10th July 2019
The Federal Treasurer
Hon. Josh Frydenberg MP
Po Box 6022 Canberra ACT 2600.
House of Representatives: Parliament House
Dear Mr Frydenberg,
Criminal Neglect by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission
Substandard Consumer Protection
My wife and I are among the 300 retirees who have become victims of the recent collapse of STERLING GROUP.
We have suffered the loss of our life savings. With our assets stolen we now face financial ruin as a result of ASIC failing to alert vulnerable retirees by posting on social media and newspapers of potential scam/fraud.
This disaster has ripped our world apart. The stress and anxiety of this situation is extremely detrimental to my wife’s health condition Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. It really concerns me that we do not now have the financial means to ensure her health condition is managed. Her ongoing Specialist Rheumatologist, Doctor appointments and necessary medications required are financially draining. Her prognosis is not a positive one and I am very worried for the future. We have been left with a mountain of stress through loss of our life savings.
It is disgusting that ASIC failed in their duty to warn and protect unsuspecting retirees like us.
It has now come to light that two key players involved in STERLING GROUP were known colleagues a cast of characters involved in several other collapses where retiree funds were stolen. ASIC continues to ‘turn a blind eye’ by allowing known offenders to regroup and recreate other companies with the sole design of targeting specifically the hard-earnt assets of elderly retirees and pensioners.
Retirees with cash assets, and pensioners with homes as their only asset have been the target of an unfettered gang of white-collar criminals in Australia over the past 20 years.
Mr Frydenberg Consumers are now saying ‘Enough is enough’ Consumers are now saying ‘Sack the Regulators’!
The point of this letter Mr Treasurer we are all aware of the $450 million poured annually in ASIC, the monthly meetings with ASIC hierarchy as a lo established protocol, but we wish to ask you if the names STERLING or HERITAGE were ever discussed in those briefings and notes? As the Treasury have had to listen to the same old excuses for 20 years and have taken minutes of each meeting surely it is well overdue for Treasury to appoint a Competent Consumer Protector. It is fair comment when we say to you that we are appalled, we are disgusted at the lack of a ‘Fair Go Australia’ which apparently is merely ‘lip-service’.
We are fed-up with ASIC’s non-activity and what is simply gross-negligence in allowing white-collar crime to exist and persist in Australia. Retirees have been losing millions of dollars stolen by slick operators for too long. ASIC recently lied to the public by telling the media they were unaware of this looming collapsible corporate structure, that hey first heard of Sterling Group in 2018. That is utterly false as there is evidence to support that State authorities warned ASIC four years ago, and most of the current crop of victims could have been saved this agony of financial ruin and stress. ASIC did conduct a ‘to be seen to be doing so ‘door-knock’on victims of Sterling to ask if everything was OK. The elderly asked: “should we be worried?” ASIC said NO. I hasten to add that we did not have ASIC knock at our door, clearly it was a random half-hearted exercise! Corruption is the only explanation and the neglect goes beyond being “lazy’. As to why ASIC persistently allows ‘asset-stripping’ on ordinary citizens is beyond comprehension. How does such a continuance of activity assist the economy?
Consumer Protection is a Myth. ASIC cannot suggest Consumer Protection and then work against Consumers best interest which has been happening for 20 years. This is a disgusting way for a regulator to behave leaving so many decent citizens lost and very distraught.
Yours faithfully