Here is an interesting article on one of my favourite subjects:
http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/zuerich/...story/16342651

The cold calling investment company makes an otherwise credible deal and suggestion for a 10k CHF investment - their fees are 7%. Somewhen in the discussion do they ask the client if he could imagine to invest more in the future, maybe 100k with them? The customer says yes, "without comittment" after making positive experiences with them in the future. After sending his 10k, he sees that the advisor deducted 7k fees - 7% of 100k.

The client goes to court - since he is a German resident in Germany. He wins, but: The advisor was not allowed to offer advice in Germany, so he will get his money back - not because of the suggestive questions or the trick they pulled.

In short: Yes, yes, some will immediately jump at it and tell me that you simply need to read contracts you sign carefully... you do. But if you deal with some of the advisors here and especially the one in the article, make sure you do not miss something as small as a digit or komma...

So it sounds as if he would not have got his money back if they had been licensed in Germany. This story just confirms the suspicion that cold-callers are likely to operate in "creative" ways, if not be downright crooks.

That's what the article says, but I would always take Swiss newspapers reporting on German legal proceedings with a bit of care...