St James Place Wealth Management
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Hong Kong, Hong Kong
St James's Place Shanghai Scam
- - -An adviser from a UK firm claimed my retirement plan was overcharged and urged a transfer; I moved and lost £15000 with 3% commission and fees.
I was approached by this company a few months ago and having not heard from my original financial advisor for quite a while I thought a review of my financial situation would be worth while.I researched the company and found they were a very large UK firm so thought it was a good idea.
I met with a very nice man who was very complimentary and charming. He proceeded to tell me that the regular savings plan I had done for my retirement was a bad plan and I was being over charged. I went away from the meeting feeling very down on myself but agreed to meet the "adviser" again.
When we met a second time he took me through the St James's Place savings plan and told me that in the long run I would save money by closing my existing retirement plan and starting his. i agreed and made the trasnfer across.
I later found out this "adviser" had lied to my face and that it was not cheaper, it just made money for him. I lost all of the money (100%) I had put into my original plan over the first year (GBP 15,000) and then was told that this "adviser" was personally making 3% on every payment I made into his new plan plus I was paying extra fees to St James's Place and fund annual management fees too. None of this was explained and covered up by this lying evil man and his clever company brochure and wording.
St James's Place hide behind this big UK firm but be warn, they are different legal entities and you get none of the protection that the UK FCA give savers in the UK.
They are pure commission hunters and are a scam, on a huge huge scale.
Preferred solution: Full refund
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they rip you off to pay for ladyboys
Not good. Had me cancel one expensive plan in order to invest into their even more expensive plan.
All the "compliance" forms they had me sign was actually just there to cover their behind and not for my benefit. I would have been better off doing nothing and staying with Generali.
Con-men hiding behind glossy brochures and sales-speak. Stay away.
I came on here having done a search after meeting these guys in Shanghai. I admit that I was in two minds when I met them because they were likeable and professional, but I have a general aversion to salesmen and they came across as ever so slightly arrogant.I am definately not an angry consumer, but a little bit put off by the misselling.
Their product was expensive, unclear and loaded with caveats which existed to SJP could earn more at my expense.My advice would be to go with a fee based adviser or at least a company with a bit more independence. The chap I met claimed that he was independent, but the fact was that all roads led to expensive, commission laden SJP products that were being packaged as "advice".On a scale of 1-10, I give them a solid 4.
good story but management are deluded and the place is no different to all the other shanghai chopshops.... staff voting with their feet
Yup, all very true. Being a tied agent offering an expensive and highly restrictive product isn't quite what was sold at the interview.
who cares if we are selling expensive schemes, we are making pure bank via insane rips and thats that counts, there is no honour in poverty brah! no regulation in china anyway, its like the wild east
The UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) received 22% more new complaints against St James’s Place in 1H17 compared with 2H16
The lies oh the lies
Questionable advice via twisted facts, overpriced plans and a contractual stitch up
The charging structure on the plans is impossible to fathom, they are no different to all the companies they claim are bad. Wouldn't touch with a barge-pole
Complete chop-shop - avoid!
i am glad this is getting some airplay, what these schmucks are pulling is a scandal using emotion and slander to get people into their ripoff schemes
What is it with these "big companies"? I signed with another big company in Shanghai (beginning with the letter "D") a couple of years back and got duped into some "flexible" long term savings plan and surprise surprise, it was not that flexible at all.
Consequently I am paying $3,000 per month for the next 17 years and if I do I will probably be ok apart from the fact that I did not get any flexibility. As it turns out, the first 20 months is for the most part to pay charges that pre-paid the adviser commission but if I am a good boy I will get it back through the bonuses and that will average down the cost. Enter this shower, I get told I am paying a fortune for this plan and I should cut my losses and put the money into their plan. When I challenged him on his conflicts of interest, when providing the advice, he just kept on the pre-rehearsed rhetoric about FT100, guaranteed advice, FCA blah blah yet it was simply a lie.
The part of my plan that existed as in the part that was not charges, was only subject to a 1.5%pa charge and if I continue then I will eventually get a bonus that gives me back som of the other charges and yet his best advice was to take a hit on funds that were already liquid so I could lock them up again to pay him 3%pa. As the name says, never again
looked into this, the products have layers of hidden fees built in and they have you sign away your rights to recourse claiming it is so the advice is guaranteed, a complete lies and no better that generali or whoever they are badmouthing, having a direct sales force. ft100 company means nothing as asia is separate. avoid
Just buy an S&P ETF, so if market rate is 10% and you pay an adviser 1%pa you net 9%, alternatively SJP on a 10% market return, you 2.5% fund TER, plus 1.5%pa ongoing product fee plus 4.5% set up fee payable on all contributions so you end up with 1.5% pay, that is less than inflation and all so some bonehead in Shanghai can go to Bar Rouge
people should invest with st james place if they want to pay 6.5% in upfront fees followed by 4%pa. 2.5%pa underlying fund fees, 2%pa product ongoing charges (1.5% + 0.5%) plus 6.5% up front fees (4.5% for researching the market aka offering them their 1 product + 1.5% + 0.5%) so their brokers can get upfront rips which is brilliant but people never know this until it is too late as they lie about it. better to stick with fee based guys and sjp suck
As an industry person I have to say that unfortunately all of this is true. It is sad really because some of the guys that work there are decent enough, but staff turnover is high because advisers find it difficult being a tied agent selling their overpriced plans.
The rest of the industry is not much better and in some cases worse, but they are at least independent and have a bit more latitude to recommend decent products (and sadly, sometimes a lot worse too).
There are some positives with SJP such as their internal compliance makes it hard for poor quality business to get through, but this is more about SJP covering themselves legally so their "advice guarantee" is never challenged.
Anyone saying otherwise should check the length of time claims against them drag on in the UK where the protections are higher. Any claims for transparency are laughable too indicated by the fact that they announced in Jan this year that for the first time ever, they would publish their charges on their website.
I have tried to be balanced in the review.
i fell for this 2 and feel ashamed i shud have seen it coming but they were really convincing
i fell for this 2 and feel ashamed i shud have seen it coming but they were really convincing
they did this to me, i had a generali vision and they told me to cash it in and start a plan with them and stupidly i listened at first and took a penalty on my generali plan against the advice of my ifa. thankfully i listened when he informed me that they were trying to lock my into their expensive investment trap.
i should have just stayed put, i was 11 years into a 20 year situation and my funds were performing and to this day i cannot understand why i let them into my head, but they were good, they showed me some authorised data that showed i was being ripped off and sold the fact that st james place were a big company and that was a good thing.
i am a complete *** for listening as generali, like all the insurers are far bigger than st james place and unlike the guy i met (who was nice and convincing), my ifa was at least independent. the only good part of this saga was i ended up not going with st james place either
Met with these guys in China recently. They literally spent the time at our school slagging off their competitors while presenting themselves as different, yet when I checked what they were saying, it turns out that they were twisting certain facts to fit their narrative.
Nothing really new was offered and they were far from cheap.
Also it was clear that they were not independent and yet they tried passing themselves off as that. Low cost and liquid is the way to go without any of their contractual savings b0ll0cks.