David Lannen provided a Statement of Advice about our superannuation arrangements, and about our financial circumstances. The superannuation advice appeared correct and well-considered, albeit a bit unclear about some matters. However in relation to our present and projected financial arrangements he completely misunderstood one important aspect of our instructions to him and gave us advice which was demonstrably and obviously in error, and which would have been disastrous for us if we had followed it. That is excusable up to a point - everyone makes mistakes. But over the next several weeks after we pointed out his mistake he steadfastly refused to explicitly acknowledge it or to apologise for it. He provided a revised Statement of Advice which implicitly conceded his error by correcting it in one area - but leaving it uncorrected in others, and (importantly) he deleted his forward projections of our financial status on the supposed basis that there was "too much uncertainty" - a claim which was nonsensical and which appears designed to try to cover up the effects of his original error. His answers to my many questions about his advice were in a lot of cases so unclear as to amount to obfuscation. The only redeeming feature of our dealings with him is that when it finally became obvious that we would not just be 'brushed off' he gave us a full refund of the fees we had paid him for his advice. One suspects that was to make us go away and not extend the embarrassment to him of having been found to have made a major error in his professional advice. On the basis of our dealings with him I would certainly not recommend him as a financial adviser.
