deVere Group
Reviews and Complaints

I'm a Polish based customer of deVere, unfortunatelly, the account manager left POland and the next one dod not contact me during several years.

I decided to close my account, however, the guys from the Warsaw office changed the adress, phones, personal. I coudnt rech them, after several time I managed to vusit the office. SInce that time (one year) my account is still not closed and I coud not withdraw any money back.

IMO the deVere group business is to cheat people paying the premiums, expecting after 20-30 years return. However, the problem is you can NOT BE SURE they will pay back anything.

Since one year, they DID NOT respond to my emails, DOD NOOT gave me back my money, DID NOT gave me answer what is the actual account sum.

I DID SENT email to the London office as well, however, this brought no result.

YOU CAN NOT TRUST THE GUYS, THEY STEAL YOUR MONEY and you will leave several years expecting returns

Hi Claire trust you are well.

I apologize for my random message but I had to search for this level of seniority to lodge my complaint against DeVere's consultants. I have been investing with Devere for 10 years with various financial advisors. I have to admit that i was young and excited to save however after looking back 10 years ago i think i have made a huge mistake.

I am a banker by profession so i do understand the basics of financial markets. In 10 years i have made no money in my portfolio in fact i am actually losing money. In addition consultants are extremely passive and i am not quite sure that they have any sort of advisory. It seems like it is more of how much money can you make from your clients without noticing. The lack of technical or objective sense is extremely evident. Now i know the volatility we have in the stock market especially with high inflation, covid and Russia-Ukraine war. However it is completely unacceptable to have no plan whatsoever. I am drawing this to your attention in hopes that maybe someone can audit what is happening with your consultants and i was extremely shocked by having other colleagues have a similar experience. There has to be some level of work ethic beyond milking clients. By far this is the worst investment anybody can make and will never advise anybody to give their money to this company.

Summary of the mis-leading information and downright lies deVere gave to me and my husband

Our adviser told us we were entitled to a ‘tax free lump' sum from the age of 55 years of age and documented this as such - UNTRUE

Our adviser told me that the NHS were offering financial incentives to move my pension out of the scheme - UNTRUE

Our adviser did not tell us that he would receive 7% commission from of our funds by flogging us a QROPS each. Nor that his extortionate commission was hidden in the insurance company's 1.25% p.a. ‘policy management charge', and the reason we would be locked into it for 8 years - TRUE

Our adviser did not tell us that our investments would be drained of a further 4.5% by putting us into 3 GAM funds each - TRUE

DeVere Group told us that the £12, 000 we each lost within 9 months were just ‘paper losses' - UNTRUE according to Quilter

Our adviser led us to believe that deVere Group was based in the UK, that the product was from the UK, leading us to believe we had all the protections of the UK - UNTRUE

DeVere Group UK office validated the adviser's credentials, and by doing so substantiated the comment above - TRUE

DeVere try to silence those who speak out using legal intimidation - TRUE

So, was it just one rogue deVere adviser? We have asked deVere Group the question below

1. You are satisfied that this particular wealth manager provided us with clear, accurate and transparent information in keeping with the standards of deVere and that there is no case to answer.
2. Or you consider that your wealth manager was working outside his remit by reporting tax information and promises that were impossible to be fulfilled for your clients……………….

Still waiting for an answer Nigel Green, CEO of deVere. Our evidence is available for you on request, or you can see it on our Facebook page - 'Financial Ruin', because there is too much of it to publish here

Working myself as a salesman of high end industrial machinery and having received special sales courses for this kind of equipment gave me a good standard to read people when they are interested in your product and look for signals of a posible scam or fraud when being approached by other salesman. I´ve invested a lot of money on these courses and have returned a good ammount of sales of these machines for me.
I was 30 years old the first time I was targeted by Devere´s Group agent named Allan Hat (who could not even speak spanish) in 2010 I noticed inmediatly the lack of funden documents of all that he was promising and that gave me the first big warning to not continue with this time/money loosing/robing company.
This guy only wanted me to join the group with the smallest promising the biggest return (not even black markets have this returns he promised) amount but forcing to 60 months I declined his offer on the basis that he only wrote an arrow on a white sheet showing me a supposed "growth" on a basis he couldn´t explain. I waved him off but he kept coming back to my office looking for my signature on their toiletpapers until one day I let him sit on the waiting room for a couple of hours until he left and never came back. One day he called and was very upset that I left him sitting on the cold just like he has done to several other customers, good thing during that sitting time he could not scam anyone. Some years later talking to a closed friend who has worked for the big G told me that devere is a scam, fraud company looking for their only benefit. I´m glad I did not sign with them. Be aware of this "sales agents" on commision that don´t even have had a sales course in their entire life looking to loot you and leech you dry.
He kept pushing me for references but this type of references to my closest friends i´ve never done and will never do. Turn your goddamn rock by yourself deverescamers instead of looking to make feinds of good friend you don´t even know. Rotten lowest form of humans scamers.

