Welcome to Devere Group Community

Like many it seems I was given misguided advice from deVere in South Africa. In particular the failed Strategic Growth Fund. This was through what was called Generali Vision and now Utmost Vision.

Having finally seen a statement today it seems my ‘Pension’ that I was being sold has lost 50% of its value in a decade.

User's recommendation: Don't use!

My dissatisfaction is well documented the continuous message that DeVere strive to excel in their advice is mind blowing. Are all the contributors to this site liars ?

Again I say to De Vere ,WHAT DO THE FOLLOWING WORDS MEAN TO YOU "THIS ADVICE REPORT IS VALID FOR 3 MONTHS" .

What do DeVere do ? buy very poor high commission funds 6 months after the report expired !and without any notification whatsoever quarterly reviews hav,nt had one yet even after 4 years, TAKE A LOOK AT THE ATTACHMENTS

User's recommendation: IF YOU ARE RETIRING TO SPAIN THEN KEEP AWAY FROM DEVERE THERE IS NO TAX BENEFIT UNLESS YOU ARE A MILLIONAIRE.

I sent a request to surrender my policy on the 8th of May, I was asked to send more information which did not make sense and was from an automated email with little explanations. After several emails, I sent the required information on 13th May and I am still waiting for my funds!

It's bad enough that I have lost over $29,000 but they are taking forever to repay me whatever little they claim I am entitled to. This company is a huge scam and I will definitely warn anyone and everyone about investing their hard earned cash through one of their products. The response to m initial review proves my point, how can I not know what I am talking about. When I took this policy with Devere I was based in Dubai, not South Africa.

Devere does have offices in Dubai.

I have been contacting the Dubai office to get back my money so I know what I am talking about. Instead of asking for more information they come back with a stupid response.

User's recommendation: Do not waste your hard earned cash on them! Bunch of scanners!

This company accept absolutely no responsibility for their employees not honouring the promises they made when I invested the money. They offered me no advice despite the fact that they advertise themselves as investment advisors.

I still do not not know the status of the investment or whether they only exist on paper.

The local representative says he cannot advise me. No resolution at all.

User's recommendation: Do not invest.

I moved my small QROPS of £58000 and 5 years later in a period of financial growth of about 10% per year I made a loss and they took £6250 in fees. How can this be legitimate.

So disappointed and a little angry. Trust once lost is never recovered.

Original review posted by user Oct 08, 2019

It seems like I only contact by the Finacial Advisor when it is of their interest to sell new products or if I provide the contact number for potential new clients.

It is VERY DISAPPOINTING!

Original review posted by user Aug 25, 2019

Several years ago DeVere moved assets in my QROPS, without approval, then lost money by opening a new savings account with Generali instead of Amending the existing simply to get commissions, I find this out at a later date when I finally found a trustworthy Adviser, but the really difficult part is DeVere keep calling me and asking me to return which is no only unprofessional but extremely annoying ..

As many others i hav lost much money due to the misguided advice from deVere. In particular the failed Strategic Growth Fund, but also manual processing errors on deVere's side are main contributors.

Apparently the Generali Vision is called now Utmost Vision, without any information, and today i got informed that Utmost Wealth Solutions have made calculations mistakes and as a result must adjust my plan value down 10kEUR.

Outrageous! Can anyone be trusted in this industry?

Any advice on good legal support for this case welcome.

My name is Armando Petrozzi, with Plan Number 94029716. Invested US$62000 but now my plan value is US$52,000.

Despite the fund itseflf has shown 25% profitability in the last 5 years the value of my plan has shown LOSSES of US$9000 due to charges made by DeVere.

I have written my assigned relationship with no response.

I will wait until this week for a formal response. If negative, will start legal actions to recover the funds.

Hi,

I'm on Linked in as are many millions of others.

Like many millions of others I have moved around due to my senior roles; this is demonstrated by my role locations in my profile.

Every week I seek your people stalking my profile.

Devere - This does NOT give you the right to screen my profile, obtain my details and then continue to call every 2 weeks asking about where my pension is - I know you are doing this to many others.

I've been polite 30 times and explained NO and asked for you to remove me from your lists...only to find a different person then calling me a week later.

Completely Unprofessional. I will be speaking with LinkedIn about your practices including obtaining contact information & asking for your company to have access removed

Despite repeated requests over the last 2 1/2 years to stop and remove my name and number from their database, the cold-call team in Dubai just will not desist.

After first moving to Dubai over 2 years ago, I received a call from an agent who was very rude when I told him I wasn't looking for financial advice so I requested that no-one from de Vere contact me again.

Unfortunately, they have persisted to call my office regularly, and only today a woman called "Anna" phoned my colleague asking to speak to me and that she knew me.

When I called back, (clearly she did not know me) she made up some BS about me liking a de Vere Facebook post about UK tax advice and tried to sell their financial services.

I understand that the market is competitive but to have agents be rude when declining their services or deceptive when trying to sell services is not the way to go about it. Equally, to continue calling even after having been asked to stop has now led me to write this review.

I'm pretty sure that having requested to have my name removed from their database, still being contacted is likely to breach GDPR

Please stop, this is not the way to do business

Like many UK citizens living in South Africa around 2009/10 I was persuaded by DeVere SA (Tim Sant) to transfer my UK pension funds into an off-shore QROPS account. A significant portion of this was deposited into the now defunct Strategic Growth Fund. I am still paying fees as if the fund is still growing, which, as the fees are far more than the residual growth, will ultimately deplete the total value of my investment.

I have read various press articles about the SG fund fraud and dodgy dealings of DeVere executives in South Africa, and now read that, unsurprisingly, there are no recoverable assets from the Fund. To be honest I would like just to draw what little I have left in the two remaining small QROPS deposits.

My contact at DeVere in South Africa was Richard Pretorius, who no longer replies to emails. I spoke to Nathan Lennox at DeVere UK who was very helpful and explained the details of the issue around the SG fund, but which in effect was 'your f**cked!' It was not worth his while to deal with such a relatively small investment.

I will try to contact the Sovereign Trust in Guernsey directly, where my funds are managed, but not being in any way financially savvy, it would be nice if DeVere were to offer some final assistance for an unhappy former customer in order to close this sorry affair. Ian James