1Wealth
1wealth now may have re-invented themselves as OWS , owsgroup.net , ows.net.au
The ACN links to One Wealth Management pty ltd.
May be re-incarnated as GTA or GTA Pacific now
11/3/15: May now be GT Australia or most recently, GT Alliance
links for more information:
One of our readers has brought to my attention the company 1Wealth, who market a stock trading program, with a price tag of $19,000!
There is a great thread over at AussieStockForums discussing this company along with great detective work uncovering the scam. Also a good thread going at whirlpool forums.
A Google search on 1wealth brings up a page full of seemingly legitimate results. There is a blog supposedly written by a client giving an un-biased view of how the program is performing. There are articles that look like they are on professional stock trading news websites, but they are obviously self-promoting and submitted by 1Wealth. Even a Facebook page…but they only have 1 like. How can that be with so many successful clients? Ok…I just found their second Facebook page, with 612 likes! Click on the Likes panel, and it reveals that most people liked it from Ho Chi Minh City, and were in the 18-24 age bracket. Hardly the normal Investor profile you would think.
They are a very slick operation and have gone to great lengths to make themselves appear legitimate. Got to hand it to them for that.
But check the threads at AussieStockForums and whirlpool forums
They are a good education on how to look into all these shady operations.
As always, please leave feedback if you have any on 1wealth.
This information is on the whirlpool forum already mentioned but totally out of the blue I received a glossy booklet in the mail from GT Australia in December 2014 followed up by a call from a ‘sales’ woman about 2 weeks later. I just told her that I could tell it was a scam and after a bit of a half hearted effort she gave up trying because I had raised several issues with proving it was a scam that she was unable to refute.
Since then they have apparently switched their name to GT Alliance. All they really need to do is get the occasional bite from somebody who is off guard and its easy money for them. I have read somewhere that they change their name about every 6 months to keep the heat off them.
They know that the authorities in fact couldn’t really care less because they are under resourced and overworked to deal with this sort of thing.
I understand that it is Gold Coast based. It is abhorrent to steal from and cause such pain to naive, unsuspecting people in this way.
Lets hope they get caught out and tripped up sooner rather than later.
I reported them to ASIC a few months back as they were harassing a few people I know. Anyway, ASIC did phone me and said they were concerned that 1Wealth didn’t have an AFSL (who gives a toss about that really). Then I got a formal letter from ASIC saying they have insufficient evidence of a scam and won’t be taking any action…and yet when I look up their FIDO section it fits all the criteria of a scam. I’m guessing ASIC couldn’t be bothered hunting them down, too costly an exercise for no financial reward. You’d have to be nuts to hand over $19K to some crook you spoke to on the phone…surely we’re smarter than that by now.