Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

It’s up to you whether to make a complaint to the Australian  Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) about a financial business, but you’re more likely to get money back if you do. Some of the financial advice businesses have shut down, which means they may not be able to pay people any money they are owed. If AFCA awards you money and the financial advice business doesn’t pay, you can make a claim to the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR). If you don’t make a complaint to AFCA, you can’t ask the CSLR to pay you. Making a complaint to AFCA is free.

No, you don’t need to complain to the financial business first. If you want to make a complaint to AFCA, we recommend you make the complaint as soon as possible, so you don’t miss the deadline. 

Usually AFCA encourages people to complain directly to the financial business first before complaining to AFCA. However, because of the deadlines and the fact that many financial advice businesses have shut down, for complaints relating to the collapse of Shield and First Guardian, AFCA will accept complaints if you don’t complain to the financial business first.

You can make one complaint per person per financial business. For example, if you and your spouse were invested in First Guardian through Diversa and you both received financial advice through Interprac,  you can each lodge a complaint about Diversa and each of you can lodge a complaint about Interprac. If you have a self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF), you can also make a complaint in your role as the trustee of your SMSF. Making a complaint about every financial business that did something wrong will increase the chances you get fully compensated.

If AFCA cannot accept a complaint, they will tell you why. The most common reason AFCA cannot accept a complaint is because it’s been made against the wrong person. You can look up the correct company to make a financial advice complaint about using our lookup tool.

Another reason why AFCA can’t accept a complaint is if your complaint is about an issue that AFCA is not allowed to deal with. Often AFCA cannot deal with complaints that relate to something that is part of the role of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to look at. For example, AFCA cannot deal with complaints about the way a super fund is managed as a whole, which is ASIC’s job, but AFCA can deal with complaints about misleading or incorrect information a super fund gave you. Read more about complaints about super funds below.

If you don’t understand why AFCA rejected your complaint or you need help making a new complaint, you should consider getting legal advice.

You can make a complaint against a financial advice business if a financial adviser gave you advice, whether or not you actually spoke to the adviser. Most people who invested in Shield or First Guardian gave a financial adviser consent in writing to switch their super and to take fees from their super to pay for financial advice. Some people spoke to an adviser, but others only spoke to someone from a marketing company who was working with the financial adviser. Check your emails to see if you received a ‘statement of advice.’ This is a document that a financial adviser must give you if they give you financial advice. The statement of advice will include details of the advice given and the name of the adviser who gave it. You can also ask your super fund if they paid fees to a financial advice business and if so, which one.

If you make a complaint to AFCA about bad financial advice you received, there is a chance that the adviser’s company (if it’s still running) or the regulator may discipline the financial adviser if they have done something wrong.

Yes, but you can’t ask to be repaid your original investment twice. AFCA won’t make a financial business pay you money you’ve already been paid back, but they can award you money for other things. For example, if you received poor financial advice, AFCA could award you lost earnings – the amount of money your super would have made if you had stayed in your old fund instead of switching. You can also ask for the return of advice fees you paid or other amounts of money you had to spend as a result of losing your investment or the advice that you got.

You can make a complaint against both your super fund and your financial adviser. Making a complaint about every financial business that has done something wrong related to your investment in Shield or First Guardian will increase the chances you get fully compensated.

You can make a complaint to AFCA about a super fund, but only about some types of issues. The table below shows you the types of things you can and can’t complain about.

Things you can complain about ✅
– The fund gave you wrong, incomplete or misleading information
– The fund acted in a way when dealing with you that was misleading
– The fund didn’t tell you something important they should have told you 
– The fund didn’t manage your account correctly or charged you fees they shouldn’t have charged you
– The fund didn’t follow your instructions

Things you can’t complain about ❌
– The fund’s decision to make an investment available to members to invest in
– How much money your investments made or lost
– How the fund was managed or operated

If you make a complaint that AFCA cannot accept, AFCA will tell you and explain why. If this happens, you can make a new complaint about different issues that AFCA can deal with, like the ones in the table above. Think about all the interactions you’ve had with your fund – are there other things that the fund did wrong or should have done, but didn’t? 

If you don’t understand why AFCA rejected your complaint or you need help making a new complaint, you should consider getting legal advice.

No. It would probably be a waste of your time. Both companies are in liquidation and they are unlikely to have any money to pay you if you win. Complaints against investment funds aren’t covered by the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort, which means it won’t pay either. If you make a complaint, AFCA may not be able to accept it.

No. These businesses are not AFCA members and AFCA cannot deal with your complaint.

A lot of the issues that people invested in Shield and First Guardian have complained to AFCA about are very similar. A lead decision is a decision made by AFCA on a complaint that is representative of a group of similar complaints. When complaints share common facts or issues, AFCA selects a case that best represents the group, investigates and decides that case first. The outcome, called the lead decision, gives other people with the same issues a good idea of how AFCA will decide their case. It also makes the process for other people faster and fairer: people with the same facts and issues get the same result.

Find out more about AFCA’s lead decisions.