Friday, March 8, 2013

Super?

What do you think of your Super. Do you have a few accounts and do you read the statements or not if they are lost and just let it go. I have been fairly careful up until recently with my Super.

I  have a love hate relationship with it.

I decided that the account that I had which I had rolled all my super accounts and you can accumulate a few when you spend many years temping as I did that I liked on in particular and that was that. in they all went and when i had a lump sum to invest I popped that in too and grabbed the tax deduction. That was until the next statement and all the money that I had invested was gone. The market had done poorly and it was not there anymore.  A bit of a nasty shock and this is where the hate part comes up it felt like someone had come along and just stolen the money with no recourse.

So I decided after another bit of temping that I would change my super into this new account as soon as I got a moment, it had to be better than the one i had right?  I have the paperwork all piled up and the first statement of the account.  Great, you say. Well you always should read the fine print and no you have to nominate NOT to have the insurance come out of your account.  If you say nothing it's automatic and all the other things that they can pile on your little tiny super.  My account in 2 months it went from just over $130 to $0.00 and closed. Done and dusted, so much for member protection and so much for the government looking after these small accounts.  I rang and spoke to them, I asked about the deductions how could someone just steal from the account without my permission, we sent you a member pack!  I asked how they could charge so many fees, they told me that they didn't even though the statement was being looked at which clearly stated, Account keeping fee, (charged on a weekly basis), Member protection fee, which I have no idea about and still wonder what they protected?  So forth.... you get the picture.

I could write to them and they would evaluate if I could have MY money back.  Amazing isn't it!

I think I have learnt a very valuable lesson, do not go with a new super account until you have all the facts, do not trust the super to just look after your money it will go and make sure that you read the details.