I REFER to the report on Tuesday, 'Offers for Lehman investors: 79% accepted'. When Lehman Brothers went under, I was unaware that my Minibonds investment with ABN Amro was affected until I was told by its account director in a casual conversation.

My wife and I had invested $200,000 each after the bank's relationship manager persuaded us to switch from our fixed deposit instrument which had matured.

I wrote to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), explaining how we were misled into buying the toxic product. MAS contacted the bank, which called us for an interview.

I was uncomfortable throughout the interview as I felt the three bank officers present were more interested in justifying their actions and highlighting our risk profile to validate the sale, than they were in addressing our request for compensation. We were not given a transcript of the interview. I wrote to MAS to express my reservations.

Subsequently, ABN Amro wrote to tell us it was rejecting our request for compensation. It also said it was prepared to meet us for arbitration with the Financial Industry Disputes Resolution Centre (Fidrec), if the compensation sum did not exceed $75,000 on each of our $200,000 investments if it lost. If we lost, we would get nothing.

We rejected this because we stood to lose, even if Fidrec ruled in our favour. Furthermore, the monthly statement of our investment the bank sent us showed an unrealised residual value of $105,000 each, or a total of $60,000 more than the total $150,000 cap ABN Amro had offered.

I then asked and received a complete set of our risk-profile forms and found inaccuracies and discrepancies which I highlighted to MAS.

MAS wrote to the bank, asking it to allow Fidrec to handle the full $400,000 claim if the outcome of the bank's review was that it was still unable to refund us the principal invested.

ABN Amro's reply rejected this request. When I sought MAS' advice, I was told verbally there was no more it could do and the only way we could recover our $400,000 investment was via legal redress, which was not a viable option.

What other recourse is there for investors like us when a big financial institution won't act even when MAS asks it to permit Fidrec to handle the full claim?

Victor Khoo

This article was first published in The Straits Times.