Expats in Dubai Podcast

The investment journey goes through many challenges and stages.  There are times in our lives, as we personally grow and change, when we start asking When can I start investing? How much disposable income do I need to become an investor?  What if I get married? What if I get divorced - what happens to our joint investments?  If you are at this point, where your mind keeps throwing these questions...

There is a right time for everything. After being an expat for 12 years in Dubai, Laurence Hill decided to move back to the UK. In this interview, Amber sits down with Laurence to discuss what it was like working for the Middle East and Africa arms of a global business, the unique challenges he faced as an expat in Dubai, and how he made that all-important decision to retire as his passion shifted...

Amber is back with The Great Fraud Fightbac k series that focusses on the Financial Advisory Industry and in this episode she is joined by Dubai-based Financial Planner Paul McCullagh.   As we’re drawing to the end of 2021,  Paul discusses the current state of the financial advisory industry, and also some of the popular alternative investment options that have crept in the market this year includ...

Todays focus is on one of the most important, if not, the, most important areas of your life.  An area of life that when it’s handled can give you tremendous amount of joy, love and nothing can compete with it, and if it’s handled ineffectively, this is the place of pain, where life seems to lose its meaning. We’re talking of course about - Relationships. To help us understand where our core belie...

Elena Schildgen , managing partner of Meyer-Reumann & Partners , and renowned within the expat community to be one of Dubai’s best legal settlers joins Amber in this episode of The Great Fraud Fightback to explain why conversations between her and financial advisor Neil Grant didn’t result in a settlement, why the percentage of financial legal cases that settle out of court is low, and the tac...

As the Expats in Dubai podcast reaches 10,000 downloads a special thanks to all the guests who have come onto the show and shared their knowledge, experience and stories with us, and to the listeners, who have taken the time to tune in and supported us.   In this 21st episode, and as most of us are relaxing and on holidays with our families, we thought to take this opportunity to share some timele...

Following on from episode 18 in The Great Fraud Fightback series we pick up the story after the Dubai police call Neil Grant to the station for questioning  and the pursuit to obtain hard evidence linking the rogue financial advisor to financial advisory fraud to open a criminal case. The task in this episode was to get around the ‘no contract’ issue as no court of law would even consider such a c...

Part two of Maria’s story of living with abuse, continues with how she finally broke her silence against domestic abuse. We also hear from another lady called Lesley on how she made the transition from abused victim to thriving and vocal leader.  Through self work, personal growth and dedication to applying the lessons she learned.  Lesley believes every woman can heal from domestic abuse and crea...

We continue deconstructing the book, The Great Fraud Fightback and in this episode, following industry revelations from the Dubai regulators, Amber takes her suspicions to the local police in an attempt to take forward her complaint and open an investigation into her financial advisor, Neil Grant. Here she recounts her experience of persuading the police to open a file and the simple online resear...

He swept her off her feet.  She believed she had fallen deeply in love with an ideal partner and was set for the perfect family life. First, he pushed her, then grabbed her, then squeezed her neck so tightly she almost blacked out.  As she lived in abuse, she morphed into someone else.  The emotional, mental, financial and physical abuse at home caused her to change into someone else.  Someone her...

  What’s the point of living minimally now so you’ve got a big pot when you’re too old to enjoy it? In this episode in The Great Fraud Fightback series, we discuss the three bucket asset allocation – the philosophy of investing, and a gentle reminder from the late Steve Jobs , in one of his greatest motivational speeches, the importance of investing in yourself, first, and the rest, and particular...

The top social problems teenagers struggle with every day – in coaching parents and their teenagers, these are always on the list – mental health, depression, bullying, substance abuse, obesity, academic problems, peer pressure – and these concerns you tend to find are multifarious but interrelated in many cases. The first thing you ask is… where are they originating from?   Well let’s ask the tee...

