Desperate Help needed - Expat invested in Generali Vision Plan through DeVeres

Dear financial experts,

The detail to my story is quite in depth - but I will try and keep it to the sailiant points. The starting point is me I suppose - a family man who wanted to put some money aside for the future. It was around 2010 when I was expatriated to China, this lasted for 2 years. Soon after arriving in China I was approached (preyed upon) by a so called IFA from Deveres.

I’m a man of very modest wealth - basically never having more than a couple of thousands of pounds in savings. The expatriation though increased our disposable income so I thought this was the right time to start making provisions for our families future. My 1st thought was to start making mortgage over payments …. looking back now I sooooo wish that I had done that instead of the investment route I actually ended up taking.

I wasn’t looking to ‘invest’, however this guy from Deveres made contact with me whilst in China and I agreed to listen to what investment options may be available to me. He explained to me how this plan was flexible, low risk, the best investment opportunity available to expats (for tax reasons), etc, etc. He encouraged my to start with high contributions - saying that these could be scaled back at any time.

Against my better judgement I invested in something called the "General Vision Plan".

Soon after returning to the UK the disposable income reduced and I sailed back my monthly contributions down to the minimum (i.e just 100 GBP). 6 years down the line - having contributed near on 30k the plan cash-out value is just 5k. Most of the contributions were going into a fund that has since collapsed and gone into administration. I didn’t choose the fund as such - the IFA proposed a fund portfolio based upon my requirements - i.e. I asked for something low risk and flexible.

Now I feel that I am stuck in no-mans land…. keep paying the minimum 100 pounds per month (for the next 14 years) so I don’t surrender my plan or cash out and wave goodbye to over 25k. I could cry ! A typical ‘chucking good money after bad’ type of decision.

I understand that some of you may have little sympathy - at the end of the day I was the one that signed on the dotted line, however the plan I thought I was getting was NOT the one I was sold…… this is though mis-selling of the highest order and ver sharp practice. If the plan was sold to me in this way in the UK I would have some recourse for action through the FCA, or similar, I assume.

I'm reaching out to you (and various other firms) because I don't know who else can help - I made contact with a several Financial Advisors in the UK but none of them will support on something so small - yet for me this is a huge amount of money and Im looking for damage limitation options.

Its a minefield - I brought into this through Deveres (through their China office) who sold me a product from Generali (based in Guernsey ?). These companies seem to have offices based all over the place - so even if I thought it was worth a moment of my time to write a letter of complaint I wouldn’t know where to send it (but what chance does a letter a letter from me stand against the might of Deveres or Generali ?).

Can you offer some advise - some direction even ... is there anything I can do ? Any ombudsman to contact or legal recourse ?

Yours very very desperately
Many thanks
Duped77