Lead Generation Calls – What are they? And how should you react if you receive one?

Be warned. If an unknown person contacts you about your superannuation, be cautious, careful and sceptical. It’s likely to be a so-called lead generation call or worse still, a scam. Your retirement savings (often your biggest investment) are too important to discuss with strangers. The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has announced an inquiry into these activities and offers timely advice to avoid losing your super savings.

The need for prospects

The financial services industry is like any other. It needs customers to survive and prosper. Methods of acquiring customers vary, but in the end, the process is about identifying “prospects” and then working hard to convince them to buy or switch to your product or service.

ASIC inquiry

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is taking a hard look at what it calls lead generation.

Competition for a share of the cake is particularly fierce in the ever-growing subset of the financial services industry, superannuation, where the funds under management totalled $4.5 trillion as at December 2025.

Lead generation is undertaken by salespeople, principally on the phone, online and in emails. ASIC is not suggesting that lead generation companies on their list are operating illegally or unethically. But it is concerned that high pressure and inappropriate tactics are sometimes being used to push consumers of superannuation (that’s most Australians) to buy or switch providers unnecessarily.

Education about unsolicited calls and seminars

ASIC is also seeking to educate the public about pushy sales calls and investment seminars. Many of these techniques have common characteristics, especially “too good to be true” claims about capital gains, returns and fees and the creation of the perceived need for urgent action to take advantage of a “once in a lifetime opportunity”. The latter is a particularly potent sales tactic as we approach the end of the financial year.

We know from members’ feedback that sales pitches like “if you don’t move now, you’ll miss out on a big tax refund” are common at this time of the year when lead generators/salespeople often try to convince members to contribute additional personal (tax deductible) contributions to a superannuation product promoted by them. 

Making such contributions isn’t necessarily the wrong thing to do. In fact, it's often sensible, but it should be supported by financial advice that’s offered in the member’s best interests, not just a sales pitch, sometimes from an unqualified person.

Abuse of SMSFs to buy your own home

In addition, we’ve recently noted an up-tick in members who have been approached by leads generators/promoters who suggest that people should transfer their retirement savings into a self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) with the intention of buying a property in which to live, through the use of the transferred money as a deposit to support a loan arranged by the promoter. This is not only illegal use of your superannuation savings, it may also lead to the loss of your deposit. We wrote about this form of super scam in a recent article.

Think about personal financial advice

Not everyone needs or wants personal financial advice. Many people are capable of working things out for themselves. Nevertheless, others prefer or would benefit from professional financial advice before acting. That’s why we have a section on our website devoted to getting advice, including types of advice, pros and cons, questions to ask of advisers (especially about fees and conflicts of interest). There’s also a short video Financial Advisers: The facts and the fiction to assist your understanding of the financial advice industry. If you do nothing else before acting, we recommend watching it.

Superannuation Quiz

Superannuation can be a complicated topic, and it's something we frequently receive questions about from ADF members. Test your knowledge on Superannuation with our 10 question quiz to guide you through the most important issues and considerations on superannuation.