In 2016, I was sold a QROPS solution for my UK pension by the devere Shanghai office in China. At the time I thought this was great, the adviser was friendly, seemed knowledgeable etc. Since returning to the UK and after seeking external advice I have realised just how bad the solution is. The fees are high and when I actually look at the returns they are poor, the investment solution's they sell are not as special as they make out and have unnecessary additional fees attached to them, I would've been far better off simply tracking the market in an etf! Anyway what's done is done now and I will deal with the situation but I hope people seriously consider what they do with their UK pensions and don't make the mistake I have. I didn't even realise all of these complaints existed till I decided to write one myself, my fault for not doing sufficient research beforehand.

I was sold the Zurich Vista product (as a retirement investment) in 2009. Despite the below average performance of this plan, my money is locked in long term, paying ridiculously high fees. The advisor did not provide all the information, told me I could access my money, which I can't. The advisor did not disclose all the details, such as the fee structure I would be locked into for 25 years. I am trying to find out if the advisor and the company were registed and licenced to operate in Vietnam in 2009.

I deal with Jonathan James Hamer from deVere In Abu Dhabi, I have asked for a surrender on my Generali 2 accounts, 1 account has been closed and the other account money was withdrew from it since April 16th and to today I did not receive my money.Please help

Amel khalifa
[protected]@gmail.com
[protected]

Severe Financial Services "An Honest Account of an Insider"

I have been working at deVere Group full-time (just over a year)

Pros
First, just a brief background about me and how I came to work for deVere:
I graduated and was over-the-moon to have secured employment with deVere's graduate scheme. Like many of you, I had read the blogs but strongly believed, and still do, that each person's experiences are unique to themselves and the only way to discover if you are well suited to something is to go out there and experience it first-hand.
I want to give the most honest, even-handed review possible; based not on spur of the moment anger or an agenda driven by regretful insincerity, but derived from my underlying experiences of my time with the deVere-Group. I hope that it offers a constructive insight and is found - at the very least - to be helpful.

So, let's start with the positives:

The Opportunity to Work Abroad.
This would be one of the strongest positives if only you had a chance to explore your new environment. If like me you're a driven person who wants to earn money, as I am sure most of you are, the workload at deVere is incredibly heavy. Your sole aim is to bring in new clients, and to do this you will spend every waking looking for the details of all prospects who might fit the bill (we'll come to this later). It truly is a gruelling, monotonous and an unimaginably time consuming process but a necessary one: without the data, you cannot succeed.

Becoming Accustomed to Rejection.
You may think I'm being sarcastic here, but this is probably one of the most valuable skills I've learned from my time here and, with deVere, you will encounter it every single day. Learning to consume rejection - often even abuse and hatred - has been a hallmark of my time with deVere - and a surprisingly beneficial one. It's made me a more resilient person - particularly when looking for a new job (we'll also come to this later).

Developing an Abnormal Work Ethic.
Again, no irony intended here. I've always been a highly driven person with a strong work ethic but after my time with deVere, the classic '9 'til 5' hours which are commonplace in the UK seem effortless to me now. As a graduate based in Malta, you will be expected to arrive at the office ready for work at 6am every morning - which involves rising at 4:30am. You will then be "digging" for prospects late into the night when you get home, then rise again to "hit the phones" and start calling "prospects" in Australia from 6am. I prefer to start my morning with a leisurely Weetabix personally, but each to their own.
This instils a tremendous ability inside yourself to shoulder a heavy workload on very little sleep. It's an experience that has stayed with me as now I rise early and I am most effective in the mornings. You are stronger than you think you are. It's worth also noting: when you get to your location you are expected to arrive between 8-8:30am depending on the country and it's working culture - so the pressure is certainly eased a little in that sense.

