In a recent episode of the XY Adviser podcast, former AMP adviser David Haseldine said recent developments in the case had seen AMP taken to task for hidden clauses in its exit contracts which excluded departing planners from participating in the action brought against the wealth giant earlier in the year.
“It’s come out as part of the class action hearing – Corrs [Chambers Wesgarth] said to the judge ‘this is just wrong’, so the concession was now AMP have to spell out to people that they want to have sign these contracts that if they do sign they will be waiving their rights,” Mr Haseldine said.
“They are still putting these bullshit contracts in front of planners, but they’ve got to spell it out that if they do sign they will be waiving their rights. I don’t know how this is going to play out, but it’s all sorts of wrong.”
Mr Haseldine, who purchased a book of majority grandfathered commission clients from AMP in 2015 for $240,000 using a loan from AMP Bank, said he had failed an audit of 15 ongoing fee arrangement client files in February, after having his practice value reduced when AMP wrote down its BOLR values in August 2019.
“That gave AMP the ability to turn off the fees to those clients. Going back the last two years since the royal commission, my practice was struggling, so you turn off the fees to half my ongoing fee clients and I’m pretty much insolvent,” he said.
Mr Haseldine said AMP Bank offered to make his debt interest free in return for taking his home as security, but he declined after discovering terms within the contract said the bank was able to put the loan into default “at their discretion”.
Responding to Mr Haseldine’s comments in the podcast, an AMP spokesperson said, “AMP Bank’s priority is supporting advisers, addressing their unique needs and circumstances so fair and reasonable outcomes can be reached”.
Mr Haseldine said he had handed in his authorisation with AMP and managed to refinance the debt through a third party without signing a settlement deed with the company, which would have “waived [my] rights against all future actions against AMP” and left him unable to work as an adviser for a number of years.
“I’m now moving on with my business and my life – I’m $200,000 in debt over and above the value I’ve lost over the last 10 years being associated with AMP, but I have loyal clients so I’ve been able to retrieve some of it,” Mr Haseldine said.
“But for the guys that have had no option but to take the crumbs AMP has left on the table and sign away their rights in the process that are still in debt and can’t work for three years, they are the guys and ladies I really feel for because there’s a distinct lack of hope for that group, which is a horrible place to be.”
The comments come following recent ifa reporting that exiting AMP planners were not being allowed a proper appeals process after failing file audits, which could see them lose the full value of their business under the terms of their commercial agreements with the wealth giant.
A spokesperson for AMP told ifa at the time there was “a process for advisers should they wish to have their audit reassessed and present additional information”.
“The BOLR audit is a thorough process designed to ensure advisers receive fair and appropriate valuations based on the quality of their business and fulfillment of their service agreements with clients,” the spokesperson said.
The dictionary should define conflict of interest as AMP.
ASIC was going to bring criminal charges against AMPs execs. Where is it? AMP will continue with the behaviours until the management is held accountable.
There is nothing AMP wont stop at to punish advisers trying to escape the Orwellian, woke nightmare of incompetence that is AMP. AMP weaponised their compliance program specifically to dud exiting advisers on their already arbiterialy halved BOLR.
Amazing that ASIC hasn’t done more to address issues at AMP. If Dover and Sam Henderson got wound up why not AMP? Look at the dollar ammounts involved!
I don’t think ASIC wound up Dover or SH, didn’t they hand back back their AFSL voluntarily?
Well Done. It is time the real story is heard and not the made up one that AMP is spinning. They are the most corrupt and ruthless organisation in Australia. We need the truth to be told.
IFA your behaviour in not placing comments critical of AMP submitted by myself leads me to believe you are part of the problem by censoring comments of critique from a legal viewpoint. Lets see how this plays out in 2021….you either want a solution for advisers or pander to the destruction of advisers.
They aren’t pressuring exiting planners – they are forcing them. If I don’t sign the deed they take away my AR and my client base and leave me with the debt, which results in bankruptcy and then most likely divorce. The first correspondence I got from AMP Bank about my situation had “without prejudice” in bold letters across the top and threatened to sell my house, I’m glad that is “supporting advisers, addressing their unique needs and circumstances so fair and reasonable outcomes can be reached”
Divorce? What happened to “..for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part,…” I don’t think you ever had a keeper there by the sound of it.
that’s harsh mate. don’t kick this poor guy when he is down. Advisers need to band together.
Why am I arguing with myself?
How do you know its a “guy”?
Please speak to your local MP and senator. This abuse has to stop!! ASIC CAN YOU BLOODY STOP CHASING ADVISERS FOR A SIGNED TRIPLICATE COPY OF THE OPT IN NOTICE AND DO YOUR F@8!’N JOB!!!????
You need to speak your local MP or Senator to raise your concerns about ASIC.
Well done Mr Haseldine!
AMP iwas once a proud company with good stewardship at its helm. Today, they care less for the adviser, they don’t care about consumers as revealed in the Royal Commission and have mean spirited leadership with only self interest in their minds and pockets. The share price when it floated back when, rose to some $40 per share. Today it languishes at just a mere $1.60. This is due to abhorent leadership. In short, the company is now a basket case, waiting to be taken over. A proud company once before is now a disgrace. Shame.
Apart from any thing else this restraint of trade for 3 years would not hold up in a challenge.
I never understood how anyone could become an AMP adviser in the first place. Furthermore, even if I would have considered it, the extremely one-sided and iniquitous contracts would have made me run a mile. Caveat emptor has rarely been so true.
Surely anyone buying grandfathered clients in 2015 and expecting they would always retain value at 4x, in a changing advice world, were kidding themselves? I think many, many Planners that held conflicted clients (including myself) have suffered capital loss over recent years but the writing has been on the wall for a while.
Fair point Lindso if that was their expectation. However the pitch from AMP, and the expectation of most advisers who purchased these registers, was that the new adviser would more actively engage these grandfathered clients and convert them to fee for service.
However to do this the new adviser needed a way to contact those clients. In many cases AMP either didn’t have, or didn’t provide, up to date contact details for the clients they sold. Advisers should be refunded their purchase price for those clients through failure to deliver on the original contract. Nothing to do with BOLR.
Let’s leave out whether these arrangements really pass the smell or pub tests, it seems unbelievable that AMP can renege on their obligations to these advisers. It appears AMP are taking the “we are the 900kg gorilla, so take us on & we’ll exhaust you mentally & financially” approach.
The gun to the head approach of “sign this or else” shouldn’t wash in this day & age, but trampling over people’s rights is now their calling card.
A question for the lawyers out there…surely the Unfair Contract Terms legislation was designed to catch this type of behaviour.
I believe the Unfair Contract Terms legislation was only extended to protect small businesses in November 2016. It would be interesting to know if any of the affected AMP practices signed contracts after this date, and whether they are pursuing Unfair Contract Terms as their line of defence?