Hi All,

I was introduced to a musang king investment scheme by a friend.

The scheme was offered by a company called eco starland (webpage here), but they do not put up the details of the scheme on their webpage.

The deal is:
you pay around RM 10k+ per tree for ownership of the tree for 40 years. The company will take care of the trees for you, after fruiting and selling the durian (you can choose to sell the durian to the company), minus the expenses, the profit is split between the company and owner. The projected profit is quite high, with full return of capital in year 7 after investment. As of now, they have acquired and cleared the land, currently planting in progress. The targeted market for the durian is to export to China, which has high demand of durian. There will be Sales and Purchase Agreement should one decided to invest.

After doing some due diligence, I think it is less likely to be a scam because there is some credibility to the management team:
1. The CEO Yirin is also involved in other businesses. One of it is Dynaplast, which although less established, but is a supporting evidence of credibility.
2. The CFO Mr Tong is quite an established farmer and he was featured in Malaysian Agriculture magazine (Issue 12). He is also the owner of Tong Seng Nursery/ Durio Farm.
3. The CFA Mr Wee is the son of Wee Chong Beng (the person who registered Durian Raja Kunyit D197 (Musang King) at the Ministry of Agriculture on 1993).

Please point out if you feel that my due diligence is insufficient/ flawed.

What makes the investment to have higher risk is:
1. The company is young (not listed) and this should be their first investment project.
2. There is no clear information on how the company is going to report profit and expenses yet, they could be reporting false numbers.
3. There is no compensation in the event of force majeure.
4. Although the company will compensate in the event of disease, but it is an unknown if they have any funding to make the compensation (say, entire plantation is wiped out by the disease).
5. Of course, it can still be a scam...

Please let me know if you think it is a viable investment, any risk that I missed out, any more due diligence that can be done, etc.

you do know durian trees like any other fruit trees take at least 10 years before they bear any fruit after planting...

If you are lucky.. it may be true..
or could be a hoax and you will never see any money in 10 years time..

Too risky

https://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...rian+investment

Huhuhuh..
Bait like those palm oil plantations investment 😈

Same like bbb, but later will keep delay payment say next yr now drag till 4 yr still habuk no see. My case is relative working in the scam company ( still working thrre) scam all the relative.... Not that i no tell them dont join all dont want listen.....

I don't know. Seems like a good way to donate 10k to some unknown fella to me

No use saying...
We tell them don't want hear...
Let them "donate" $$$

Why would you want to tie up yr 10k for a "possible" 10+% return? Furthermore, how the company operate and report the profits are unknown to you....

People nowadays ... the more you ask them to be careful .. the more they want to invest because they think " make money must be brave!" Ha ha

This post has been edited by aspartame: Feb 17 2019, 08:24 PM

The husband top dog in police force ppl believe , dont dare eat kopi money but got involve in this shit ( wife work at the company) last time kena all kinda scam dy still dont listen ( geneva lost 100k etc , riway super over price product etc list goes on and on)

Yea, I saw this post as well. OP decided to go with the investment. Trying to get him/ her to shed some light on the current status.

Thanks for the reply everyone. It is not easy to invest in stocks and properties, hence these kind of deals seemed attractive. And there is always this mindset, this "one" being offered to me is different than others.
In this case, if one don't want to invest in stocks and properties, how to evaluate these kind of alternative investments? Or alternative investment shouldn't be considered, if at all? (Genuine question, I am very new to investment, hence appreciate some insight on the matter)

Where is their plantation?

Where can see the projected returns?

With ceo, cfo, cfa credential, they don't need crowd funding. there are many people could partner them. durian like any other fruits, price could goes up as well as down. china could ban durian for political reason or some article may cause chinese to abandon durian.

A good example is property investment; those blinded by greed, view second opinion as noise.

This post has been edited by icemanfx: Feb 17 2019, 11:34 PM

Out of so many types of investments, property investing is probably the most "no-brainer" but profitable type. Enormous wealth has been created from property investing over the generations...more than any other types of investment....most other types of investments are "traps" including this durian investing...

Historically, residential property price rise at about inflation rate in the long term.

property investment is not newly invented or discovered. if property investment could create enormous wealth; there should be a lot more than 3% of adults in this country have over us$100k net worth; every da ma, kopitiam unkers are multiple properties owners.

Most wealth are created from property investment....

