Welcome to the deVere Group Community

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 9402****. 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

How can the Ombudsman sleep at night when he allows the Devere group to carry on trading? T.W.M.

In 2010, my wife and I received a request from the DeVere representative handling the account to switch a significant part of the mutual funds we had to a group of new funds. This included allocating a quarter of the proceeds to the Strategic Growth Fund.

Three years later, came the debacle which over the last 4 years became a disaster, as it is now almost sure that we have no chance of money recovery. Therefore, under the advice of DeVere, we lost at least a quarter of our savings.

We have contacted DeVere officially, and their response has been simply shocking, denying first any involvement from DeVere, and when confronted with the facts, recommending to seek legal advice !!!

I was lied to by the Devere rep that signed me up. I've lost a lot of money (for me) based on their advice in a fund that was "frozen" for a number of years but my fees still continued.

I've now reached the 8 year point which gives me the right to get out and I've spent 3+ months getting the run around from a Callum Gracie on what was needed to close the account. I've sent in form after form. Waited for undue time for responses. Then told more forms were needed.

Two weeks ago I asked him to clearly and specifically tell me what forms were needed for a currier to pick up. He sent a list and the currier picked them up as arranged.

Today I receive a list of additional forms that are needed. They are either scamming me or highly incompetent.

I have had an uphill battle with this company without any light at the end of the tunnel. My investment advisor has provided absolutely no advice, my investments have depreciated by over 50% over a period of 10 years and the only solution is to withdraw the funds and take the loss.

Unfortunately the small print says that the funds will only be released once the investments have been sold. So for the next 10 years or so, the management fees and commissions will be paid until I suppose the investment ceases to exist. They should be strung up and shot for manoeuvring behind the smoke and mirrors of their marketing lies. I have subsequently been told that my financial advisor was thrown out of Qatar and the UAE, imprisoned in Oman and has left the company.

Through other avenues, I discovered that he still works for the same company but behind a connect "separate" entity. Perhaps all the people that have been fleeced by this company should pay a personal visit to their offices.

In response to your email enquiring if DeVere have contacted me

De Vere have never contacted ......me other that to sell more investments and the caller seemed to think I had taken 37,000 out of the account rather that the real 21,000 of which 15800 was A pcls

There has never been any contact prior to my complaint

I cannot withdraw any more ( over 5 quarters since last payment because the agent set the payment too high and the account will implode if I withdraw any more ) from the pension. one agent called to sell a qrops to my wife and in response to my problems said this is too complicated. ( email ) I have emails showing that the agent was aware that I wanted a PCLS but somehow the trustee did not get the instruction

The docs sent to my wife show a fact find doc making 2,version one official and not seen before August 2018) and signed by me and one hand written and not seen by me prior to 22 august 2017 De Vere have chosen to use the hand written one to reject my complaint and have ignored all the other entries on the hand written version

De Vere say there has been considerable contact from themselves, if so my letter box and telephone line must be as broken as DE Vere . The one call I have had was to sell more and he thought I had withdrawn 37k , Now I have found my wife (who also is a big loser to DV but offered £500 in respect of possible a 4k loss and which she refused) has been sent confidential documents ref my qrops .

my comments about compliance 30 day cooling off commenced 8th mar but I was supposedly sent it on the 29th mar and there is so much more, it has taken me a long time but I have dug out the emails from the advisor.

question ?

would any savvy investor take on a fund with 5% initial charge and 3.07% annual charges had they known about them I don't think so ! a letter from the advisor says he didn't know of the charges so how then could he have declared them?