Cons
Compensation Structure
I list this as my primary negative because it is the root of all the problems at deVere-Group. The reason deVere focuses on the expat market is to escape the heavy financial regulation of the United Kingdom. Although they have now opened an office in the UK, this offers vastly different services - more aligned with the stringent regulation.

You will be misled about the pay structure during the recruitment process so pay attention, this is how it works:
You are paid a 'retainer' which is essentially a debt account held against your name by the company. They will refer to it as "an advanced payment". For a graduate, it's about £850 a month. They will also tell you it is over £1, 000, it certainly is not. I asked for clarity on this several times before being recruited - but it's about £850 in reality.
It is paid in sterling, but FX'd for you automatically to be paid in the currency of your given country. Following the Brexit result, and the subsequent plunge in the value of the pound, the pay has dropped even further. Each month, you are paid your £850 - which isn't enough to pay the rent let alone buy groceries. This figure then accumulates at the rate of £850 a month and is paid back by you once you earn some commission - which takes several months.
I was the first out of our graduate group to sign a new client and the commission didn't come through until my 6th month working there which, by that time, my debt figure was so high that my commission didn't even pay it off.

So I lived on the bread-line and focused on building my pipeline. I gave absolutely every bit of my energy and drive to this company; within my first 8 months I had brought in just shy of £1million of assets under administration. I never got out of my retainer. To add to this, the month I was expecting to finally be out of my retainer, the company didn't pay me at all. As always, there was a long, complex explanation by the payroll team in Malta as to why I wasn't paid the commission. Their objective is to bring in as much money as possible with as little overheads as possible.
The graduates are at the worst end of the pay structure - high commissions are paid to the consultant and the graduate gets a cut of their commission. My advice: consider this a sales role at £850 a month and don't expect any kind of regimented processes to be in place in the payroll team - they were a nightmare to deal with. This type of compensation structure is illegal in the UK, now I know first-hand why.
While we are on the subject of compensation I should also mention that different products carry different rates of commission - so the so-called "Financial Advisors" are biased towards certain commission heavy products, which comes at the expense of sound financial advice. This leads me appropriately to my next point.

Bad Business Practice & Ethics
Many of the previous reviews touch on some morally questionable practices. In my experience, many of the practices I witnessed at deVere were not "morally questionable", they were just fundamentally wrong. During my time here, I've only come across one advisor whom I would consider adequately educated and of good enough moral character to be trusted with somebody else's financial future. Some who worked in my office were actually escaping the UK from their mounting piles of debt. In short, they cannot be trusted with their own finances, let alone the finances of a stranger. The adopted and highly inflated job titles of "Wealth Manager" or "Financial Planner" seem worryingly ironic. I take financial advice very seriously and it was personally quite painful for me to see an industry in which I am dedicated to be torn apart by people looking for a quick payday with a complete disregard for the life savings of others.

While we are on the subject of bad practices: many of the 5* reviews you see below are actually falsified accounts. During your Malta training, deVere urge you to spend some time swamping the Internet with positive reviews to drown out the negative content that has been widely published. They encouraged this so that when it comes to calling potential clients, they see the company in a better light and are more likely to do business with deVere. This was something that I refused to do until I had been with the company for a longer period of time, but many others in my group saw the logic. If Glassdoor check the IP addresses of the reviews below, this will fully support my claim.

Another bad practice is how we obtain data of potential clients. "Digging" is a practice you'll quickly become accustomed to. It involves scouring LinkedIn, Google and even Facebook for people's personal details. It really does make you feel like you are invading somebody's personal information just for the sake of a cold-call.

Awful Press
One of the toughest challenges with this role was working with a company with a great deal of negative press. This was the source of 90% of rebuttals from clients and makes it an impossibly difficult name to work with. In hindsight, I am glad that these things have been published as hopefully it will encourage potential clients to commit to rigorous due diligence before signing any paperwork. The monthly savings plans managed to underperform most equity indexes on an ongoing basis but the QROPS products I was working with I fully believed in, until the pension reforms that have rendered the product useless - but deVere still sell it due to it's heavy commission carrying characteristics.

