Thread: PFS-Platinum Financial Services: Ok?

Hi,
Has anybody had any savings scheme going with them? RL or Generali?
Any positive or negative reviews?
I just like to know more about PFS, as it seems I'll stay with them for a long time.

Thanks!

Might be a long time but best advice is to put no more than you can comfortably afford to lose.

Originally Posted by Scandinavian

Hi,
Has anybody had any savings scheme going with them? RL or Generali?
Any positive or negative reviews?
I just like to know more about PFS, as it seems I'll stay with them for a long time.

Thanks!

all those platforms are rip-off, all they do is milk you of service fees, hidden or not

if you read the fine prints, they don't really offer anything, except charge you all kind of administrative fees, some plans as much as 10% per year, and what for ? oh yeah, if you are British, you can avoid inheritance tax, but paying between 5% and 10% per year in administrative fees on your capital, not profit, for the next 10 years is surely more expensive that any government tax.

To make it worse, the "funds solution" they offer don't make any money, more likely will lose money, even if they lure you with big fund brand names. They are BETA funds, that is they simply "mirror" the market. You are better off buying a tracking fund or an ETF without any administrative fees.

Their "investment advice" is shit, it's basically worthless. It's so low level, it's embarrassing they could get away with such poor advices. Some advisors could be exceptions, but they are exceptions, and it's difficult to tell them apart.

btw, didn't you ask a similar question last year ? seems very familiar.

Originally Posted by baldrick

Generali is who my company uses for its contributions to my "retirement" fund

Generali is a better package, but also very expensive, but offers greater flexibility for adding new "fund solution". It's still 10% pear year in administrative fees.

Originally Posted by baldrick

its given about 10% a year

I highly doubt that, I think you are confusing their administrative fee you are paying to them with income you are receiving

after 10 years or some other non-sense, they do offer some kind of "payback", I think it's 5% of the initial fund, this is after they took from you 50% of your money

it's fucking hilarious how people are so stupid, and give their life savings to those institutions without reading the fine prints, and get ass raped with a smile on their face.

Originally Posted by Scandinavian

PFS-Platinum Financial Services: Ok?

Heard it was a rip-off boiler room scam.

But hey, what the fvck do I know?

Originally Posted by Scandinavian

Not really the kind of proffessional advice I was looking for.

You do realise that you posted this on Teakdoor.com - The Thailand expat forum for travel, lifestyle and fun.
Asking whether anyone has had experience of said company is one thing but with all due respect to Butterfly and others it is hardly the forum I would go to for 'professional' financial advice.

indeed, this is TD, and this kind of question is bound to be answered with brutal honesty

as for professional forums offering professional advice, not sure if they do exist. First we need to define professional. Professional sales people ? quite a few websites full of them trying to promote their services.

Professional Independent financial advisers ? don't think it's available publicly for a number of compliance reasons. It has been discussed by a number of Ethical bodies regulating Independent Financial Advisers, and "social networks" to get clients are frowned upon by regulators because they are too informal and prone to misunderstandings and regulatory violations.

The "offshore" Fund Platform as promoted here are not bound to any credible regulatory framework, they can basically get away with anything. I think ESMA is trying to address certain issues with European offshore platform being sold to European citizens, but we are years away from anything tangible. In the meantime, the abuse will continue.

another trick on the platform is the regular deposit. They charge you something like 2% everytime you deposit cash in your Life plan, and of course if you make substantial deposit per year, something like a regular lump sum, individuals will see their capital increase every year and think their account is growing but actually it's their deposit growing. Yes, some people are that dumb

Example: lump sum over 5 years of 10,000 USD per year

year 1: 10,000 USD deposit, EoY balance=10,000 - 2%
year 2: 10,000 USD deposit, EoY balance=19,800
year 3: 10,000 USD deposit, EoY balance=29,600
year 4: 10,000 USD deposit, EoY balance=39,400
year 5: 10,000 USD deposit, EoY balance=49,200

Shit, I have been making about 10,000 per year on that account, I fucking rulez !!!

