deVere Group
Reviews and Complaints

Several years ago DeVere moved assets in my QROPS, without approval, then lost money by opening a new savings account with Generali instead of Amending the existing simply to get commissions, I find this out at a later date when I finally found a trustworthy Adviser, but the really difficult part is DeVere keep calling me and asking me to return which is no only unprofessional but extremely annoying ..

I moved my small QROPS of £58000 and 5 years later in a period of financial growth of about 10% per year I made a loss and they took £6250 in fees. How can this be legitimate.

So disappointed and a little angry. Trust once lost is never recovered.

It seems like I only contact by the Finacial Advisor when it is of their interest to sell new products or if I provide the contact number for potential new clients.

It is VERY DISAPPOINTING!

I received some unwelcome news at the beginning of Februaury from the administrators of this plan STM Malta – essentially that with little prospect of any money being realised from the assets of the suspended PLL UAM Strategic Growth Fund the value of this investment is in effect being written off.

The facts as I see them are these:

•Paul Dodds of your Geneva office invested a transfer value of £99,354.66 into this QROPs plan and of that invested roughly 15% into the strategic growth fund in two tranches: an initial £14900.20 on 17.10.2017 and £702.23 on 26.11.2012.

•Less than two months later in February 2013 it appears that the fund was suspended. This nominal investment amount has sat there in stasis ever since while charges are being incurred. It has now been written off.

•Over the past seven years then the value of this pension fund has fallen from it’s initial transfer value to approximately £94,000 despite the length and strength of the bull market since 2010.

•I do not believe I have received any guidance on the nature of the investment in the strategic growth fund nor any formal communication about this situation from deVere despite the company still being named as the advisor on this plan. There was no advice on the illiquid nature of the products this fund has invested in nor during my update conversations with Paul Dodds any communications about its suspension.

I wrote to Paul Dodds directly about this matter on 16 February 2019 by recorded delivery to the deVere office at ROute de l'Aéroport in Geneva. Interestingly the post returned my letter yesterday unopened with the notification, translated, that the receiver could not be found at this address. Paul Dodds is still named as a director on the register of commerce.

I look forward to your response.

As many others i hav lost much money due to the misguided advice from deVere. In particular the failed Strategic Growth Fund, but also manual processing errors on deVere's side are main contributors.

Apparently the Generali Vision is called now Utmost Vision, without any information, and today i got informed that Utmost Wealth Solutions have made calculations mistakes and as a result must adjust my plan value down 10kEUR.

Outrageous! Can anyone be trusted in this industry?

Any advice on good legal support for this case welcome.

Hi,

I'm on Linked in as are many millions of others.

Like many millions of others I have moved around due to my senior roles; this is demonstrated by my role locations in my profile.

Every week I seek your people stalking my profile.

Devere - This does NOT give you the right to screen my profile, obtain my details and then continue to call every 2 weeks asking about where my pension is - I know you are doing this to many others.

I've been polite 30 times and explained NO and asked for you to remove me from your lists...only to find a different person then calling me a week later.

Completely Unprofessional. I will be speaking with LinkedIn about your practices including obtaining contact information & asking for your company to have access removed

My name is Armando Petrozzi, with Plan Number 9402****. Invested US$62000 but now my plan value is US$52,000.

Despite the fund itseflf has shown 25% profitability in the last 5 years the value of my plan has shown LOSSES of US$9000 due to charges made by DeVere.

I have written my assigned relationship with no response.

I will wait until this week for a formal response. If negative, will start legal actions to recover the funds.

Despite repeated requests over the last 2 1/2 years to stop and remove my name and number from their database, the cold-call team in Dubai just will not desist.

After first moving to Dubai over 2 years ago, I received a call from an agent who was very rude when I told him I wasn't looking for financial advice so I requested that no-one from de Vere contact me again.

Unfortunately, they have persisted to call my office regularly, and only today a woman called "Anna" phoned my colleague asking to speak to me and that she knew me.

When I called back, (clearly she did not know me) she made up some BS about me liking a de Vere Facebook post about UK tax advice and tried to sell their financial services.

I understand that the market is competitive but to have agents be rude when declining their services or deceptive when trying to sell services is not the way to go about it. Equally, to continue calling even after having been asked to stop has now led me to write this review.

I'm pretty sure that having requested to have my name removed from their database, still being contacted is likely to breach GDPR

Please stop, this is not the way to do business

Colin Kneale, a senior partner with deVere Group (Geneva) called me in August 2010, telling me he understood I was a British citizen now resident in Switzerland.

He asked whether I had pension savings back in the UK and, if so, with how many different institutions. I confirmed that I did, and explained these funds were spread across four different funds.

He then told me that I could benefit from the QROPS programme, established by law in the UK in 2006, which allowed UK citizens no longer resident in the UK to move their pension savings into offshore accounts that met specific criteria. He explained that by doing this, I could consolidate those various savings into a single account, making things easier to manage and make my money “work harder”.

I agreed to meet him to discuss.

At that meeting, he asked me to provide details of my UK pension accounts and to sign a letter authorising him to act on my behalf. I did this.

A few months later, he told me that my UK pension funds had been consolidated and had a total value of £154,947.

He then asked what level of risk I was willing to take with those funds and I explained, several times, that as these were my pension savings, my appetite for risk was very low.

Colin recommended a plan with Providence Capital, the trustees of which were Sovereign Trust Limited. He assured me this investment was low risk, ideal for pensions as it would ensure the funds kept pace with inflation. The fund was established in February 2011. Of the £154,947, Providence Capital invested £153,197 in a bond with Royal Skandia International and deducted £1,750 for first year Trustee fees.

Royal Skandia subsequently invested those funds in Four Elements Strategic Growth Plus securities.