It accelerates wealth accumulation...can work less

2% of population has more than RM1mil wealth....without property investment: probably only 0.2%

Take the proven path...forget the musang path

This post has been edited by aspartame: Feb 18 2019, 12:28 AM

To 97% of people, the biggest assets is probably their home. As most buy property with bank loan, incurring loan interest is not a path to wealth accumulation.

Good loan, bad loan

Becomes

Rich dad, poor dad

"Rich Dad, poor Dad" is as real as Harry Potter.

Q1. Why dont the musang king durian planter issue company "stock" instead of "investment per tree scheme"

Q2 How the hell a musang king tree worth RM10k each? Why not sell them for RM1k per tree at 90% discount? Win-Win

In Pahang.

They don't share it publicly. It is only shared after you attended their briefing. The profit for owner (after deducting expenses and split with company) is on average around RM 5k per tree annually. So after the fruit bears fruit in year 4, after 3 to 4 years (say initially the fruit is not that much), you would have fully recover your cost of investment and from there onwards it is pure profit.

Indeed property can be profitable, but it involves higher capital and if one is unlucky, he/ she is stuck with a bad investment - I have had bad experience with it, mainly due to inexperience. Not saying that property is not good, but one needs experience, luck and good eye sight to get a good one.

Q1. I am guessing that it is because they are not listed yet and they only want to go listed after they are more stable.
Q2. That is an interesting question, I asked and the answer given is they need the money to run the company and cover expenses to manage the farm in the first few years where there is no fruit.

A lot of this type of investments turned to scam after few years.

One of the example: Canadian oil investment

Time sharing, plot sharing or business sharing business is generally impractical.

If it is profitable, you should take a business loan and operates it as whole to have sole control in operation.

As long as there are people believe in passive income, scam is here to stay.

Last year I heard the same exact thing, was invited to the hotel for this , but it’s longan tree.

Some details you need to obtain from them:

Since you said they already acquired and cleared the land and started planting,

1. The location of their plantation
2. The land title
3. Visual inspection of the said land to confirm that it is indeed cleared and started planting
4. How to identify which one is your tree and say if you invested in 10 trees, 5 of them died (which is quite common in durian plantation), how are they going to compensate you?
5. How to know how many durians on 'your' tree, or do they count by average (total number of durians divided by number of trees) and how to calculate profit
6. How to know whether their costing is genuine?

Just a few enquiries to sort out to help you make your decision. This deal sounds good but too vague and many grey area to me. I 100% won't go into such business that offering such vague deals.

TS reminded me this. Long time no update from Golden Palm Growers after early termination.

Anyone has the latest status for the scheme?

Hi, many thanks to your suggestions!

1. The location of their plantation
- location is in pahang, but i don't have the exact location.

2. The land title
- they lease the land from the government for 60 years i think. There is a clause in the SnP that they will refund in case the land is reclaimed by government.

3. Visual inspection of the said land to confirm that it is indeed cleared and started planting
- I have been shown plenty of photos of cleared land and plantation is on-going.

4. How to identify which one is your tree and say if you invested in 10 trees, 5 of them died (which is quite common in durian plantation), how are they going to compensate you?
- the company will hold a portion of the trees (not selling everything), so in case there are trees that died, they can compensate trees with similar age. The other option is they will compensate the amount the investor paid if the trees died within 10th year, if it happened after 11th year, then the company will compensate double the amount invested. But it is not clear where they get the money and how soon they pay. Is there some sort of insurance that exists for plantation?

5. How to know how many durians on 'your' tree, or do they count by average (total number of durians divided by number of trees) and how to calculate profit
- they will count by average.

6. How to know whether their costing is genuine?
- this is another part that is vague. I asked the question but the answer that I got is they are still developing the methodology.

How much profit sharing?

Very true.

The innovative scams nowadays!

For question 1, 2, and 3, you need them to show you the exact location, the land title or at least the lease agreement with government which will also contain the land title number, and go there have a look yourself (or maybe the S&P also will mention the land title number since you said there is a clause of refund if land reclaimed by government). There is an app/website that can pin point to you the location if you key in the title number, but I've forgotten what is the name of the website/app. They can show you a lot of photos but you cannot be sure it is their photos or photos taken of other plantation.

For question 6, that doesn't sound very convincing when on one hand they are encouraging or persuading people to invest, and on the other hand still developing the methodology for the costing. The management can just pay themselves a hefty sum of salary and after deducting this probably only left peanuts for the 'investors'. In the end, you pay 10k for a tree, you can go check how much are musang king seedlings selling for, and they probably can just plant it without spending huge sum on the land preparation which is very important for durian plantation and actually is the most costly expenses for a durian plantation, and hope it works. If it doesn't then just declare it as a failure. After all these shows, they probably only spend 500 per tree to plant, and the rest of the 9500 will go into pocket.