It's not "Life", but "Royal London 360 Quantum" and "Generali International Vision". Sounds much better than "Life", so it must be good. :-)

Originally Posted by Butterfly

and get ass raped with a smile on their face.

Bonus for some, no doubt...

Funnily enough I got an un-solicited email from them today. I binned it as spam as it sounded like a classic boiler room scam.

Originally Posted by rebbu

Funnily enough I got an un-solicited email from them today. I binned it as spam as it sounded like a classic boiler room scam.

My Old Man looked me in the eyes with a serious face when I was about 10 and said
"Son, you need to start thinking about getting a pension"

I sighed, shook my head and said

"Dad, those fvckwits that sell you the idea (that you're now trying to pedal to me). You see those Porsche's they drive, flash clothes they wear and the way they seem to burn money in general?"

Dad looks blank

"Well where do you think they get the money for that?"

Dad looks blank (with a hint of pissed off ness)



No word of a lie - 20 years later Mofo's whingin about only getting 5k a year rather then the 20k promised (had to fight tooth and nail for the 5k too)

I told you so
Said I


Property/Gold/Real shit.

Never give a bean to these sharks - unless you're a mug

Originally Posted by Butterfly

I highly doubt that, I think you are confusing their administrative fee you are paying to them with income you are receiving

I just look at the total of the contributions the company has made and the member valuation

I just did the calculation - it is 14%

yeah, as I suspected, you confuse contribution from your company with your account performance, classic

calculating account performance requires a standard methodology that you probably don't know about. You need to remove contribution (that is deposit) and add back withdrawals to calculate a true rate of return. Your company adding 10% each year as deposit doesn't count as account performance.

Jesus, some people are really that dumb as demonstrated here by baldrick

Originally Posted by Scandinavian

but "Royal London 360 Quantum" and "Generali International Vision".

gotta love their marketing names,

Oh yeah, Vision was the starting or medium range package, and there were 2 additional ones after that.

could you post the page with fees ? I don't have my copy here, maybe some of their terms have changed (I expect an increase in fees, what else)

Originally Posted by Butterfly

that dumb

butters your explanation makes as much sense as using regedit to turn on your wifi

the total of company contributions is 14 percent less than what the fund will pay me out

seems very basic mathematics to me - so wtf are you sucking on ?

Originally Posted by baldrick

Generali is who my company uses for its contributions to my "retirement" fund

nothing special - have a choice of a few different invest funds to point your contributions

its given about 10% a year - but I am not so concerned - it is just extra money in my package the company pays and I will shift it out when I leave - ( though I had been thinking to shift the majority out into a USD account early next year because of the implications of what I expect to be the choking off of the money printing by the us reserve )

10% is nice.

Originally Posted by baldrick

Originally Posted by Butterfly

that dumb

butters your explanation makes as much sense as using regedit to turn on your wifi

the total of company contributions is 14 percent less than what the fund will pay me out

seems very basic mathematics to me - so wtf are you sucking on ?

except you don't have the basic mathematics to calculate the performance of your account. Those platforms are masters for hiding fees and misleading account reporting, and I think you fell for it.

What asset classes were the funds into ? and in what currency ? this could give me a hint how mislead you are about those non-existent 14%.

Regardless, baldrick is the classic case of an individual with no basic financial background being "played" by those platforms.

Post the asset class, and when they were invested into, and what you think the performance is, and I will demonstrate how you were mislead.

Originally Posted by Scandinavian

10% is nice.

nice, except it probably never happened. It's like asking a monkey how much peanuts he has in his bowl, he simply doesn't know.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Regardless, baldrick is the classic case of an individual with no basic financial background being "played" by those platforms.

no butters you are being retarded

the company has paid x dollars to date into the fund on my behalf
generali informs me that my value is x+14% which I can then have transferred to an account of my choosing when I desire

you do not make any sense