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Colin Kneale, a senior partner with deVere Group (Geneva) called me in August 2010, telling me he understood I was a British citizen now resident in Switzerland.

He asked whether I had pension savings back in the UK and, if so, with how many different institutions. I confirmed that I did, and explained these funds were spread across four different funds.

He then told me that I could benefit from the QROPS programme, established by law in the UK in 2006, which allowed UK citizens no longer resident in the UK to move their pension savings into offshore accounts that met specific criteria. He explained that by doing this, I could consolidate those various savings into a single account, making things easier to manage and make my money “work harder”.

I agreed to meet him to discuss.

At that meeting, he asked me to provide details of my UK pension accounts and to sign a letter authorising him to act on my behalf. I did this.

A few months later, he told me that my UK pension funds had been consolidated and had a total value of £154,947.

He then asked what level of risk I was willing to take with those funds and I explained, several times, that as these were my pension savings, my appetite for risk was very low.

Colin recommended a plan with Providence Capital, the trustees of which were Sovereign Trust Limited. He assured me this investment was low risk, ideal for pensions as it would ensure the funds kept pace with inflation. The fund was established in February 2011. Of the £154,947, Providence Capital invested £153,197 in a bond with Royal Skandia International and deducted £1,750 for first year Trustee fees.

Royal Skandia subsequently invested those funds in Four Elements Strategic Growth Plus securities.

In March 2012 I received a valuation of the fund for year end 2011 which showed a slight decline to £145,684. At the end of 2012, the fund had reduced to £134,130 . At the end of 2013, the valuation was £109,087. At no time did anyone from deVere advise me to move my funds elsewhere. By the time I received the 2013 statement and sought to do so, I was told the account had been frozen. Today, it appears there is virtually no hope of recovering any of my savings.

Given that (a) this entire event was prompted by an unsolicited call from a deVere agent, (b) I gave specific instruction that the investment vehicle for my pension savings be low risk and (c) at no time did deVere advise me to move the fund's elsewhere (advice that was offered to other clients), I believe deVere has failed in its duty of care. I would therefore ask the company to restore my pension fund to its start value, as defined in the annual valuation certificate I receive from Sovereign Trust.

Many thanks

You claim " go to the regulator" who is your full regulator in Switzerland. Yes I have gone to Polyreg you claim is your regulator, but they claim only to be responsable for money laundering.

If Devere can not agree with this finding then please tell me and everybody in Switzerland who is the full regulator.

Deveres response that my claim has no merit. I disagree Mr Offen miss sold the FOUR ELEMENTS GROWTH PLUS FUND, by not disclosing the full facts. Mr Kerswell tried to hide the fact that the fund was suspended and even tried to pay my pension out of a totally different account, this is not only incompetent that is fraud. Deveres complaints department Juliette Vincent claimed to my Trustees that my QROPS pension setup was up by 17.5% this was an outright lie.

In fact it was 22% down and suspended. I believe my claim of the full refund has merit.

I demand a full refund of £ 212000

In the last year I had had already 3 advisors in Devere. Their advice has been poor and It made me invest -despite the fact I was not looking for much risk- in the Strategic Growth Fund that has been suspended since 2013. I have not received any updates on this since more than years now.

Last month my advisor (Mark Gibson) from Devere left the company along with his assistant. After that I received an email from them from a Hotmail email account to try to get in touch with me! probably they wanted me to do business with them outside the company. My Personal information was taken and now it is who knows where!!!! I find this disgusting!!! I am going to take legal action against devere for all this!!!

So far I had had only loses in my investments of almost 10 years! I can not recommend this company to anybody! I want now to suspend Devere as my advisor for good! Do not trust them!

Miguel Mena.

Over the past twelve months I have had at least six calls at my employer's office by deVere group staff (from the Munich and Frankfurt office, apparently) who have found my details on LinkedIn. They claim that they want to make me an offer, and check the relevance of the offer.

So why don't they contact me on LinkedIn if they stalk me there anyway? I can read messages, and assess the relevance in that way, too. Why call my employer? I have repeatedly said that I do not wish any more calls, and that it is inappropriate to call my employer.

It bothers my colleagues, it is cutting into my working time. This is harassment.

Severe professional misconduct. Stop these calls!

I have canceled today my account by deVEre and the want what we pay 70% feas for the cancelation!!!!! What seems to me me like a fraude! 10years they never contaced us or help us with our account. 10 years with out emails foncalls or personal contact! but in the moment what cancelt the account what a biti!!!!

What is not a company to trust!

Hi Reiner,

I can direct you to the relevant team to fully surrender your policy but you should note the following. Your current value is xxxxxxx EUR and if you fully surrender you will receive XXXXX EUR (less when 30%) meaning you will lose approximately XXXXX EUR (70% FEES). If you are still happy to proceed with a full surrender let me know and I will ask the team to begin the process for you. However if you would like to discuss your options then I am available to call you today. Thank you.

Kind regards,

Rushan Silva

Rushan Silva| Client Services Associate

------------------------------------------------------------

Direct line: +356 **** ****

Direct Email: rushan.silva@***e-group.com

deVere Group Global Client Services

Tel: +356 **** ****

Email: csvhelp@***e-group.com

Website: www.devere-group.com

He is continuing to call us saying he works for deVere. He has been asking for money.

He now goes by Ian. please do something about this guy. He has called us repeatedly asking for money. then he offered us some internet deals saying he has gold connections around the world.

He also claims to work with Lux and Swiss banks. He then said he can open accounts for us where we can invest every month. We said no because we realize he is a conman. Stay away from Iayd Hayel, he is a vile toxic person that lies and cheats.

Please check because he is still using DeVere business cards. you must take this vile person to court.

deVere has lost my wife and I a lot of money and caused us a lot of stress. They convinced us to purchase policies with a large portion of assets under the Strategic Growth Fund.

Need I say more? These assets are now frozen (we were not warned in time to pull out in time like many others were) and if we surrender the policies we will forfeit the frozen funds and be charged a ridiculous "early surrender" fee which we were initially told will only apply if we surrender in the first 7 or 8 years, which have now passed. If that is not all bad enough, we were initially told that there are ongoing fees associate with having the accounts, but not exactly how much. We were lead to believe that these fees were not very high.

Now, after so many years or poor performance (more or less constantly, not just during the financial crisis or other generally accepted poor periods), we have now finally found out from one of deVere's competitors (not from deVere themselves, who we had asked many times but who avoided the question), that we are paying 4.64%/annum, 2.78%/annum and 7.14%/annum for the 3 policies! In the 10 year period that we have been losing money with investment sold to us by deVere, world developed market equities have risen 110%!!!

Devere sold me a Generali Vision plan and made a huge commission. What they didn't tell me was that I was locked in for 25 years with a minimum payment of 1,000 euro per month.

When I tried to cancel after 2-3 years I lost 22,500 euro of the money I had put in (the savings were worth 30,000 euro at the time). I admit that I didn't read the small print but that's not the point.

The issue is that Devere Group provides advise based on maximising their own commission and not based on selling good investment products to the customer. Most index funds will make a lot more money over a 25 year period considering the fees of these funds.

I was scammed out of several thousands of euros by Devere & Partners, who sold me a so-called Generali Policy. This happened as far back as 2010.

I know that there are literally thousands of people who have fallen prey to this scam. The problem is: a lot of people seem to want to TALK about it; but nobody is interested in actually doing anything about it. I went as far as hiring a lawyer, who was based in London (UK). Mainly because that's where DeVere was when they stole my money!

My lawyer understood my situation, but he advised me that to let it go, because: the legal fees alone would exceed the money which Generali had stolen from me. His advice: find as many people as you can, who were also scammed, and organize ourselves into a group. Then, launch a legal battle. I have been searching for anyone who is interested in taking this matter further.

But, so far, have not found anyone with the balls to get up and fight these animals! As in: launching a legal attack on Generali and somehow getting back the money they stole from us.

!! If anyone is serious about getting together to hire a lawyer, here's my email: darwell.steve@***.com

I was sold a Generalli Vision product in the UAE in 2011 which includes an insurance element. At this time Deverre (PIC) were not licensed to sell insurance products in the UAE and hence I feel this sale should be null and void under UAE.

I have written to both Deverre and Generalli on this matter but neither has had the courtesy to respond. I just wanted to warn others the extent this company will go to to make commission.

I have consulted with my legal advisors and am told that the company breached both Articles 24 and 26 of Federal Law No 6 of 2007. I would be interested if they would respond on here.