The Sun Daily

Company director charged with offering unregistered date palm investment scheme

27 FEB 2019 / 17:08 H.

KUALA LUMPUR: A director of a date palm plantation company was charged at the sessions court here today with offering an unregistered date palm investment scheme to the public, by promising a lucrative return from the crop.

Chin Yoong Fung, 37, pleaded not guilty after the charge was read out before justice Manira Mohd Nor.

Chin was alleged to have offered the public to buy the share in the date palm investment scheme without the approved deed by Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM).

He was alleged to have committed the offence at Date Palm Agro Berhad at 2-37, PV 128, 128 Jalan Genting Kelang, Setapak, here between Sept 13, 2015, and Sept 14, 2016.

The charge, under Section 91(1) of the Companies Act 1965 and punishable under Section 94(1)(a) of the same act, provides for a five-year imprisonment, or fine of RM100,000, or both, upon conviction.

SSM prosecuting officer Faizal Mahdi Mahmud offered RM20,000 bail with one surety to Chin, but lawyer Datuk S. Arumugam rejected the bail offer on grounds that there was no evidence that his client would not appear in court, as he had always been cooperative and able to present himself whenever called by the SSM.

Manira did not allow Chin any bail and warned the accused that if he failed to appear in court on the next mention, the court could issue an arrest warrant.

The court set March 27 for remention of the case.

According to SSM, any registered company wishing to make an offer of an investment scheme must first register the scheme and comply with the rules set out to protect the rights of the shareholder and enable SSM to monitor the progress of the scheme.

It is learned that 739 people participated in the date palm investment scheme involving more than RM11 million, in which each investor would earn a profit based on the number of date palm trees they invested in.

Each tree was said to be worth between RM3,000 and RM5,000. — Bernama

might be scam... remember those plan buy house at 10k before build and then after build u will earn 90k? in the end the house didn't build at all..

So whats the conclusion?did u invest?

In the end I didn't invest. Like everyone said, the risk is too high.

I was introduced by this scheme as well but it’s something more promising compared to yours. At least they have
1.the exact location(u are allowed to visit the farm, the tree is 3yo at the moment)
2.the return is the harvest(in kg),they commit up to a certain weight. u may choose to collect the harvest and makan, or sell back to them. Of course, for the first few years the harvest is quite limited due to the tree is still young

There seems to be a similar investment opportunity just popped up in my fb feed... https://9dbbbe50-e7c9-43ff-9635-cd6e286d65e...36292be3efa.pdf

how much to invest?

the risk is too high
just look at what happen is Pahang.... just saying....
previously the so called Palm Oil plantation investment scheme also GG...

this kind of investment requires long gestation period and capital intensive. need to wait very long only can see results. risky.

Until now still got this kind of project... Company name is agroforestry group / durian harvest / Plantations Partners Group SDN BHD....

Seems like scammer

20 years really long time and can't withdraw within this period

Dude, how is it going? Hope you and your friend are doing well.

my friend just buy the dusun...and retired there...

anything sharing is a long con

Yeah, yesterday I just got a surprised call from a salesperson. She just talked straight away that I was selected to an event to taste durian and guaranteed an apple watch after attending their event and a Merc lucky draw before revealing what the investment was. It's AFG when asked. Well, sounds too attractive to get the watch with no obligations after attending their event.

Is it a scam?

Previously, in another scheme, a forummers mentioned something "free" like that...
The free goodies will be given after you had completed all the events of that day... But the last 1 or 2 events are only for members that had signed up on that day...


This post has been edited by MUM: Oct 21 2021, 10:03 AM

got the same call too.. guaranteed smart watch, hotel stays, and vouchers..
after more than 10mins talk.. and once reviewed my profile, then said i not eligible.. think they are looking and inviting only high income-earners.

Yes, I they asked during a pre interview on the phone whether your combined income reaches rm14k only qualify.
They sent an invitation and I went to look for that stupid center point south building at mid valley for an hour. (Just to check them out) They said I didn't get any QR code, then I'm not eligible to join the event. Wtfish!

