i got a call from these out of Geneva and was wondering if anybody has any experience with them?
They have been coming up on my facebook feed recently and now they have contacted me, so before going ahead with meeting them I would welcome the feedback from anyone who has met with them.
Thanks
They have a way of threatening websites who talk about them.
You would think if they had nothing to hide they wouldn't mind being discussed.
Secondly the person that contacted you is probably 20, with no finance education at all, just started with the company and will last about 3 months before they quit or are fired. The turn over is huge. Ask yourself why?
The list could go on and on. There are plenty of other threads on the finance monkeys on here. Just have a look around and read a few posts, I dont think there is a positive experience thread though
There are a dozen similar companies, same tactics, cold calling, telling you somebody (un-named) recommended you .. blah blah..
They are cold calling with heavy sales pitch because its shit..
Personally, I would never even consider discussing investments with someone who called me up on the phone. Banks only give advice that benefits them, investment salesmen work on commission, which is where your first year or two's premiums would go...
I work for a bank so get advice there, which has been mixed. Rather than the company I find it's the person giving it that counts. Like with learning a language (the teacher not the school).
I also do a lot of research myself.
Case in point. I had a meeting with a guy from Guardian some years back. He went into a long and obviously scripted sales pitch that started off by saying how much money I would need in retirement, and how little my current savings would contribute towards that. Then he did a rather questionable calculation of the interest I would need to get between now and my retirement to make that money (compound interest actually calculated incorrectly). The interest I would need was an impossibly high amount. Then he said I was lucky I we had met because he had just the thing and went on to discuss a product with a much lower interest rate, also conveniently forgetting many other dos and dont's from earlier on in the conversation.
The real interesting bit was that all of this was in a "tax efficient wrapper". He said that was the whole point because other companies couldn't offer this wrapper. I asked him, is it legal then? He said, yes. So I said, can he show me where on my tax form I need to declare it to take advantage of this wrapper. He said, he didn't know. I said, just now you said you had your own money in this too. So how do you do your tax declaration? He said, I have a tax consultant. So I said, can you ask your tax consultant and come back to me? He said, no, because something complicated. So I said, basically you're telling me the whole point here is saving taxes and you are claiming to be an expert on this but you can't tell me how it works?
After that he lost his cool with me and worked himself into a fit and accused me of wasting his time.
Yeah, real professionalism there.
But just think about it. Imagine for a moment that it is all true and that somebody has worked out a risk free way of investing money that provides returns much better than much higher risk products. If you had such a secret, would you cold call random people and make them rich, or would you borrow all the money you could lay your hands on and get rich yourself?
Did you say: "Yes!" and laugh maniacally?
I haven't worked at Credit Suisse for 6 years, but haven't updated my LinkedIn, so I'm pretty sure they are trawling there for expats now.
Anyway, I expressed my concerns about them not being licensed here - no reply. He said his boss in the UK was OERG (or something like this) qualified - I asked how that related to me signing a contract in Switzerland where I live and work and have my money - were they registered here? No direct answer, obviously.
We wished each other a nice day and that was that.
They lost me a lo of money too - remember, they don't act in their clients' best interests, they're only after what pays them handsome commissions which mean extortionate fees on the money you "invest" (aka "burn") in the products they sell you.