Kuku Yalanji elder Daphne Naden remembers the day she signed up for a funeral insurance policy with the Aboriginal Community Benefits Fund.
It was the mid-1990s, and she was approached by Indigenous door-to-door salespeople at the office where she worked in far north Queensland.
"All their paperwork, their documents had red, yellow, and black, the colours that Indigenous people really take to,” she said.
“So it made me feel like yeah, this is an Indigenous-owned company. I'm happy to be part of this. You know, this is what we need in community."
At the time, she was a recently divorced mother of four girls, and had also lost two brothers in car crashes at a young age, placing the prospect of death at the front of her mind.
"I think it was anxiousness around my circumstances, and particularly in losing family members, that prompted me to take out the (policy) without too much questioning."
But like thousands of other people, Daphne Naden was misled.
Daphne Naden has lost more than 15-thousand dollars she paid in her fund. Source: Supplied
Now aged 65, the more than $15,000 she paid to the fund over nearly 30 years to cover her funeral costs when she dies has disappeared.
It's among an estimated $39.2 million of member contributions held by the Aboriginal Community Benefits Fund (ACBF), trading as Youpla when it went into liquidation in March.
Dunghutti man and solicitor with national financial counsellors Mob Strong Debt Help, Mark Holden, said the service, which usually receives about 60 calls a month, was flooded with more than 1000 requests for assistance when Youpla collapsed.
"Every single person who's called up has been looking for answers,” he said.
“They've been very distressed. They're very desperate, some feel humiliated as well, because they feel like they've been taken advantage of.
These are people who've been paying, their policies for years, sometimes decades."
Former CEO of Youpla (ACBF), Bryn Jones gave evidence at the Banking Royal Commission in July 2018. Source: Screenshot.
Bodies left in the morgue
About 17,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have lost products they paid for with Youpla, with estimated losses totalling between $131 million and $300 million.
Mark Holden said after unknowingly paying for a junk product for years, many policy holders now have nothing to show for it.
"A lot of them are near the end of their life, they’re elders, and they are no longer able to afford to pay for their own funerals,” he said.
“They were doing the right thing by trying to arrange for their own Sorry Business in a dignified manner. But now it's fallen through and they have to rely upon the family. It's very depressing for them.”
Some people have even been forced to leave their family member's bodies in the morgue because they can't pay for their funeral.
Wurrundjeri woman and Aboriginal Policy Officer with the Consumer Action Law Centre, Samantha Rudolph, said the conduct of Youpla is especially galling because of the significance placed on Sorry Business in culture.
"It is so important,” she said.
“For everyone in community, each mob, each family, it's something different. And in some cultures, saying that person's name, once they've passed away, is something that you just don't do.
So having a proper burial and a proper goodbye, that's the last time they'll ever mention that person's name again, and that person again."
Misleading and deceptive conduct
In 2019, the Financial Services Royal Commission found the ACBF had engaged in systematic misleading and deceptive conduct.
The company, which presented and marketed itself as an Aboriginal-owned organisation, was exposed as having no Indigenous director or member of management.
It was found to use aggressive tactics, including door knocking, to sell expensive and poor value funeral plans, including to babies and children.
Since 2018, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority has issued 178 decisions against the company for misleading and deceptive conduct, from 700 complaints received.
Solicitor Mark Holden said many people didn't realise what they were signing up for when they joined ACBF (Youpla). Source: NITV News
Open letter calls for compensation
Consumer and legal organisations say they've been warning successive governments about Youpla for years, but now they're making it an issue at the federal election.
Under the banner the Save Sorry Business Coalition, 125 advocacy, legal, religious and Aboriginal organisations have signed an open letter to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Labor's Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers, calling on the next Federal Government to provide urgent assistance to compensate affected families.
"We're not asking for a handout, we're asking for government to step in and do the right thing,” Samantha Rudolph said.
In a statement, Minister for Financial Services Senator Jane Hume said the Government has acted to stop the ACBF's predatory behaviour.
She said the Government introduced licensing requirements for funeral expense service providers as recommended by the Royal Commission, and under the change, ACBF was not granted a licence.
But she doesn't promise compensation for victims, instead pointing to alternative state-based organisations that can help with funerals and burial costs.
Labor meanwhile, has promised an inquiry into Youpla and the bodies that regulated it.
Daphne Naden said what she wants is her money back.
"I'm not a rich person,” she said.
“I'm living daily. And as with a lot of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people around Australia, we can't afford to lose that amount of money. I just can't afford it, and I'd like some of it back. All of it back, actually."
But she holds little hope that that will happen.
"I’m anxious at the moment, because I'm 66 next month. I have some chronic illnesses," she said.
I've got four daughters who have children of their own now, one doesn't but, you know, I want to be able to cover my funeral costs myself, I don't want to leave those costs to my daughters to pay.
I’m fairly anxious and fairly disappointed."
