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One of the biggest personal finance concerns many people have faced over the years is dishonest advisers selling complex, high-commission financial products to unsuspecting investors that can lock them in for years.
Amber Waheed is one of them. The Dubai-based business strategist and author of the recently released
The Great Fraud Fightback lost $80,000 after being duped by her adviser into signing up for long-term investments she believed were low risk.
It is a familiar, heart-breaking tale for many. But Ms Waheed decided to fight back and took her case to the UAE regulators. This was the first step in what turned out to be a landmark legal case in the UAE when her adviser was convicted of offering financial advice without a licence.
Dubai: When British expatriate Amber Waheed lost her life savings to a sophisticated financial advisory fraud in Dubai in 2015, she did not sink into despair like some of the other victims. Instead, the one-woman army took on the fraudsters and won a landmark case in Dubai courts. And then she did something more. She encapsulated her experiences in a motivational debut book.
‘The Great Fraud Fightback’, which releases on Amazon next week, looks into the current state of the global financial advisory industry. But more than that, it reinforces faith in the UAE judiciary and offers hope to thousands of people. “I wrote this book because I wanted to make people aware of the legal process in Dubai. The Dubai Court process is a judicial system equal to any other around the world, where they follow the evidence and the law,” said the life and business strategist, whose clients include Fortune 500 companies and international law firms.