Tuesday, March 16, 2010

False hope

I spoke to an investor in a land banking product. He has invested for nearly two years and is still waiting for his  invested sum to be returned to him. He has not even collected the interest payment of 12.5%. He has since lost his job and his money is tied up in this investment. He has been promised a few times that the company is finalising the sale of the land and expects to repay the investment in the near future. It never materialised but he still remained hopeful and naive.

He is reluctant to lodge a complain with the authority or talk to the newspaper as it might cause the company to collapse. He still harboured the hope that his money will be repaid to him in the future. He even hoped that the company would be successful in the sales to new investors, so that they can collect the money to repay him. This is a selfish attitude, which reflects a shameful character of many Singaporeans.

What this investor does not realise is that there is virtually no chance of getting approval to develop the land or for the land being sold at a profit. The company tells a false story to keep the naive investors from taking action to enforce their rights. As time goes by, their chance of recovering their invested money will diminish, and it will soon be too late. Even if the company is able to get new funds, they will not repay the naive and weak investors. They will just cook up another excuse to give false hope.

If you are caught in this situation and you wish to meet other investors in the same situation, give your particulars here.