Future Prospects
I'm soon to be taking on a new role with one of the 'Big Four', but I faced a lot of rejection when interviewing for roles - because I had deVere on my Resume. If you move into another industry after deVere, you'll be fine. But if you are pursuing a career in finance, you will really struggle. I was surprised to learn at just how badly deVere are viewed by the rest of the financial industry - even by the investment banks who deVere act as a feeder to. I only got a new role when I was honest about what my expectations of what deVere would be, compared to what it is - I think my new management appreciated honesty of experience - rather than trying to "gloss it up" as deVere so famously do. I have now taken deVere off of my LinkedIn and Resume for this reason. Learning to deal with rejection, as I mentioned early, really helped me persevere to find a better career.

In closing, I am not proud of my time at deVere and I am looking forward to bigger and better things, but it was a learning curve that I have benefited from - even if it has been at some personal financial loss. But nothing teaches us better than our own experiences. I am a better professional today because of this experience.

"If you never taste a bad apple, you would never appreciate a good apple. You have to experience life to understand life." - Jeekeshen Chinnappen

Advice to Management
I have no advice for the management because, as you can see from the automated replies you receive to these reviews, the feedback falls on deaf ears; rather, I would like to lend some advice to new-hires, graduates and potential clients alike.

New Hires
Go in, be critical, contribute to the betterment of the company and it's practices. Insist that the company educate you - not through meaningless "mickey-mo…

Please can anyone help us nail these criminals on a no win no fee basis. Or advise what we can do.
We have been professionally duped you could call it the "the perfect robbery" and there seems to be nothing we can do about it.

The Vision Plan was sold to us in Germany we believe we were mis-sold and inappropriate savings investment for our requirements. Our total investment 44 K has been consumed by fees !oh yes hidden very well in the TCs.
We have stacks and stacks of bad news articles how there people operate but please what can we do now? anyone with any advice. Of course they have not upheld our claim on complaint. The product was sold in Germany would the UK financial ombusdman look at this ?

I have been completely cheated by deVere on all of these products as they took 4% of my money just to set up each of these accounts . In addition they put me in VAM and GAM funds that cost me 4% annual fee . They promissed very good ROI and so far I have lost 100k dollars on all of these costs.
Do not do any bisiness with deVere - they have very skilled salesmen who will trick you into buying more without explaining cost structure or products.
I wish I had never done any business with devere because they only think about their own bonuses

I just sent below mail to Devere Dubai, I have deleted the names for anonymity. I'm shocked what guys they let loose because this one needs professional help. Dear Devere, In the last few weeks I have been contacted by one of your sales personnel named XXXXXX regarding a financial savings plan. Whilst very interesting, we ultimately decided that we did not fit the profile and the product did not meet our requirements. As a result we communicated this to the focal point XXXXXX. Though there were delays in the communication due to business travel, family priorities and others, we did provide the feedback. Below is the response from XXXXXX: Hi Customer I spoke to your wife and we agreed you would come back to me with a answer if we are moving forward or not and since our meeting I gave you longer than I would for anyone. We sat together over a month ago and now your not playing fare and getting back to me! I would very much appreciate you saying to me and keeping in the picture after I came out and asked you to be straight and fare. If your not moving forward I need to know so I can take you off my system and let someone else deal with it. But I thought we got on and I'm in the principle that if I tell someone I will call them back I will and not leave them hanging. I'm a professional person and I treated you both with up most respect and in return you've just blanked me. I will ask you this once so we can move on. Are you both deciding to move forward or not with financial savings Please reply or pick the phone up and call me. Yours sincerely XXXXXX Note that only a single missed call was received. We responded that I would call back before today end of business day. Unfortunately, full day meetings decided against that. In order to provide the notice, before the weekend I sent XXXXXX an sms thanking him for the service but indicating we would not continue. Below is the response from XXXXXX: That's a very selfish way Customer name to end a situation it a cowardly way by not picking up the phone maybe best you've done this as I only want to work with people who are straight and upfront your best going with a company that will treat you the way you treat them Take care and say thank you to Customer wife for atleast answering my call All the best I must say that I am disappointed, if not appalled by both messages. Please consider this a complaint that I will escalate in official circles of Devere. Thank you and best regards, Customer name

Leesville Road at Norwood Road, Raleigh Dump truck for construction in Raleigh, North Carolina (above) pulled out accross and in front of oncoming traffic, illegally when I and about ten other vehicles were approaching the green light. I had to slam on the breaks. I had right of way and there was no one directing traffic! They did it I assume to allow a smaller construction vehicles cross all lanes but the large dump truck pulled out from the gas station at Norwwod Road right in front of me! I could have been killed! I will place my camera on my dash every afternoon now coming home from work so be advised I will record the next irresponsible move! Be courteous of others!

