Trouble

Throughout my entire life, I've never borrowed without returning, owe people money, or anything of this sort. But now I feel so much in debt to folks who had put their trust in me ...

Last July (2007), I joined a marketing agency as a Sales Consultant. It was promoting an investment programme that was to deliver a monthly passive income based on a legal main stream business. Before this, I had rejected other investment schemes deemed too good to be true.

But this one was different, so I thought. It wasn't a get-rich-quick plan 'cos it would take 5 years to recover my capital, and only thereafter, would I be expecting a monthly income through production revenue. I loved the concept so much and eventually joined their sales force. I believed this programme would give many families some form of financial security.

I'd held different jobs in the past, but non excited me as much as this sales consultancy job did. For the first time in my life, I actually DESIRED to go to work in the morning! In the months that followed, I gave my best and diligently worked hard to morph myself into a professional marketing agent. Heaven knows the amount of effort and hours I'd put into this job ...

Then ... CALAMITY struck! The American Principal Company that we were marketing the programme for, defaulted on its contractual obligations to our investors for the first time in 5 years! What followed was a torrent of frantic legal investigation, counsel and action.

As the story unfolded, and as our management caught up with what actually went wrong with our American Principal, we consultants were all shell-shocked.

I was dazed for 4 whole days. I was physically there but was oblivious to the world around me. My mind was consumed with imaginations. What would happen to my clients, most of whom were family and friends of many many years?

In the months that followed, we had a hard time explaining to clients that we did not set out to scam them because we ourselves had invested heavily into the programme.

Many consultants jumped ship very quickly as they were holding multiple portfolios elsewhere. Only a handful stayed back to serve their clients, including me. How could I just walk away and leave them in a lurch? I was prepared for life-firing from my clients, but thank God, all were understanding and were prepared to wait patiently for further news.

Desperate times call for desperate actions. One fellow consultant went straight into another money-making scheme, trying to help his clients recovered some investment lost. I was offered to take part in it but I turned it down. Yes, I would very much like to help my clients recover money from somewhere, but this scheme is questionable and illegal, I can't operate like this in God's sight.

It has been 5 months since our company undertook the law suit on behalf of our clients. However, the prospect of recovering our money seems dim.

My company's CEO is trying very hard to resolve the issue, at his own expense. I salute him for his accountability, though he should have been more careful earlier ... but what has happened, has happened, so let's just move on. He's paying heftily for his over-sight.

So, what'll happen next? Only God knows. Sometimes in life, unexpected events happen. You never plan it, you never wish it, but it happens. Yet all things will somehow work together for good, I hope I will be able to understand all these someday ...