In March 2012 I received a valuation of the fund for year end 2011 which showed a slight decline to £145,684. At the end of 2012, the fund had reduced to £134,130 . At the end of 2013, the valuation was £109,087. At no time did anyone from deVere advise me to move my funds elsewhere. By the time I received the 2013 statement and sought to do so, I was told the account had been frozen. Today, it appears there is virtually no hope of recovering any of my savings.

Given that (a) this entire event was prompted by an unsolicited call from a deVere agent, (b) I gave specific instruction that the investment vehicle for my pension savings be low risk and (c) at no time did deVere advise me to move the fund's elsewhere (advice that was offered to other clients), I believe deVere has failed in its duty of care. I would therefore ask the company to restore my pension fund to its start value, as defined in the annual valuation certificate I receive from Sovereign Trust.

Many thanks

Like many UK citizens living in South Africa around 2009/10 I was persuaded by DeVere SA (Tim Sant) to transfer my UK pension funds into an off-shore QROPS account. A significant portion of this was deposited into the now defunct Strategic Growth Fund. I am still paying fees as if the fund is still growing, which, as the fees are far more than the residual growth, will ultimately deplete the total value of my investment.

I have read various press articles about the SG fund fraud and dodgy dealings of DeVere executives in South Africa, and now read that, unsurprisingly, there are no recoverable assets from the Fund. To be honest I would like just to draw what little I have left in the two remaining small QROPS deposits.

My contact at DeVere in South Africa was Richard Pretorius, who no longer replies to emails. I spoke to Nathan Lennox at DeVere UK who was very helpful and explained the details of the issue around the SG fund, but which in effect was 'your f**cked!' It was not worth his while to deal with such a relatively small investment.

I will try to contact the Sovereign Trust in Guernsey directly, where my funds are managed, but not being in any way financially savvy, it would be nice if DeVere were to offer some final assistance for an unhappy former customer in order to close this sorry affair. Ian James

I have had an uphill battle with this company without any light at the end of the tunnel. My investment advisor has provided absolutely no advice, my investments have depreciated by over 50% over a period of 10 years and the only solution is to withdraw the funds and take the loss.

Unfortunately the small print says that the funds will only be released once the investments have been sold. So for the next 10 years or so, the management fees and commissions will be paid until I suppose the investment ceases to exist. They should be strung up and shot for manoeuvring behind the smoke and mirrors of their marketing lies. I have subsequently been told that my financial advisor was thrown out of Qatar and the UAE, imprisoned in Oman and has left the company.

Through other avenues, I discovered that he still works for the same company but behind a connect "separate" entity. Perhaps all the people that have been fleeced by this company should pay a personal visit to their offices.

My husband and I purchased a Generali "Vision Plan" #9403**** in Abu Dhabi through Devere Group, in July 2013. We are Americans who were both consulting in the UAE at the time.

For the past 9 weeks (starting on 5/21/18), we have been trying to cash out our policy, having been fully paid in all fees and having an account in good standing. Devere Group and Generali REFUSE to release the the full surrender value of our plan, despite us following every ridiculous instruction.

The Devere Acuma group in Abu Dhabi (evalyn.gomez@***e-acuma.com and jason.ambayec@***e-group.com

Tel: +971 * 509 ****, Mobile:+971 52 9** **39) required an ENORMOUS amount of forms and documentation, all originals with original signatures, to be couriered to Abu Dhabi. Evalyn and Jason received the documents, confirmed that the documents were all correct, and stated that they will forward the documents to Generali in Ireland. Then the Ireland HQs REFUSED to speak to us.

They received the documents and claimed that they were not the right documents. They (Thomas at international number 00253906****) further claimed that the plan we clearly have is illegal to purchase in the UAE. Therefore Devere broke the law selling it to us despite accepting our $3600US monthly payments for nearly 4 years. Thomas further stated that "he doesn't care what we were told." I think that is a side scam, b/c they are still asking for a completely different set of documents such as an original active lease, original utility bill, drivers' license, and a certified copy of my husband's passport...ALL TO PROVE OUR ADDRESS is what Thomas said.

I have DOZENS of emails to prove our experience with Generali and Devere. We are initiating a lawsuit against Generali and Devere for refusing to release the full surrender value of our policy.

How can the Ombudsman sleep at night when he allows the Devere group to carry on trading? T.W.M.

In 2010, my wife and I received a request from the DeVere representative handling the account to switch a significant part of the mutual funds we had to a group of new funds. This included allocating a quarter of the proceeds to the Strategic Growth Fund.

Three years later, came the debacle which over the last 4 years became a disaster, as it is now almost sure that we have no chance of money recovery. Therefore, under the advice of DeVere, we lost at least a quarter of our savings.

We have contacted DeVere officially, and their response has been simply shocking, denying first any involvement from DeVere, and when confronted with the facts, recommending to seek legal advice !!!

I worked for Devere (financial 'co-ordinator'). Essentially the office consists of people from Skegness who used to work in 2nd hand car sales or something equally unqualified.

They promise you the world when you get a job with them. In reality you sit in an office full of arrogant *** and have to call companies claiming to be from 'expat magazine' or something equally as ridiculous in an attempt to source names to then cold call and pitch financial services products to. Names are either sourced this way or Via linked in. Either way you are given no training on products or services.

Simply pressured into 'selling' by under qualified managers. Toby Williams is one of the area managers, he screws expats over then uses the money to spend on projects like his latest - 'The mansion' bangkok nightclub. The others invest in 'Levels' on Soi 11. Invest with them if you wish, just remember the fees are ridiculous and the 'consultants' don't have a clue what they're talking about.

If you're *** enough to say yes then I wish you the best of luck, you're better off buying lottery tickets though.

I would advise you don't invest with them, and if you are tempted by a job offer from them, don't bother. Unless you're from skegness of course...