Tags |
|
|
Links |
|
|
Casual Articles - How Expatriates Are Exploited By The Offshore Financial Services Industry
Many small business owners and managers will often say their personal assistant is invaluable to them yet they often treat them as if they're not.Day after day, week after week the P.A. is in the office, slogging away making sure the work gets done. In many instances it is the P.A. that holds the business / department together.Many of them are so conscientious they won't take time out and will stay at their desk until the work is done. Not only are they integral to the running of any business, their income and the way they are treated may not always reflect the importance of their role.JENNY'S STORYJenny worked for her current employer for three years and thoroughly enjoyed her role as Personal Assistant to the General Manager. They had a great working relationship.If she required the occasional afternoon or morning off to deal with personal matters, all she had to do was ask. Her boss praised her regularly for her contribution and rewarded her ... sometimes monetarily and other times with a dinner out for her and her partner or movie tickets when they achieved thei
(Throughout this article the $ sign stands for any major currency. e.g. EUR, GBP, YEN, AUD, CAD)
==========================================================
The above "advertising" copy is very different from the hype in the real advertisements but it accurately sums up the typical features of International "Contractual Regular Savings and Retirement Plans" offered by some offshore insurance companies.
If they were advertised as above, would anyone ever buy them? Surely not. Consider some of the details:
1. Forty Seven percent of pay
Having an online business, you definitely want it to be successful. Heard about SEO Companies?Do you know the advantages you can get with professional SEO Company? A lot of people heard about search engine optimization but few are the ones who truly understand it. Search engine optimization can provide your website with visibility by giving users faster and easy access to your website and by being on the top rank of the search engines results.By using professional SEO Company, your online business with be optimized with their help. This professional SEO Company will make sure to make your business a successful one.As an advice, in searching for the professional and best SEO Company, you can search on major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN; just type certain keywords, like your business theme, then look for the top rank website and look at the SEO Company who optimized their websites, then contact that SEO Company. For sure that SEO Company can help you out will your quest to be on the top rank, to have a lot of customers and to be ahead of all your competi
Imagine an advertisement couched in the following terms:
==========================================================
Advertisement
COLOSSAL INTERNATIONAL INSURANCE LTD
Expatriates – How to Save For Retirement
For regular savings toward retirement our Offshore Pension Plan is the perfect vehicle. Here are the great features:
1. You contribute, say, $1,000 per month over the next 25 years.
2. If we achieve, say 10% p.a. growth your fund at maturity should, in theory, be worth about $1,065,308
3. But our charges will have swallowed up around 47% of the $300,000 you contributed. That means about $140,000 of the growth is lost to you.
4. If you stop payments, for any reason whatsoever and at any time during the first 23 months you get not a penny back; we shall keep all the $23,000 you had paid in.*
5. If you stop payments at any time for any reason whatsoever we shall hit you with a substantial penalty. For instance, had you paid for, say, 7 years and then cashed in, the amount you would get back is uncertain but is unlikely to exceed the $84,000 you had paid in over the seven years.
6. You can reduce your monthly contribution at any time. However, If you do so we s hall continue taking our charges as if you were still Paying at the original level. That means if you reduce the $1,000 per month to $200 per month we will keep levying the charges that would apply to a contribution of $1,000 per month.
7. You can increase your contribution at any time but if you do we shall apply to the increase a fresh ‘initial period’ – i.e. the period during which you would get little or nothing back if you stopped payments.
8. You could stop payments at any time and leave the fund invested with us but we will still, month by month, take out the charges to a total of around $140,000 (see 3 above).
9. There are offshore savings vehicles that give access to all the same investment areas but with much lower charges and no hidden penalties but we prefer not to tell you about these.
(Throughout this article the $ sign stands for any major currency. e.g. EUR, GBP, YEN, AUD, CAD)
==========================================================
The above "advertising" copy is very different from the hype in the real advertisements but it accurately sums up the typical features of International "Contractual Regular Savings and Retirement Plans" offered by some offshore insurance companies.
If they were advertised as above, would anyone ever buy them? Surely not. Consider some of the details:
1. Forty Seven percent of paym
If you are like me you have wanted to build a website but didn’t know how!Why?Because you haven’t learned htmlBecause it costs too much to have someone do it for you.The software you have found is too complicatedYou just didn’t have the time or patience to read the 500-page manualThere was no one to teach you how to do it.Well let’s review those one by one.You didn’t build a website because you haven’t learned html.With today’s easy to use html text editors you can build a website as easy as typing a word document. You need to learn very little of the html coding and what you do need is very easy to learn if taught properly.You didn’t build a website because it costs too much to have someone do it for you.Well that’s a fact! If you have someone do it for you, you will have to pay a web designer Big Bucks to create it. To get just what you want, optimized by keywords, with the look and feel you desire you will spend as much time with the designer as if you did it yourself. And then pay them
1. You contribute, say, $1,000 per month over the next 25 years.
2. If we achieve, say 10% p.a. growth your fund at maturity should, in theory, be worth about $1,065,308
3. But our charges will have swallowed up around 47% of the $300,000 you contributed. That means about $140,000 of the growth is lost to you.
