Colonial First State Questions & Answers

Sorry I’ve no idea…but I’d definitely look into the class action. I know they’ve had to payout a lot of money to their customers for something similar. I’m not a financial advisor, just someone like you who’s been badly treated my these financial, Incompetent and heartless money greedy organisation.

Good luck…I think you’ll get a good outcome if you claim against their incompetence and incorrect advice.

Chris, I can only speak from my own experience, and that has been extremely frustrating. Right now, CFS is drawing down far too much for my fortnightly pension, and this is going to bit me in the derriere with my Age pension. But trying to get them to do as you ask is like trying to push water uphill with a straw. I am told that they are way behind on processing client instructions/requests these days, but heck - my philosophy is if you market yourself as A, then you'd better perform to the standards expected of A; not L or M or N or whatever. It's my money they are ripping through, and they take enough of my money in their fees, though they are NOT competent at managing my account at all.

Hey Roger. To be honest with you i don't care where colonial rate in the top 40. My opinion i would not rate them in the top 100. Why don't you tell me were colonial rate in the top 40.

they are not to trust. i paid salary insurance (1500 AUD /6 months) for 7 years without having benefit from it and without having requested it.

They are not in the Top 40 and I'd doubt they'd be in the Top 100

You should be able to under hardship contact the fund

Hi

If you don't want to have your super invested in the stock market,select the cash option only on your super policy.

Regards

Bob.

Too much

They will suck u dry....

Scholl.com.au is the place I visited to make complaint. I never heard back from anybody. I'll never buy a product from them again or that reason alone.

Hi Phil, its no use complaining to them ,what i did was withdrew in stages and transferred the funds to a term deposit ( the best rate you can find) however leave a small amount (eg $50) rather than close the account because they will hit you with a $300 exit fee if you withdrawl the whole lot....cheers kev

This is why we need a complete inquiry into banks and this mob thanks kev for your answer i will do that after i see planer from social security its free what they get away with is criminal high fees when i talked to them my fee were reduced to half how are they acting in your interest it cost me did not make money above my fees time to be rid of them .

This is why we need a complete inquiry into banks and this mob thanks kev for your answer i will do that after i see planer from social security its free what they get away with is criminal high fees when i talked to them my fee were reduced to half how are they acting in your interest it cost me did not make money above my fees time to be rid of them .

Molly I originally had a problem with them delaying payment because of living overseas and having my home address in Australia. After jumping through all the hoops eg. submitting the release form and then having to supply a certified copy of my passport, which they initially rejected, about a couple of months later I did receive a ''sorry for all the mix up" and advice that they would transfer the funds to my nominated account. This was after I said I would take the matter further. I needed the money for a deposit on a house and the delay cost me getting this particular property.

TFC

Thanks TFC - I had to send so much information - wanted to be sure I covered everything as not to delay my application. But still don't understand why 2 forms Early release of Super on financial hardship grounds with all ID signed & 2nd form Super withdrawl form also asking for all ID's to be signed.

Near impossible....Game players Colonial ....Get a lawyer....!

I would have to say Colonial First State were pretty good & I didn't have any problems getting part funds released. You do have to provide heaps of information if based on Hardship. It can take a few weeks so you have to be patient.

I guess they try & make it a bit hard because when you do retire at least you have your Super $$$$.

Even though they did release part of my Super which I really needed at the time - I would try & avoid doing it again.

Best to leave it for retirement -

AVOID Lawyers - they are the biggest crooks on this planet.

I had to apply for funds due to financial hardship to be released first through Human Services and then through CFS and the funds were in my account 9 days later. Great result i thought.

Hi TFC how did you manage to get the documents certified. Who certified your documents and basically the documents should be only passport copies isn't it??

I put some money into a number of managed funds administered by CFS at a time when I simply did not have time to administer all the cash in our SMSF. But I invested some more money through a Comsec account where I did all the decision making. I did better than the supposed experts at CFS. Reason is clearly that CFS mostly trades across the entire ASX 100 or so, irrespective of whether they are dogs or not. Then charges a bundle despite poor performance. And they give such slow feed back that decisions about selling are always made with incomplete information (like Wednesdays' closing prices being the most recent available on Friday afternoon. CFS's so called advisors give poor service for stupidly high fees. I'm doing far better working through a broker. Do it yourself if you are financially competent or get into an industry fund. Don't deal with CFS. James

Chris, We invested $40k with CFS some 5 years ago, received interest payments initially & then the funds were frozen on 1.3.10 with no interest payments made since. There have been 16 payments made & still awaiting a final, albeit small amount ($290.83) remaining. As the Colonial is a part of the CBA group I had expected that Colonial would have been underwritten by CBA, but the CBA chose to hide behind the Colonial corporate entity - legal but un-Australian & socially unethical. Poor effort.

No, I would not recommend dealing with CFS based upon their poor, woeful management performance. Cheers JS

Wouldn't recommend investing with CFS. They are not pro-active and basically have a very vanilla bunch of investment options. There is no evidence of their "financial gurus" actually taking action based on trends or actual events.

Stay away from colonial first state....just been through the OPEN ADVICE REVIEW...THEY ARE ALL IN BED TOGETHER WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR MONEY. Commonwealth owns COLONIAL....put your money under the bed........and just borrow.....money is so cheap at the moment....Better to die owing a Million rather than trying To Make a million....nothing is returning anything....i have lost $200,000 BETWEEN NATIONAL AUS.....AND A.N.Z.....YOUR money DIsappears... But they make hugh Profits...?....How can that BE...!....Australian super is a scam......DON'T TRUST IT....!... ANY BANK IS WELCOME TO LOOK AT MY BOOKS...I

I thought that CFS like other super funds only charges a 1-2% spread on buying and selling prices on products (ie you sell for 1-2% less than you buy) plus a 1% to 2% annual management fee, depending on product. The bad old days of 4% entry fees / broker commissions are apparently history. You may be talking about the 15% Government tax on tax deducted contributions, which you can't avoid.