Wealth consultant from Devere pushed me to buy structured notes from JP Morgan and I was advise to buy it through the Devere fund platform. To my surprise their platform is acutally charging an additional 4% of the investment sum as an entry fee. Their wealth consultant said that this is common practice within the industry. I can confirm that this is not. Structured notes are already a risky product but if you have to pay an entry charge, this is bonkers and PURE GREED. I subsequently refused to go ahead with the purchase Avoid Devere and their lies by all means. Their advisers are uneducated boiler room types that are only here to get hold of your money and pressure you into products that are inappropriat. Watch out!

I am an active client of deVere and also analyst. Found out that the online fundplatform is giving wrong information and is modifying figures without commands from the user. Very triggy as you have no clue about your funds, profits and strategy. After warning DeVere, they said it was a rebuild of their website, ongoing for a year now! Am selling all funds, trust is absolutely gone.

After reading so much inflammatory information about this company it's clear they are up to no good. They seem to keep changing their name/company name to avoid all the bad press. I regret the day I ever agreed to meet with a devere salesman, because that's all he was. I was cold called at my office one day, I should have known better but the person on the phone was very persuasive.
Fortunately you don't have to look to far to uncover the truth about these cowboys, just search on goggle.

deVere (via Nigel Green, the CEO, Steven Luckett, the global recruitment director and others) are professional scam artists specializing in ripping British expats off as well as draining their own financial consultants out of money and sexually abusing their female professionals.
Currently they are feverishly recruiting young professionals in Spain, Portugal, Ireland and other western European countries where as a result of the financial crisis many have lost their jobs, but still have some savings left in order pay these criminals tribute for being f...d over.
A year ago my friend was cheated out of $ 20 000 after being promised riches (no less than GBP 120 000 a year!) and a splendid career. During a week-long deVere financial consultants' training course in Malta at the end of which (according to the excited cries of Steven Luckett, hopping around madly with patched up trousers at deVere presentation) participants had to stand an official independent financial adviser exam, she was approached by one of deVere representatives with an open offer to 'treat his male parts', in exchange for them 'making sure she got promoted'. As she refused, the representative suggested later on on the course that she 'lacked necessary sales skills' so to fail her deliberately and get rid of a living stain on his reputation.
As it turned out, she would have been luckier to have failed the course than having been selected for the position of a financial consultant.
Still not convinced? Read on.
DeVere consultants do NOT get 120 000 a year and they do NOT get a professional IFA qualification. This is just a bait for the gullible who believe Steven Luckett, Nigel Green & Co. are telling the truth just because they cannot IMAGINE being fooled by a company with a beautiful website and (seemingly) a lot of connections, in the most outrageous way.
After having passed the 'course', she had to spend another three weeks in Malta at her own cost, because Steven Luckett's announcement that 'deVere will arrange you everything, including visas and employment permits!' turned out to be an outward scam. After finally getting the visa on her own and moving to the destination country, she also discovered that she had to 'contribute' towards their office, heating, coffee, rubbish, toilet paper etc. costs. There were no computers at the office as they could not afford to pay for the Internet!
Furthermore, please note: 'contribute' as it is understood in deVere, means to pay your share off completely or not get any commission. Phone bills she had to cover on her own - quite a feat if cold-calling and trying to attract angry for being pestered people takes you 95% of your working time, as it 'is not up to the company to give you leads' (what did we train you for?!).
After having lived for 3 MONTHS on her own and her parents' money, it finally dawned to her that the well-deserved commission was due to her at this rate no sooner than by 2050.
She quit the company and is a living proof that a loss of $20 000 and a sore *ss is all you can get from these beggared scammers, sexual predators who have apparently come from a slum.
Be on your guard.

Don't work for them, the role is nothing like the recruiters and trainers have you believe, they are nothing more than glamourised time share salesmen who care for no one. I worked for them in Asia following a weeks training in London, they told me i would have a coordinator with a diary full of appointments but when i arrived there was nobody there and all the mangers said was go out and find your own way. This apears to be the norm in most devere offices, sink or swim attitude and throwing more and more mud at the wall hoping some of it will stick. Don't buy from them they have the worst reputation in the industry for client service only caring about the commisions they make.