4. If you stop payments, for any reason whatsoever and at any time during the first 23 months you get not a penny back; we shall keep all the $23,000 you had paid in.*
5. If you stop payments at any time for any reason whatsoever we shall hit you with a substantial penalty. For instance, had you paid for, say, 7 years and then cashed in, the amount you would get back is uncertain but is unlikely to exceed the $84,000 you had paid in over the seven years.
6. You can reduce your monthly contribution at any time. However, If you do so we s hall continue taking our charges as if you were still Paying at the original level. That means if you reduce the $1,000 per month to $200 per month we will keep levying the charges that would apply to a contribution of $1,000 per month.
7. You can increase your contribution at any time but if you do we shall apply to the increase a fresh ‘initial period’ – i.e. the period during which you would get little or nothing back if you stopped payments.
8. You could stop payments at any time and leave the fund invested with us but we will still, month by month, take out the charges to a total of around $140,000 (see 3 above).
9. There are offshore savings vehicles that give access to all the same investment areas but with much lower charges and no hidden penalties but we prefer not to tell you about these.
(Throughout this article the $ sign stands for any major currency. e.g. EUR, GBP, YEN, AUD, CAD)
==========================================================
The above "advertising" copy is very different from the hype in the real advertisements but it accurately sums up the typical features of International "Contractual Regular Savings and Retirement Plans" offered by some offshore insurance companies.
If they were advertised as above, would anyone ever buy them? Surely not. Consider some of the details:
1. Forty Seven percent of pay
Marketing your website through search engines can potentially provide you a lot of profit. Most people market their businesses in the Internet so more people can reach them. But since a lot of people use these techniques, you should always think about what you can do to have an edge over other competitors out there. So here are some advanced ways to search engine marketing.To get more attention your site has to be included in the top 10 search engine results. To do this you can so the SEO or Search Engine Optimization strategy. With SEO, the ranking of your website can be improved through the use of keyword in the content of the site. With SEO, you would be able to get a higher ranking in search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.You can also include pay-per-click advertisements to attract more traffic into your website. With this method, search engine sponsored listings are added to the website which allows visitors to earn some cents by clicking them. On the other hand, you would get more people to visit your site.You can also invest in paid inclusions. This is a method where yo
5. If you stop payments at any time for any reason whatsoever we shall hit you with a substantial penalty. For instance, had you paid for, say, 7 years and then cashed in, the amount you would get back is uncertain but is unlikely to exceed the $84,000 you had paid in over the seven years.
6. You can reduce your monthly contribution at any time. However, If you do so we s hall continue taking our charges as if you were still Paying at the original level. That means if you reduce the $1,000 per month to $200 per month we will keep levying the charges that would apply to a contribution of $1,000 per month.
7. You can increase your contribution at any time but if you do we shall apply to the increase a fresh ‘initial period’ – i.e. the period during which you would get little or nothing back if you stopped payments.
8. You could stop payments at any time and leave the fund invested with us but we will still, month by month, take out the charges to a total of around $140,000 (see 3 above).
9. There are offshore savings vehicles that give access to all the same investment areas but with much lower charges and no hidden penalties but we prefer not to tell you about these.
(Throughout this article the $ sign stands for any major currency. e.g. EUR, GBP, YEN, AUD, CAD)
==========================================================
The above "advertising" copy is very different from the hype in the real advertisements but it accurately sums up the typical features of International "Contractual Regular Savings and Retirement Plans" offered by some offshore insurance companies.
If they were advertised as above, would anyone ever buy them? Surely not. Consider some of the details:
1. Forty Seven percent of pay
Last year, Nielsen/NetRatings announced that the top 10 social networking sites garnered 45 percent of active internet users. That is a staggering figure that illustrates the power of social networks. If you're not familiar with social networks, you have probably heard of MySpace. MySpace is a good example of a social network. Sites like MySpace provide easy ways for users to network around interests, ages, locations, etc. The great thing for owners of sites like MySpace is that the users produce tons and tons of content for them. As an owner of a website, you need to understand what these networks can do for you.Most webmasters don't want to mess around with social networks. Most webmasters tend to view social networks as a fad reserved for teenagers. It's true that there is a fair share of riff-raff in social networks. But webmasters ignore social networks at their own peril. Last year, at the Web 2.0 Summit Fox Interactive President Ross Levinsohn noted that MySpace was adding daily users equivalent to the population of Buffalo. Major networks have taken notice of social networks,
7. You can increase your contribution at any time but if you do we shall apply to the increase a fresh ‘initial period’ – i.e. the period during which you would get little or nothing back if you stopped payments.
