Hi Neak,
Can I suggest you phone centrelink and ask what their rules and criteria are for income producing assets – they are pretty helpful. There is usually a sliding scale that reduces your pension when you have assets over a certain value.
In relation to trusts, as fas as I know you are required to declare any benefit you are receiveing form a trust distribution, so I really dont think it makes any difference.
Cath

Collector,
Can I suggest your freind call lifeline (131144 if they are in sydney) They will be able to put them on to a financial counselling organisation, who would be professionals trained to deal with the situation. There are options rather than going bankrupt.

There are 2 problems here: your friends spending habits (which created the situation in the first place) and the immediate crisis they are in. I had a freind that worked for lifeline, and they got these type of calls all the time.

Hope this helps

Cath

Hi,

I had a similar situation (but not as bad as this) on a recent settlement (I was purchaser)
* solicitor handed file to clerk
* 5 days before settlement, I had not heard from them, phoned solicitor to see what was going on
* “girl” started by telling me she had a cold, husband/kids had cold – sorry but I dont care, I jsut want my property settled
* she stated she had not heard back from my current lender (ie. who were to organise release of funds from old mortgage) – they had sat on the documents
* as it takes longer than 4 days for discharge documents to be prepared, settlement was delayed by 4 days (vendor had right to charge me interest but did not, fortunately)
* on settlement day, as it was related party transaction, my solicitor was responsible for having an independent vaulation to give to OSR, but she forgot to do this – all 5 parties at settlement were sitting around for an hour while she got this from my lender (if my lender had elected not to give this to her, settlement would have been further delayed)
* there were a few other stuff-ups as well

Although this wasn’t a disaster, the lesson I learned was that even though you are paying them money to execute the settlement, you still have to be on top of the process and not rely 100% on anyone, ie. chase people up, check and double check, take notes of conversations, keep copies of everything, make sure lender/solicitor/real estate is doeing what they are supposed to be doing.

Office of fair trading is a good starting point, how about the law society in your state also.
As soon as they get wind that you are reporting them for their incompetence, they may just give you your money back.

Hope this helps

Cath

UsanaAssociate and everyone,

One of my friends was in Amway for a couple of years, and had a few disturbing stories.

There was a couple in her upline (ie. they were quite senior in Amway), and Amway Head Office made them lease out a jaguar at their own expense, so they would be perceived by their downline to be mega-successful in their Amway business.

One of their tactics they had to use was inviting themselves around to people’s house for a coffee, not telling them that it was Amway, and then try to talk them into joining Amway.

Somehow I dont think I would feel comfortable with the above, but I guess every company has their own set of ethics/strategies in trying to make $$$.

Hope this helps

Catherine

I used to work for a company that outsourced all its telemarketing (and other services) to Manila and Bangalore. They did this to cut costs as it is cheap labour ie. these people get paid about 40% of what we get for doing the same job. It’s not the caller who is the ogre here, only greedy corporations.

I feel a bit sorry for them because: unemployment is so high, often this type of work is their only option and there is little social security. Also, English is not their first language, and also there are vast culture differences in dealing with various situations.

Have a bit of compassion guys, I know they are annoying, I am still polite but assertive in dealing with these calls.

Whatever they say when I pick up the phone, I just say “who is calling please”. And then when they say they are from ABC company, I just state “I dont want to buy any of your products/services, thanks for your call”. And hang up.

For me, the true value of the seminar is what you get out of it: ie. if a seminar costs you say $3K, and you can use the knowledge/contacts to go on and say make $10K, then I consider that it was worth the cost.

A word of warning though: beware of seminars that use subliminal brain-washing tactics to try to get you to sign up to the next one. I saw anthony robbins last year, and although the seminar content has some great ideas that I have since put into practice, I was appalled at the brainwashing techniques used to try to get participants to sign up the the “Robbins University” ie. $12K for the next 3 courses. It was actually quite insulting to me, as I DO NOT appreciate being psychologically manipulated. Fortunately I was on to it straight away, but I was disturbed by the 100+ people who signed up for the series. At $12K each, Mr Robbins made 1.2M in about 3 hours. Good one Tony.

I’ll get off my soapbox now.

Cath