Hillross

Disgusting behaviour – After many years of valued advice to our parents the time sadly came that mental capacity reduced to the point that financial affairs had to be passed on - as had been prepared for some ten years previously. For the past two years the children have been dealing with all emails, taxes, banking etc. The annual meeting with the saleswoman (name… Read more

initials removed) was organised and especially in light of current market volatility (it being wuhan flu season) we had decided to look into the financial products a little more closely.

The litany of disgusting behaviour by hill ross is almost too numerous to cover adequately but I will try.

For starters there was no financial briefing, nor advice provided. There were lengthy discussions about various mental health and senior living options available. I am very firmly of the opinion that this meeting was primarily an information gathering activity on our finances and the mental health of their clients. There were no financial options available - simply very subtle but extremely firm 'suggestions' that we had to sign then and there as 'this is what your parents set up thirty years ago'. Why octogenarians with mental health issues fully and at length discussed in a near 4 hour meeting would 'have' to have all their available money in high growth funds with current extreme market volatility seemed very strange.

When we put forward cash as an alternative option we were told 'that's just gambling with your parent's money - you can't do that!'. Excuse me? Since when has cash been gambling??? I have never come across an australian financial advisor who has no faith in the $aud!

No signature was provided and further discussions were to be had with all siblings and for good measure I also contacted my accountant and provided relevant paperwork with a request he have a look as well as I had only ever seen financial products from this company so had no benchmark. He made a couple of comments, stressed he was not a financial advisor but would ask people he trusted what they thought and get back to me.

A few things struck me.

Firstly the 'advertised' fees totalled some $30k but there was no mention of any trails buried in the various products in the funds themselves. Also, this $30k spent buying the best advice possible (frequently stressed) in 'high growth' funds had managed -3% over the 2019/20 financial year. Very volatile year, sure, but the asx200 with no fees, managed -6%. Take out the hill ross fees (and the trails we don't know about) and I'd guess the asx200 beat the 'high growth' hill ross funds. As another family member said 'we are paying them $30kpa to gamble with our family money - why can't we gamble with it in cash for free, especially when they have done such a dismal job'. Fair point. My accountant could not believe that 80yo's would be 'forced' (with other options simply not provided) into high growth funds at all, let alone when the market is likely to suffer marked changes. Further, our accountant made the point that the products we were expected to 'sign up for' appeared to be in house amp financial products. After looking at the one document we did have to sign at the start of our meeting, we had to acknowledge we had already obtained independent legal and accounting advice - which was clearly impossible when we had only just been presented the document!

In short, and after lengthy discussions we made the decision to move the funds to cash. This notification was given in writing on a tuesday evening.

This is when our little hill ross saleswoman (name initials removed) really got her skates on to earn her money. Quite an impressive and illuminating performance it was as well.

Wednesday morning she contacted our parents solicitors and ascertained for herself that there was an 'out' clause in a recently updated poa we had been using for the previous couple of years. As we found out later, she informed our parents solicitor that under no circumstances were we to be notified of a meeting she had organised at our parents home the following day (thursday).

Because of concerns for general welfare as we had not been able to contact or locate my mother, I dropped in on the thursday to make sure she was ok. I found no-one home, but our lovely little saleswoman waiting in her car outside the house. It was 2:45pm and she told me she had been waiting since 1pm. We discussed the concerns I had for my mother's well being and it disturbed me she had missed an appointment as well. At this stage I had no reason to doubt the intentions of the matronly nice lady from hill ross - we had informed her in writing that we wished to move all the non pension products to cash so what was the concern? We had further discussions about our concerns for mental health and I spent about half an hour trying to locate the missing mother.

Shortly after this my mother appeared, had absolutely no idea there was any meeting organised but after a brief discussion I left. When I called my wife on the way home, she was suspicious but I was too trusting and left my mother alone - the fact there were written instructions attesting to our wishes seemed good enough to me and evening carers that prepare food and provide company for her would be arriving in an hour. Why should I be suspicious?

Despite the briefing on finances the previous week taking almost 4 hours, we later found out the meeting with my mother apparently took 20 minutes which included the hill ross saleswoman (m.A) helping herself to our mothers personal files and apparently also using our mothers pc!

I phoned the lovely hill ross saleswoman (name initials removed)the following morning (friday) to confirm the written instructions from tuesday had been complied with and to ask how my mother was as she had been missing the entire morning and was clearly a little 'vague' when I left her. To my horror I was told that mum was mentally 100%, understood everything perfectly and had elected to follow the advice of hill ross and at 82 years old stay in amp only, dismally performing, risky and extremely expensive high growth funds.

Shortly after this, my accountant called me after to speaking to advisors he had contacted and said that in short, the whole hill ross 'advice' summary 'simply stinks'. I then informed him of what had transpired that day and he was absolutely appalled.

Like many, I have been ripped off in my life, and I would consider myself an experienced/sophisticated investor. I have never seen anything like this performance by hill ross. My strong advice is no one should have any money 'invested' with them at all, but if you are over 65yo run away as fast as you can and be prepared for it to be made difficult.

If anyone has any family members who have money 'invested' with hill ross, please show them this story and very seriously look at extracting the funds as soon as possible.

This is straight jordan belfort 'wolf of wall st' stuff and especially after the banking rc I cannot believe any firm thinks this type of behaviour is acceptable.

Take control of your financial position today – My family and I are very grateful for all the financial advice we received from Hillross, especially from Paul Dawson. After I suffered a serious workplace injury, I struggled to see the light out of financial trouble and stress. Paul sat me down and helped me take control of my current financial position and work on a game plain that I can… Read more

proceed and protect the lifestyle for my family. I wish I saved myself stress by seeing Paul and the others at Hillross. Do your family a favor and remove the worry from your life, take control of your financial position today. Thanks again

Good gone Bad – When we first went to Hillross they were all over us. Told us how much better they were in comparison to others, but after 12 Months and a Profit, I might add, I needed some help and advice and they passed me off saying that wasn't there area and I would have to take care of it myself. They like taking your fees but don't like having to work for it. What am I paying for?? Not good service, that's for sure. Look elsewhere and check around first.

I learned the sure way to create wealth: become a Financial Adviser/Planner ! – We used the Hillross advisor based at Epping who we will be refered to as [Name removed]- not his real name (but pretty close ). Although appearing to be professional, he was very good at hiding the 0.5% trailing commission as there was no mention of it when asked about the fees prior to investing. Do not depend on a finiancial planner… Read more

identifying the best time to enter the market. It is like asking a barber if you need a haircut. This guy was no different.

The advice I recieved was minimal and resulted in a significant capital loss. The glossy plan that was provided is more to satisfy legal requirements than anything else.

The fact that this planner and most in general do not get better than market returns, is the real problem.

This is the thing.

You think they will do better and that they must be good at what they do. But really most including this guy are just very ordinary at picking various managed funds and they can't generate the returns to cancel out all the fees that they charge along with the management fees of the funds they invest in. They are more likely to sell one fund over another based on their commission.

They are the ones who make the real solid returns on your investment.

You get what's left after that.

Probably would have been a lot less disappointed if they were up front about the 0.5% trailing commission.

I would have done much better just putting all the money into an exchange traded index fund with minimal fees. Forget these guys and forget trying to beat the market. Minimising fees is the best way to maximise returns.

Expensive lessons learned.

Very little value for money