Let's work together on this one
:nerd:
Thankyou, Pharoah.
I've sent through further information to ASIC based on my post above in ASIC language.
I tied it back to the other letters, submissions and complaints that I have lodged with regulators in Australia for the last few months. I tied it "forward" to further applications and claims that are sitting on someone's desk waiting for some other complaints to join them.
If anyone is feeling like putting in a complaint is useless, hopeless or not their thing for some reason (I know how that felt for me) here are some suggestions:
1. If reading and understanding the ASIC form is a problem please shoot me a message. I'm happy to fill it out for you. (PM me) If it's any help if you have problems with following the word maze on the ASIC site you're in the majority
2. If putting in a claim form makes you feel really angry or upset, I can certainly relate to that one - as you might have guessed from my posts. :hissyfit:
Being that chewed out can make it hard for me to organise my thoughts and write something that makes sense to others, especially people who don't know the history of why I feel like this. (After this long, who wouldn't??)
So I slammed it down on the computer, took a break and then organised my full on rant into something that sounded rational.
BTW if you feel ticked off by the experience put that down too: ASIC are doing a lot of work with scam victims and this is covered in their latest research papers online. It's a hot topic - they'll hear you.
Once again, I'm willing to assist you if I can.
You know trading: I'm not fast but at least I'm used to government forms. (I've got 3 inches of paper waiting to be filled out for a Government department!)
3. What if dobbing in brings negative attention to me. I worked through this one. It comes from my school days (ancient history). Time to lose it.
We're all grown ups now... sort of ... well some of the time.... :err:
Seriously, I wish I'd had someone to help me do this especially as I just wanted to forget the whole damn mess. I felt like trash as that was how Apple Investment Company were treating me, in my opinion, by ignoring me. I didn't deserve that sort of abuse - nor did you. It's rude and ignorant
BTW you never know what positives might come out of this ASIC complaint. Like Pharoah says if we all complain to ASIC en masse now AIC can't just dismiss us as a few sore losers.
We are already contributing to changes: just look at the Australian AIC website! :cute:
I'm pretty sure that the work we have done to date has reminded the regulators that just sticking a gambling warning on their home page is totally inadequate when intelligent adults like us get caught up in cleverly disguised investment scams by polished sales staff using social engineering and hypnotic language techniques. That's why our contracts are supposed to have cooling off clauses - for when the trance wears off.
The regulators know they must be seen enforcing the law. Bringing down the AIC FXCM advertising is proof in my opinion that AIC broke the law with their promotional material and they know it.
Re the indemnity clauses in contracts, PDS etc: remember they will have a hard time defending themselves against a breach of law with these flimsy efforts. In general terms it is not legal to create an instrument of law where it contains an effort to indemnify a party against the results of an illegal activity... legal speak for ignore it: it's a furphy.
Finally each one of us might be going for our individual claim against Apple Investment Company, but on the bigger scale we're working together to do our bit to change the way it's been that led to all this confusion over AFS licences etc. In taking the time to write in with all our evidence we are giving ASIC the heads up that someone had better be cleaning up Australia's financial services industry right now or there will be a Royal Commission into Financial Services rather soon. This is for the good of the country, and I certainly felt better when I'd actually put it in and saw that several people had read it.
So .... go get them in!!
PS ... has anyone heard anything more of the AIC in the US lately? Where are IC3 on this?