Buying Cash Value Insurance

Read this article. A consumer ask about a cash value insurance that he is considering. There are many interesting and educational comments from other readers about this product. These comments generally apply to Singapore as well.

Signage at the Circle Line

This is the signboard at the Bishan station of the Circle Line. The destination "to Marymount" is not lighted. In fact, all word "to Marymount" is not lighted in all the signs in the Bishan and Bras Basah stations of the line. I suspect that this situation applies to other stations as well.

I can only guess that the lights were dimmed during the first stage when the line served Bishan to Serangoon. The line had been extended to Marymount for nearly one year and still the lights have not been fixed. What is the reason?

I take the Circle Line only a few times and observed this situation. But there are many commuters who take taking this line daily. Why did they not raise this matter? What about the employees working at the stations?

Is this the state of apathy in Singapore? If so, it would be quite worrisome!

Tan Kin Lian

Accident Photos

If you meet with an accident, please take photos of the damages to both vehicles and send them to your insurance company. You should also keep the photos in your e-mail server for future retrival. If you like an additional place to store the photos, you can use the e-mail account indicated in this document. Read the instructions.

Donation to FISCA

An anonymous reader criticised me for asking for the donation of $1,000 (in return for accepting an invitation to listen to a presentation by a land banking company) to be given to the Financial Services Consumer Association (FISCA). He said that I headed FISCA and that it is more proper for the money to be donated to a charity.

FISCA is a volunatary, non-profit association of members, with the goal to educate the pubmic on financial matters, so that they can void being cheated on their investments in bad financial products. It needs funds to operate and pay its expenses.

I hope that the public will donate to FISCA and also be its members.

Go to http://www.fisca.sg/.
.

Selective repayment

A land banking compay paid off an investor who gave them a lot of trouble earlier but had agreed to cool off for a month. This amount invested was less than $30,000. Other investors in the same product had been waiting for more than one year, without being repaid. Presumably, they were not so troublesome or had invested a large sum of money.

This company is practicing "divide and conquer". By paying off some investors, who would then tell the other investors, it might motivate the other mitigant investors to be more compliant, in the hope that they would be repaid.

This seemed to me like highway robbery.

A month ago, another investor wrote to me to tell me that she had invested in land banking plots and was quite convinced about the merits of land banking. I knew this investor to be quite sound in financial matters and was quite surprised at her views. I wonder if she was also being paid off in this manner, in return for being an ambassador?

What has become of Singapore, for a company to take large sums of money from the public, to act in this manner, to be protected by a reputable lawyer firm and to practice selective repayment of their obligations?

Tan Kin Lian

Flood at Orchard Road

Someone wrote to me to link the flood at Orchard Road to the Marina Barrage. I do not understand how this could be the cause of the flood. However, it does appear that there were two serious floods in Singapore in recent years, i.e. the flood at Bukit Timah and now at Orchard Road. We used to have good drainage sysem in Singapore, but this seemed to have deteriorated. Can the experts share your views?

Tan Kin Lian

Blogs and ballot box

Question: Voters may complain on many issues but when they are at the ballot box, they will vote for stability and economic progress. Do you agree? (The survey is now closed).

Here is the final report based on 100 replies. The results are almost the same as the earlier report based on 50 replies.

The survey suggests a 37% swing against the PAP but this is from a group that is largely unhappy with the PAP. If this is extrapolated to the general population, the swing could be (just my guess) between 10% to 15%.