The organizing co is Star Leisure. In their sent brochure their ingredients of attraction s are guaranteed smart watch, vacation vouchers, durian tasting session, food, Merc car lucky draw, etc. Must join their no obligation 90mins presentation. No purchase necessary after that.... Free lunch? Sounds too good to be true

i'd gladly attend the 90 mins session to get the smart watch, free durian etc. hahaha (if i'm free and not occupied during that day).

many types like this investment in the past sudah kabut...

example:
1. Fish
2. palm oil
3. crude oil
4. many

oh ya and also 5-star hotel buffet

if the company can just get a few to join in,...it already covers the cost of those buffet lunches and the goodies...
just know and have a clear mind.....may the GOD gives you the wisdom to be steadfast and not be "confused" with your goals of going there...
to join or to get the free goodies and free lunches .....

https://dirtyscam.com/report/agroforestry-group/

how about newleaf.com.my?

there was a thread on this...
Newleaf plantation, http://newleaf.com.my/about-us/
https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/4714218

Any update ?

Whoaaa. Luckily i found this thread.. they were at InvestFair with a different name but MO is the same..

What's the new name??

Ooo the one next to old town
They dint mention the name . Name not important they can change it one.

Too good to be true

Better put your money in fd or epf for the peace of mind

You know that saying… if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Maybe the scammed can come here to tell their stupidity

from the INVEST FAIR... they offer me Free Tokyo 3d2n.. then the call came.

then after interview say i qualified for their presentation. If go i get buffet dinner at Gardens. and my TOKYO voucher. then i tell them.. that day even my son sign up can he go?

they say no. then i say like that i cannot go as my son also need eat dinner. then they offer me SMART WATCH for my son for him to lepak at Midvalley for 90 mins.

hmm.. skeptical. not sure if i want a free dinner a MAYBE toyko trip to be hassled with with HARD SELLING.

they still asking me to confirm my dates.

If the investment was so sure, so sound, so solid... would they be dishing out free flight tickets and smart watches to reel the fishes in?

Sorry, newbie question.

Wah...
Seriously they very hard selling yo...
Trying to lure with all the freebies...

Same with agar wood and wine some 20 plus years ago. same but just different platform.

But some people DID make a lot of money from en primeur First Growth Bordeaux wines ... especially when RP, JS ratings come out and 100 pointers start falling from the sky.

This scheme got sell in Malaysia??

Didn't hear this before 🤔

Not sure about Malaysia but for sure in Singapore. Even comes with wine storage facilities. I bought - ex chateaux en primeur but only for drinking by self (well, waifu - since I don’t drink). Can get Moutons and Lafites and Margaux for a good price … but have to wait for 2 or so years to take delivery as usual.

Oooh Singapore...

No wonder...

Don't think Malaysia have this kind of scheme... Sensitive stuff...

Selling wine got lorh... With strict license rules imposed

anyone been to the Midvalley DURIAN talk thing.. update ya..
and if the GIFTS is a reality.

Don't expect real dinner , just some food for u to eat saja. Smart watch is chiplak one not worth it.

Cheapo watch saja , at first glance maciam yes but after inspection box cantik only lol .

May I ask, how much is the minimum committed investment and how much is the minimum initial investment (down payment) that you need to pay before being given the Tokyo 3d2n trip and the dinner?
Or do you need to pay the full total investment first before being given that Tokyo 3d2n trip and the dinner?



Since you had been there, do tell us more details about that investment?

This post has been edited by MUM: Jul 3 2024, 05:06 AM

Are you thinking of, erm, gaming the system haha….

Cheapo watch??

Not change the gift for years..

Years ago, heck even during my university days...

(Not this durian scheme, but some other), they entice all of us with some watch.... Looks good... I went to watch shop change the strips... The boss says this A grade fake type. That's why looks original

i remember being approached for this as well.

no TOKYO free stay?

yes if can get free without forking out $$ why not?! co-incidently i am going Tokyo.
they say come listen and will give.. no commitments... Got such deal?

but then i will hv to drag my spouse too for this 90 mins.

many saying...

if it's too good to be true. beware of it...

seriously still have people falls for Musang King Duran Scheme... Greed always make you lose money.

Box look really atas , the watch looks cheap can find at shopee for 20+ buck saja .

Oohh...

Mine both looks A grade types

They really went all out to cover...

In the end, expert being expert bust them out....

It's A grade fake watch

Money game ka

Smells like a scam

If they already owned the land, why they still need your investments? What they gonna use the money for?
The biggest cost is the land.

100% scam.

It may be a scam but that s not the reason.
Land ownership is highly illiquid. In a legit scheme, the owner may want to increase their liquidity by taking in new investor.

https://www.facebook.com/share/16ZTAEDxCM/