The corporate regulator confirmed on Thursday (4 November) that it has moved to shut down A One Multi Services on suspicions that the Queensland business is engaging in unlawful activity.
It’s alleged that Gold Coast-based director Aryn Hala has alluded to investors that he can help them invest their superannuation in an SMSF and then loan the money in the SMSF to A One Multi, where they would then receive 20 per cent investment returns.
Between 1 January 2019 and 30 June 2021, ASIC alleges that approximately $25 million was deposited into the business’ accounts by over 60 consumers and that Mr Hala used more than $5.7 million of the money for his and fellow director Heidi Walters’ personal benefit, including acquiring property and luxury cars in their names.
More than $2.4 million of the money was also transferred from A One Multi accounts to buy crypto assets.
On 21 October, the court ordered A One Multi into the receivership of John Ross Lindholm and Timothy James Michael, as well as forced asset orders against Mr Hala, Ms Walters and A One Multi and travel restraints against Mr Hala and Ms Waters.
Mr Hala was also ordered to transfer crypto assets in his name to the receivers with the first tranche held in his name transferred on 25 October.
ASIC’s investigation into Mr Hala, Ms Walters and A One Multi is ongoing.
Crypto product spruikers are becoming very common. A lot of my mates are in these Crypto schemes pushed by a fellow who works in IT.
I haven’t been able to get a job despite having DFP and ADFP (nobody wants a 54yo!), and getting a licence seemed arduous – but it seems I could just trade without a licence. Provided I do a good job, it seems there would be no worries. How sad.
Consumers have two options.
1. Use a licensed financial adviser and pay between $4-15K. From what we have seen, the chance of you being taken for a ride is very low – note this is excluding the FFNS.
2. Use an unlicensed adviser and pay much less. However, the risk of you being taken for a ride is exponentially higher.
Instead of making it harder for the licensed advisers (who 99% of them are ethical and want to work in the best interest of their clients), ASIC should be actively trying to create an environment that makes it easier for licensed advisers to provide advice at a price point that allows more people to get advice.
Get rid of SOAs, stop pretending we need to know everything abut our clients before we provide advice.
The dodgy operaters arent registered with ASIC and therefore they get less attention than legitimate advisers.
I no longer see clients who won’t pay an upfront fee of $4,950 which is about 7 in 10 clients who I speak to and they all then call someone like these people.
Let’s also put ASIC’s effort into perspective — 30 months and $25M is gone because they were too slow to act in addition to being the cause of advisers not assisting clients without a significant increase on their previous fees
Same. Very demoralizing to turn so many people away. The red tape is caused by a lack of representation more so than ASIC…But Agree, definitely ASIC has made it very clear you get your advice from the Accountant (during the 15 minute tax return) and you buy a product from a firm with deep pockets that provides general advice. That mentality is something we need to work on.
Hi I know this has nothing to do with this article but I just wanted to voice my opinion on what a non sensical load of questions that are in the FASEA exam 80% of them have absolutely nothing to do with what advisers do on a day to day basis, designed by an academic for an academic.It needs to be stated as every adviser I speak to feels the same and sadly we don’t have a voice to feed this back to FASEA etc
Yes Rod, off topic but I agree with you 100%.
This will only get more common. Consumers once would go to licensed advisers and actually get advice but ASIC are very adversarial when it comes to licensed advice, which only creates opportunities for firms like these. In addition, as we know, the licensed advisers that are left are just going to be paying for all this. I’ve made the decision to leave because I can’t get staff, and my costs have gone up, the red tape has rise and I can actually make more money being a Paraplanner and a second gig providing Compliance support, then actually a Financial Planner can with 100 clients and making $400K to $500K in revenue employing staff.
Nothing wrong with the industry or compliance, we are in the golden age of advice, however, bad advisers will get out because now you must do something to get paid. Welcome to the real world. FYI high paid Paraplanners are not the future so don’t think that will make the grade and think you have no responsibility for what you do, but that’s another story.
If you think this is the golden age of advice I think you need your head read. The only benefit now is to advisers as ordinary Australians are been either priced out or ripped off. Yes I agree it’s a great time to be an adviser, but it’s the worse time for a consumer to be wanting advice. That model doesn’t stand the test of time. There’s a lot of Advisers that are Advisers because they want to help, as opposed to some advisers, that are charging wealthy people ridiculous fees for simply processes, because you’re pricing is built on signing 3-4 forms to charge a single fee.
I’m sure the ordinary adviser will cop the increased Adviser Levy for this action along with more bills, regulation and red tape that will be passed on to the advisers and AFS/ACLs.
And all the legislation that applied at the time, fee disclosures, SoA’s etc definitely helped to prevent this happening! Thank goodness also for the post 1 July FDS and Advice agreement requirements, not to mention TMD’s – a far more robust framework to stop this behaviour. Or maybe not…
Sounds like ASIC were late to the party again. Have they ever tried a Google search to simply identify these companies? Or better yet ask Financial Advisers because we all know them.
This is what ASIC should be targetting – but not billing us for.
Tip of the iceberg. This is the type of outfit that is flourishing due to regulatory resources being focused on vilifying and persecuting licensed advisers. Regulators have not only created an environment where it’s easy for dodgy operators to thrive, they have driven consumers into their arms by disparaging honest, professional alternatives.
ASIC proposes to deregister the Company under section 601AB published 27th August 2019 .. one wonders why corporate action takes so long and how many more could be saved if there was an ability to intervene quicker
send the bill to us as per usual ASIC
despicable conduct. another Gold Coast scam.