We ask the Treasury to please arrange for the immediate and urgent payment of the $36 million we seek in order to settle these matters as expeditiously as possible.

Recently a small Ponzi by comparison involving the same “cast of characters” has emerged with what we believed to be a $ 36 million loss to retirees in WA, QLD and Victoria. A company using (with ASIC’s permission) the word “trust” in the registered  company name but no trust account was used. Instead the bank accounts were used as a personal piggy bank: the usual model. The money evaporated.

We have older people who are living in substandard structures and threatened with eviction (at least three are suffering from a terminal illness, with only months to live); landlords who have 100% loans (debt) and no income (due to stolen funds) via seven banks; plus aggrieved so called “investors,” who are immediately left for years without income but loaded up with fakes shares in non-listed companies. We are calling for moratoriums on the mortgage loans due to this diabolical situation.

Devious entrepreneurs use a specific way of starting a company using a Ponzi structure, creating “information memorandums” instead of prospectuses. The so called “financial products” are exposed when investors attempt to ask for their invested funds be returned; innocent people are then sent into a never-ending cycle of roll-overs until collapse. Those who scream loudest in the initial stages are paid out by new victims. ASIC seems incapable or too lazy to bother to investigate thoroughly and issue stop orders, when breaches of Corporations Law are so easily identified.

We expect that due to the urgency of older investors left without income, owners being unable to pay their mortgage commitments, and the elderly tenants unable to pay rent as per the Sterling contracts and the funds being stolen, that ASIC develops a speedy resolution, in a doable time frame of no more than eight weeks. 

For this reason, we have united all victims under one banner. No matter the legal issues regarding Sterling and its Administrators, this payment is a one-off situation to cover the losses caused directly by ASIC’s failures and willful negligence.

We hope common sense prevails in this appalling yet highly preventable situation. Delay in decision-making will only further prolong the agony for those suffering such horrendous loss and the potential for homelessness within weeks.

Just a few of the related media articles:

• Fallout from Sterling First scandal affecting more than 100 Australians
• Toothless regulator fails retirees hit by scam
• ASIC accused of ‘negligence’ over Sterling First inaction
• ‘The system stinks’: Retirees face eviction after collapse of Sterling First group
• Sterling First raised $8m after ASIC probe
• Sterling First: how financial regulators let down desperate retirees
• Sterling First insider breaks silence on collapsed scheme
• ASIC starts internal probe over Sterling First collapse
• ASIC spotlight on Sterling First firms over ‘serious allegations’ of misconduct before collapse
• Aloof ASIC needs to start talking to those it serves
• The Government ‘couldn’t care less’ about Sterling First victims