EUFA to bring Consumer Advocate to New Zealand

EUFA are bringing Successful Australian Consumer Advocate, Denise Brailey, to New Zealand. She arrives next week 9 June and is staying until 18 June. She and will be speaking to investors at public meetings and individually.

DENISE BRAILEY

Denise Brailey is one of Australia’s most well known and passionate campaigners for consumer interests and a powerful advocate for the victims of white-collar crimes, particularly independent retirees.

Once described as Australia’s answer to Erin Brockovich, the inspiration for the hit Hollywood movie of the same name, Denise Brailey has uncovered a total of fifteen national financial scams.

She is best known for her involvement in the pursuit of Finance Brokers in Western Australia which resulted in 23 arrests and more than 500 charges of fraud and stealing being laid against brokers, valuers and solicitors.

Nationally, there are believed to be around 80,000 victims who have been defrauded and robbed of their retirement and life savings to the value of $8 Billion to date. Tens of thousands of future investors are unaware they have lost their capital, as PONZI operators continue to transfer monthly income cheques to “older” clients, gleaned from the savings of new investors.

As head of her consumer support network, Ms Brailey has worked tirelessly for victims of crime and has been relentless in her campaigns for justice on behalf of tens of thousands of defrauded investors, most of them elderly retirees.

Ms Brailey believes that as consumers we cannot afford to feel complacent.

“Investors do not need to pay experts to assist them in losing capital. We all have a right to expect honesty and integrity in the market place when dealing with the professions, particularly legal practioners and members of the accounting, finance and banking sectors.

“Corporate Governance is back on the agenda and should be of prime concern to all stakeholders if we are to restore consumer confidence in the investment industry."

She said: “Australian consumers who had been hit by property and financial advice fraud were often dismayed with the lack of action when they approached the Australian Consumer and Investment Commission (“ASIC"). Often these complaints reveal that schemes/scams have crossed over into the finance sector involving lawyers, accountants, planners/advisors. Projects are designed to include financial products. Indeed, are dependent upon the non-bank sector as being part of the offer to consumers. Quality of financial advice is a key component of this process.”

“In law, ASIC has the discretion to pursue cases involving property financing. However, for the past decade, federal and regional agencies have continually backed away from their own statutorial obligations. Lack of enforcement of law by ASIC, has been to the express detriment of consumer interests. Major cases reported by Denise to authorities in 2000, have resulted in a string of recent company collapses, with Mums and Dads experiencing total loss of financial savings.”

“ASIC is Australia’s peak corporate regulation body but average people feel that it does not represent their interests. Federal Parliament contemplated a consumer protected environment, yet ignored 1996 warnings of a potential for regulatory conflict of interest. ASIC was given the dual role of looking after the interests of members of the financial planning industry and those of the consumer.”


The Federal regulator has been overwhelmed with 12,000 complaints per year, yet only 0.2% of those complaints are dealt with in terms of criminal conduct and a mere 250 cases are even investigated.”

During the past decade and a half, Denise has been featured on dozens of documentaries including award winning “Australian Story, Four Corners, Business Insiders, Today Tonight and A Current Affair.” Her message has been a determined effort to clean up the property, banking and finance sector.

Her pursuit of finance brokers in Western Australia resulted in 23 arrests, more than 500 charges of fraud being laid against brokers, valuers and solicitors. Nationally, she has exposed over $8 billion worth of losses in various finance and property industry scams.

Ms Brailey shot to prominence in the mid 1990’s when she won a landmark case against a real estate agent, which became a benchmark for other people to pursue dishonest agencies. In 1996 she formed a support group known as “RECA” empowering victims to fight back to recover their funds and lobby for criminal investigations to commence.

During 1998 and 1999, Ms Brailey lobbied State and Federal Governments to hold inquiries into the failure of regulatory agencies to properly protect consumer interests.

In 1999, she concentrated her efforts to assist victims of fraud in the Eastern States and finally moved back to her home state of NSW in mid 2003, to support younger victims of pernicious practices.

Her first task in Sydney, was to investigate the activities of creating wealth spruikers, resulting, six months later, in the downfall of Henry Kaye’s empire known as the National Investment Institute (“NII”).

She gathered together 500 investors from five States and encouraged them to allow her to use their proxies to bring down NII and several of its associated companies. Once again Denise organised recovery funding for class actions to pursue those who provided finance facilities to NII.

In 2000, Ms Brailey identified disturbingly dishonest activities in the finance sector with products sold as Mezzanine/Debenture investments. She warned: “PONZI scams are rife in Australia today, with the average loss per victim of white-collar-crime being around $200,000. Consumers are in grave danger of losing their homes and/or their superannuation nest-eggs.”

During 2002, Ms Brailey exposed the rising instance of Loan Application Fraud and Deposit Bond Application Fraud, once again calling on Federal Government to respond to a looming disaster for investors.

