Key deadlines for complaints

Making a complaint to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) is a free way to get your money back from a financial business that broke the law. Most people who invested in the Shield or First Guardian Master Funds dealt with a financial adviser or a super fund (or both). If your financial adviser or super fund did something wrong, you can complain to AFCA and ask for them to pay you back. But, there are deadlines to make complaints against some businesses. You should make a complaint as soon as you can.

Why was there a deadline?

You can only make a complaint against a business that is a member of AFCA. All but one of the advice businesses who were involved in selling Shield and First Guardian Master Funds have shut down. Usually, AFCA will cancel a business’ membership after a period of time when it shuts down (often 1-2 years). You need to get your complaint to AFCA before the business’ membership expires in order for AFCA to be able to deal with it. Because AFCA has decided to extend the memberships for these advice businesses, the deadline to make a complaint has also been paused.

Why did AFCA decide to pause the deadlines?

AFCA is pausing the deadlines to give people who invested in Shield or First Guardian more time to make a complaint. Many investors still do not know they were invested in Shield or First Guardian or that they have lost money. It would be unfair to prevent investors from making a complaint to AFCA and asking for compensation before they even knew they had lost money.

Are the deadlines paused forever?

No. AFCA has said that it will consider whether to cancel the memberships of the advice businesses that have shut down at a later date. However, AFCA has also said that it will give people notice before making any more changes to complaint deadlines or cancelling the advice businesses’ memberships.

What is my new deadline?

If you want to make a complaint about a financial adviser, you need to lodge your complaint with AFCA before the deadline in the table below. These deadlines may change so it’s important to check back from time to time. If you aren’t sure which advice business is the right one, use our financial adviser lookup tool to find out.

What if I miss the deadline?

If you miss the deadline, AFCA may not be able to deal with your complaint. That also means they cannot award you any compensation for losses in Shield and First Guardian. 

What about super funds?

All of the super funds are still in business, so the deadline is 2 years after receiving a final response from your super fund if you complained to them directly.