ASG scholarship fund

Good luck! Hope it goes well

I had a look into this and the guy came around and did a presentation. It is a legitimate scholarship fund where you put away a sum of money per week (which increases by a dollar a year) till your child hits high school. You then get a payment every year for the next 5 years. The govt gives you some cash and you also earn interest on the money, so that when your child finishes high school and goes onto Uni they have $12,000 to study with. The reason why they are allowed to be a non-profit organization is because the money that is being saved is for education and there was some sort of legislation (the guy has a clipping) about it in the 80's.
Now the thing *I* didn't like is that if Olivia chose not to go to Uni, the money that you earned in interest and govt hand out gets put back into the system so no money back.
Now the guy said to me because in a usual bank you would pay about $12,000 in bank fees between now and the end of High School, that we would usually never see that money anyways in a normal bank account.
I completely disagree and think if you have the brains to move the money into high interest accounts as the money gets greater and greater, then you have a better chance of earning more money.

We told him at the interview that we would think about it then I rang up his answering machine, and said we were going with Kiwi Saver instead (such a LIAR LIAR!).
It does look alright though for middle of the road.

We had a guy come around too and he was way too pushy. Wouldn't let me keep some information to read over, said I had to sign up right then. That was enough to make me think there was something dodgy about them.

My friend who told the guy I'd like to hear information about it, signed up.. since then, she put about $500 into the account.. she has since pulled out and lost all that money. They claimed it was all for fees etc. That sucks and there is nothing she can do about it.. imagine if you'd put $12000 in there and they wouldn't give it back.

It's $11 per week and yeah, you lose your money into their "pot" to go to the other kids if you pull out. You can actually put your account on hold if you are in financial strife and can't pay for it and no, they don't let you keep any reading material!

Edited by Peace

I found them so pushy that I signed up just to get the guy out of my house, then went straight to the bank and cancelled the cheque I'd written them. I might have been genuinely interested if he hadn't been so pushy (and bordering on creepy IMO) but he put me right off. The gremlins were only 4 weeks old at the time and I was on maternity leave so we had no $$$ to spare whatsoever let alone the $80 a week they wanted to enrol all three kids.
But from a financial perspective they're no dodgier than any other investment fund. They've been around a long time and are reasonably secure.

They send you out stuff that encourages their program but nothing to keep in the way of how it works. I guess them going door to door is a good screening process. Stop the hand outs and you don't get every Tom, Dick and Harry.