Sharing the Lesson Learned from a Failed China F&B Investment

Reported in various Chinese media (newspapers and TV news channels) recently, one of the victims ignored the negatives comments from netizen and determined to speak up her 'unfortunate' lesson learned from this fail investment.

This has come to our attention, and we at Finance Malaysia think that this could be a good awareness post for our readers here. With this, we hope that readers would know the risks of investing abroad, like what she faced.

Source: Prudence Wong's Facebook

Below content is taken from Prudence Wong's Facebook post:

Some of my closed friends knew that I had bad and terrible investment experiences in China startups.

In the year 2017, I attended a Business: Capitalism, funding, share structure course conducted by a so-called famous "Jewish Education" teacher. Yes! Spent lots of money on the courses and traveling.

The lessons I gained were "impactful" and will be “engraved" in my mind forever.

In the courses, YES! I got to know many entrepreneurs from China and Malaysia.

And also "itchy" handed- made some "small" investments on some of the so-called Jia Ren 家人"family" startups from China.

In less than 12 months, the whole thing stuck. Promised returns were not fulfilled, outlets were closed down etc.

Beginning of 2019, me and my friends finally went to make police reports, later to Bank Negara to report and whatever we could do we just do it.

Now, here's what I have really learned in the process:

1. This is from the Bank Negara officer: The moment your money is transferred out of the country, the protection is out from BNM. So, when you choose to invest in any place outside of Malaysia, obviously, your risk is directly double or even triple before you talk about the great returns.
   
   
2. You can't be a shareholder in any China company as a foreigner. You need to assign your right to a China citizen via power attorney which will eventually make the risks greater.
   
   
3. No one can really help you when things screw up, not even the embassy, police, the person you think you can "trust" etc.
   
   
4. In 2018, I knew that the chances of getting the money back are really low, almost zero. I have decided to write off the losses and working "hard" to make back in else way. I make sure I really learned my mistakes.
   
   
5. It's not shameful to admit that I have made losses in my investments. Yesterday, DAP Kepong was kind enough to hold a press conference for us. (Although I was not feeling well for the past 2 days, I too attended the conference in order to support all my friends )
   
   
   I was quite surprised that the major media were there. The news came out in NTV7/TV 8 and press, yesterday and today. Few of my FB friends messaged me that they can "recognised" me although I was wearing a mask 🙂
   
   
   Yes! I know some commenters will say we are "stupid" and "foolish" to believe all these and "giving" our money away. Some even said we are greedy.
   
   
   Well! This is how I will take it. I don't feel ashamed to admit that I was conned or cheated as I made mistakes. However, I take this as part of my learning curve. No pain no gain.

Yes! The money is gone. And I wouldn't want to cry over the spilled milk. I learned and I move on.

I hope my sharing will create awareness among my friends.

Please take good care of your money and wealth.

Cheers! Everyone.

Source: Prudence Wong's Facebook post

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