In this episode of The Great Fraud Fightback series, Amber reveals how the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) sowed the seed of the reality behind her investment portfolio and the Dubai Insurance Authority (DIA) gave a very worrying insight into her rogue financial advisors business affairs. She shares the advice and support she gained from the local regulators and the official industry con...

Throughout the pandemic, energising stories of community, compassion and kindness all around the globe have been heard. Stop and Help is one such story here in Dubai. The organization started up in March of last year 2020, at the start of the pandemic - with a single objective: to support families in need and families with children in particular.  It started off as a Facebook group and has ended u...

A big part of financial plans is retirement planning and a big part of retirement plans is a pension.  A state pension offers a minimum income to cover the basics, whilst a private pension is a way of deferring some of your income now by putting some money aside for spending when you are older.  When you have a pension, things start to get complicated when you move abroad and the duration of that...

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been gaining momentum – but what exactly are they, and what constitutes an NTF?  How much are they really worth? Can one tokenize and sell their digital work as an NFT? And are people really paying millions of dollars for tokens? Amber is joined by award winning Kristel Bechara and the first artist from the UAE to enter the Crypto world and launch and sell NFT’s to...

Financial advisory fraud looks to be extremely complex in makeup, and it can feel really overwhelming to try to understand all the nuance and how it happens. But when you break it down, you will find it’s actually not. It’s simply manipulation against a backdrop where neither party can be held legally responsible.  In this episode in the Great Fraud Fightback series, Amber talks us through a case...

With Dubai burgeoning as a tourist hotspot and the upcoming Expo 2020 expected to bring in over 25 million visitors, the demand for short-term rentals or holiday homes in Dubai is also expected to grow. A lucrative opportunity for those looking to benefit from good rental yields, many homeowners and investors are taking the step to convert their property into a holiday home or purchase strategical...

Amber is joined by Con Lillis, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Abacus , a financial advisory firm headquartered in Dubai to discuss how, as the lack of trust in the financial advisory industry grew, he felt it became necessary to separate client service from leadership and operation of the business.  Lillis made a deliberate decision to move himself away from a client-facing role so he coul...

Amber is joined by Dr Anthony Thomas from Prime Hospital in Dubai and a scientific advisor to EIAC who worked with the state department on helping to minimise the prevention of spreading COVID 19 in Dubai, and building a response team of healthcare workers.  In this episode we discuss the origins of COVID 19, what makes COVID 19 different from every other coronavirus we know, managing the pandemic...

Before engaging with lawyers, Amber discusses two options that can be pursued to gather information on your financial situation if you feel stuck, confined, and in-prison by your current financial investment circumstances - one of which includes ordering a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR).  In this episode of The Great Fraud Fightback series Amber shares her experience and findings of the DSAR o...

Amber is joined by Mazhar Farooqui, Senior Features Edito r at Gulf News and one of the country’s top investigative journalist whose smashing stories and intriguing exposes have raised the bar on in-depth reporting in this part of the world.  Here he discusses the importance of resistance journalism,  the role of local media and his relentless pursuit for truth. Thank you for listening! Questions/...

Amber is joined by Sam Instone, Chairman of AES International and one of Dubai's leading and longest servicing financial advisory firms, who shares his diagnosis of an all-to common example of an investment portfolio of high commission for a rogue financial advisor and of non-experienced cautious investors being totally ill-advised.  He also shares his thoughts on personal responsibility, on...

What is the biggest sign that someone is suffering from corporate traumatic stress disorder (CTSD)?  Is it smoking or is it evidence of multi moving of employment?  Amber is joined by Dr. Marikinti a Medical Practitioner, who has the experience of corporate and corporate health or lack of health and who has studied what makes corporates healthy and what can actually affect the health in a negative...

In the first episode in The Great Fraud Fightback series, Amber is joined by Stuart McCulloch, Executive Director at The Fry Group.   In this episode they will show you how to pick a Financial Advisor, the key areas to research, the importance of doing your own due diligence and how you can protect yourself from financial advisory fraud from the very first step of investing. Thank you for listenin...