8. You could stop payments at any time and leave the fund invested with us but we will still, month by month, take out the charges to a total of around $140,000 (see 3 above).
9. There are offshore savings vehicles that give access to all the same investment areas but with much lower charges and no hidden penalties but we prefer not to tell you about these.
(Throughout this article the $ sign stands for any major currency. e.g. EUR, GBP, YEN, AUD, CAD)
==========================================================
The above "advertising" copy is very different from the hype in the real advertisements but it accurately sums up the typical features of International "Contractual Regular Savings and Retirement Plans" offered by some offshore insurance companies.
If they were advertised as above, would anyone ever buy them? Surely not. Consider some of the details:
1. Forty Seven percent of pay
Most companies only operate on a tactical level. This amounts to the boss going to the staff and saying “Go get more business.” It’s been said that more sales will cure almost any business problem. While this is true, the strategic business will be set up in such a way that every tactic implemented will drive sales and gain ground on achieving the over-all strategic goals. When a sale is made it’s a great moment! However as soon as the deal is done you are OUT OF BUSINESS. You now have to get out there and chase the next sale and the next sale and the next, ad infinitum! Let's define strategy...If a military commander decides to “disrupt the enemy’s supply line that’s strategy. When he says we’ll place mines in the enemy’s shipping lanes that’s a tactic. If however you have properly strategically positioned your company in the marketplace you will experience the joy of having your customers come to you. They will seek you out as the obvious choice to serve their needs.Strategy is the element that will allow you to get the most leverage possible out of all your efforts. It’s the power of f
(Throughout this article the $ sign stands for any major currency. e.g. EUR, GBP, YEN, AUD, CAD)
==========================================================
The above "advertising" copy is very different from the hype in the real advertisements but it accurately sums up the typical features of International "Contractual Regular Savings and Retirement Plans" offered by some offshore insurance companies.
If they were advertised as above, would anyone ever buy them? Surely not. Consider some of the details:
1. Forty Seven percent of payments gone in charges!
2. All of your money confiscated if you stop contributing before you have made 2 years payments!
3. Crippling ongoing charges applied even of you reduce or stop payments.
4. If you increase payments a new set of charges and a new zero return period is applied.
And yet every year, thousands of expatriates are talked into joining such schemes.
Accurate figures are not available but reasonable estimates suggest that over $500 million is directed to such plans annually.
Who has the effrontery to market such nonsensical investments?
1. International Life Insurance Companies
These companies are mostly the offshoots of British ‘household name’ insurance Companies, and
2. Offshore Independent Financial Advisors
An Offshore Independent Financial Advisor is anyone who chooses to call himself an Offshore Independent Financial Advisor (IFA). Anyone? What about training? What about experience? What about background?
In most countries there is no legislation to prevent anyone setting up as an Independent Financial Advisor (IFA). Offshore insurance companies make cursory, far from thorough, checks on background before giving agencies but they cannot check qualifications because none are specified.
For an experienced, sometimes unscrupulous, salesperson it is easy to "spin" the negative features into looking like advantages. He/she is usually a skilled communicator, subtle in gaining the trust of his ‘prospects’.
Why do so many IFAs take advantage of the expatriate’s vulnerability in a new and unfamiliar personal financial situation?
The answer, of course, is money. The salesperson is paid a percentage of the client’s first year premiums equal to 3 times the years of the contract. On top of that there is normally a 40% over-ride.
Actual figures depend on the amount being invested and the contract term but where an expatriate is saving $1,000 per month:
If the plan is for 10 years the salesperson's commission with over-ride = $12,600
If the plan is for 25 years the salesperson's commission with over-ride = $ 5,040
For no extra work, simply by extending the savings term from 10 years to 25 years the Salesperson/IFA/Consutant receives an immediate extra payment of $7,500. No wonder the consultant often pushes hard for the longer term often using falsehoods to achieve it.
With
HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.casualarticles.com/article/103216/casualarticles-How-Expatriates-Are-Exploited-By-The-Offshore-Financial-Services-Industry.html">How Expatriates Are Exploited By The Offshore Financial Services Industry</a>
BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.casualarticles.com/article/103216/casualarticles-How-Expatriates-Are-Exploited-By-The-Offshore-Financial-Services-Industry.html]How Expatriates Are Exploited By The Offshore Financial Services Industry[/url]
Related Articles:
10 Necessary Steps You Should Take If You Want To Be A Super Successful Internet Marketer
Fine Tuning Your Internet Marketing Skills - Getting Certified to Increase Marketability
Adverse Credit History: a Real Party-Pooper!
Bookmark it:
|