Scam Me Two Times, Baby!

Hi Scott,

Your article on land banking hit me between the eyes. You really try and protect people. I wish I had listened to your advice! I invested about $100k in a land banking deal, which I paid for with an SMSF they set up for me (just like you said). The company is now in liquidation, and lawyers are trying to get some money back for us investors. At the age of 53 I am left with only $30k in super and a huge mortgage to pay. I want to close my SMSF down, but the lawyers say that if they get some money it has to be paid back to the same super fund. It’s costing me $2,000 a year to keep it open. What should I do?

Lisa

Hi Lisa,

Most people get robbed with a gun -- you got robbed with a pen.Here’s the thing that frustrates me about white-collar crime: if they’d used a gun instead of a pen, these crooks would be (rightly) rotting in jail, and you’d have some recourse to your money through the ‘Victims of Crime’ compensation system.

Yet this scam is aided and abetted by lawyers, and is designed with the end game in mind -- making off with your loot, no matter how long it takes them. (At the very least, when a scumbag sticks you up in a dark alley you know what the outcome will be -- and that it’ll be over quickly.)

For all these reasons it’s doubtful they’ll ever get you any money -- that was never part of the plan. However, I can understand you live in hope that they’ll get some back for you, and if so it’s true they can only pay the trustees of your current super fund.

So you’ll have to keep it open. However, with only $30,000 in your account it’ll be eaten up if you live in hope for too long. My recommendation is to switch your fund over to an outfit like esuperfund, which will run an SMSF for $799 (it will still be the same fund, just managed by a different outfit). If at the end of the two years there’s no money, close it down.

Scott