She claimed: “Quality of financial advice is critical to all of us when planning financial security for our future. Yet those who seek advice can easily fall prey to an army of rogues who have entered into the property and finance sector and appear to breach our laws with impunity.”

Brailey said: "too many people are coming to us for assistance and we have decided to teach people how to protect themselves, by revealing the secrets of how opportunists continue to set up PONZI scams in large corporate structures involving up to 100 companies."

The operators targeted by Denise’s activities, were asked by the regulator to sign “letters of undertaking,” and then permitted to continue to raise funds.

The collusive activities of licensed professionals, created a consumer complaint crisis. Brailey again criticised ASIC’s failure to reign in those responsible for over two billion dollars worth of losses. She warned: “Consumers ask licensed advisors for safe and secure financial products – instead receiving high risk junk investments.”

In 2003, Mum and Dad investors had become the target of shopping mall spruikers, who invited retirees and pensioners to use the equity in their own home as security for development investments.

Ms Brailey warned: “Brokers are marketing promoter-driven guarantees that the home-loan commitments will be met by the developer company. False income figures are being entered on loan application forms after signatures have been obtained and without client consent or knowledge.

One year later, investors discovered the developments were non-existent and victims were left with anything up to a $500,000 loan which could not be serviced on their current income.

Bogus Loan Application Forms (“LAFs”) are filled out by intermediaries, stating an exaggerated income of $400,000, thereby hiding the true income of $40,000. Brailey again used her skills to complain to the Federal Executive: “By using genuine reforms enabling low doc loans to exist, these parasites are fraudulently stealing the mortgages over real property and placing in jeopardy the low doc loan industry. The Australian Tax Office has discovered a wide discrepancy between income stated on many LAFs and the income declared on tax returns and is using this is investigate individuals for tax avoidance.”

In 2005, Brailey met with senior investigators from the ATO in Sydney, causing the investigation to be passed over to ASIC.

Ms Brailey shared this vital information with key industry players in an attempt to stop the activities of licensed rogues and bring those responsible to book.

Her efforts have been widely reported and have led to the following:-

Empowering consumers of financial products across all States of Australia.
17 persons jailed and many others facing trial.
Exposure of Henry Kaye’s activities leading to major investigations.
8 Federal and State Parliamentary Inquiries into Property Investment Advice*.
Exposure of Mortgage Brokers using worthless promoter-driven guarantees.
Lobbied against the Government in WA, forcing change of Government.
Six Ministers losing their seats.
Stood for Parliament in order for Consumer Minister to lose his seat by allocated preferences.
Identified in Chapter Three as one of the “Fraudbusters” – book of same name distributed to High Schools by Macquarie Bank.
Legislative change to tighten up corporate behaviour in Financial Planning sector.
Led Street marches in five major capital cities to highlight plight of consumers.
Organised Buses to Canberra – message direct to Prime Minister.
Early warnings and specific identification of PONZI schemes.
Recovery of over $100 million in funds to date.
ASIC investigations commenced into Loan Application Fraud.
Change of Chairman at ASIC due to public criticism campaign.


Providing ASIC in 2001 and 2003 with list of companies expected to collapse due to structure most of which had collapsed by 2005/2006, owing several billion dollars to investors including Westpoint, Bridgecorp, ACR and Fincorp.
Saving a number of people’s homes from forced sale by non-banks.
Exposure of wide-spread credit violations in non-banking sector.
Royal Commission into Finance Brokers in Western Australia.
Numerous Groups now in a strong network of electronic communication across all cities in Australia and overseas.
Exposure of similarities between US Sub Prime Scandals and the Australian Models of Deceit.
Parliamentary Submissions leading to further exposure of the extent of the losses.
Questions raised in all Parliaments, leading to knowledge of $34 Billion of suspect companies, producing warnings of further losses to come.
Extensive and continuous media coverage, resulting in documented evidence being made available for public scrutiny.
Providing education for future consumer/investors on what to avoid and what questions to ask.
Providing historical research on the subject of white collar crime in the property, finance and banking sectors.
Exposure of flawed valuations leading to change of State legislation and restructuring of the Boards that control Land Valuers, Finance Brokers, and Real Estate Agents.



Inquiry findings are disturbing and beg the question as to why fraudsters continue to invade the market place, despite regulatory monitoring of the situation over a twenty year period.

Denise is now actively trying to bring consumers together into one National Consumer Protection Unit and encouraging an International alliance for the purpose of sharing information from the Consumer’s perspective.

*INQUIRIES:

· Les Smith Inquiry into Real Estate Agents Board WA 1997
· Gunning Inquiry into all four Boards and Department of Fair Trading WA 1999
· Senate Inquiry into Tasmanian Law Society, Tas 2000
· Travers Parliamentary Inquiry into Finance Brokers WA 2000
· Temby Royal Commission into Finance Brokers WA 2001
· MCCA Inquiry into Property Spruikers on order of the Prime Minister 2003
· Senate Inquiry into Property Investment Advice 2005
ASIC Review into its own procedures and complaint handling