim