29th June 2019
Dear Mr James Shipton, CHAIRMAN of ASIC
Re: The collapse of the Sterling Life Group
I am writing on behalf of my mother who is one of the pensioners caught up in the collapse of Sterling Life Group and lost $244,000 of her life savings through deceit, lies and total crooks of this company.
My mother is a 79 year old self-funded retiree who immigrated with my father to Australia 15 years ago to join their children and call it their home for the rest of their life. They lost a lot of their self-funded superannuation money in the 2008 GFC and after the death of my father in 2015, and her ageing years, last year my mother had to make the decision to downsize and she invested her money with Sterling New Life in October 2018.
We were not naive in looking at this company as we did all the necessary steps in getting independent legal & financial advice, researched the company on the ASIC register and ‘companies you should not deal with’ list, but saw no warning published for Sterling Life Group and were constantly being reassured that her investment was safe and secured.
The loss of money through the collapse of Sterling Life Group means that my mother’s remaining years are going to be very tough and involve hardship as she doesn’t get any assistance from the government and there is nothing left in her home country to return to.
I am absolutely disgusted that this has happened to an elderly person who is vulnerable and doesn’t need this additional stress at her time of life. My mother wasn’t looking at making money, she was just after making her remaining money last longer and have a secure home for life.
We are so lucky to have Denise Brailey on our side and we as a group will not let this rest and will keep fighting for justice. All we want is the money back that was invested. This is why we are asking for compensation within 8 weeks
My mother has called Australia home for the last 15 years, has invested in this country and not asked for any help or anything in return, so what is being asked now is only fair and reasonable.
As the chairman of ASIC, please can you explain to me how this company was allowed to carry on selling their lies and deceit after they were brought to the attention of ASIC in 2016?
I believe that ASIC has totally failed my mother and the rest of the victims of this scam by allowing the Sterling Life Group to continue doing business and taking vulnerable people’s money after ASIC was made aware of what they were selling broke many regulations by consumer protection back in 2016. If ASIC had published an early vital warning on this company when they should have, my mother would not have invested her hard earned money and this fiasco would have been prevented.
Yours sincerely,