It's a touchy subject, but I tend to agree with Firemouth on this one. People should take more responsibility for their financial decisions.
While I agree to an extent, I would expect the seller to understand the product, they don't. They are supposed to be for risk-averse investors but they are usually tied into a single 'investment grade' provider like Lehman's (oops, didn't they go bust?) and are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
I know, no investment vehicles are covered by this scheme but that is precisely why you spread your risk i.e. a range of defensive shares. In fact, such a range of shares would give you a better, lower-risk return over the same period. Further, investors are led to believe that structured products are extremely diverse, but this is true only for the provider, not the investor. You can't over-earn because they will usually auto-mature - before they have to give you too much in profits.
The marketing blurb says the things like "...if you invested £100 in the Stock Market in 1900, it would be worth £10,000 today..." (numbers rounded for simplicity) which is true but makes it look like your gain would have been 100x but the £s are different and the truth is you would have averaged between 1.5% and 1.7% depending which figures you believe.
So yes, people have to take more responsibility. They need to do more research. However, it's not as simple as asking questions and reading the terms and conditions.
As some relatives of mine discovered...
Soap-box away now
