Complaint Review: Generali

I had a very unpleasant and costly experience with De Vere Group Financial Planners which was made possible and all the worse by the Generali Bond that they missold to me.

What was NOT made clear to me by Generali or De Veres is that ALL commission on the bond is payable upfront to the advisor selling you the product which means that I am now locked into a very expensive and unsuitable product.

This goes a long way to explaining why I never heard from the De Vere group again after signing despite promises of regular updates and meetings.

For an unscrupulous company like De Vere this type of product is a God send.

This means that if you wish to transfer the management of the product to any other financial advisor as I did when De Vere left me high and dry they will have to charge you for managing it. It also means that if you wish to exit early the fees are astronomical as ALL commission that was paid upfront to your IFA is included in the exit fee..ironic really!!!!

Generali products are expensive anyway. Their fees are way in excess of other comparable products available through other companies and when asked why they do this and how it served me, the client, I recieved no reply.
I can only assume that they, like De Veres just want your money without providing service and this is a great incentive and temptation to unscrupulous IFA like De Veres and it can only serve to encourage bad practice within the field of IFA. When I  told Generali about the misspelling of their product to me and the lies told to me by De Vere regarding the fee structure they did nothing and still do business with the De Vere Groupspeaks volumes!!!!

Incidentally, I know this story  makes me sound very naive however I did ask pertinent questions regarding the fee structure when considering the product as in the literature it seemed excessive and expensive however I believed what De Veres told me about how that worked which turned out to be a pack of lies. This experience has cost me dearly and I would like to think that this will save others from that experience where De Veres or Generali are concerned.