You did exactly what you were meant to do.

Part One — Where things actually stand.

Part Two — If Macquarie or Netwealth paid you back, here’s what’s still open.

If Macquarie or Netwealth returned your capital, that is not the same thing as full compensation under AFCA’s methodology.

The clearest illustration is AFCA’s own published InterPrac lead decision. The complainant had been advised in June 2022 to roll over their super into Shield via Macquarie. Macquarie had already returned the capital to that complainant. AFCA still ordered InterPrac (which is solvent) to pay $118,931.15 plus interest from September 2025 for the loss the advice itself had caused — separate from the capital, and not paid by the platform.

That residual is the lost growth (what your money would have earned in a properly chosen fund), plus interest from the date of loss, plus, where appropriate, an amount for non-financial loss.

Two years ago, you handed your super to someone whose job was to look after it. Last year, the platform sent you a portion of your capital back and you assumed that was the end of it. That’s exactly what AFCA’s InterPrac decision tells us isn’t the end of it — the advice firm is a separate respondent, and that complaint is the one that recovers the residual loss. InterPrac was ordered to pay $118,931.15 plus interest after Macquarie had already returned the capital.

Part Three — The five lead decisions.

A “lead decision” is AFCA’s chosen test case for a group of similar complaints. AFCA has issued 44 determinations in this matter, including five lead decisions, with roughly 500 simultaneous investigations under way (per AFCA Chief Ombudsman David Locke, late February 2026).

The five lead decisions cover:

Where every firm currently stands

If your super was held by Equity Trustees or Diversa, you have not yet been paid back, and your complaint against the trustee is the active route for you. I will work the calculation the way AFCA works it — published methodology, traceable to source, double-checked.

Part Four — The clock and what is actually moving.

AFCA’s queue by firm, late February 2026:

• InterPrac752
• FSGA144
• MWL132
• UGC129
• NGA39

Source: AFCA Datacube, late February 2026.

Every week you wait, more people lodge ahead of you in your firm’s queue.

Hard deadlines that do not move: two years from a final Internal Dispute Resolution (IDR) response, or six years from when you were reasonably aware of the loss — whichever is earlier.

Part Five — Why one complaint is rarely enough.

When your super was moved, several companies were typically involved, and each had its own duties to you:

• The advice firm — InterPrac, MWL, FSGA, UGC, NGA, or others. Each one of these firms holds a licence from ASIC to give financial advice.
• The platform or super trustee (Macquarie, Netwealth, Equity Trustees, Diversa)
• The fund itself — Shield (Keystone) or First Guardian (Falcon Capital, in liquidation)

AFCA assesses each respondent’s conduct on its own facts. These are separate harms, not one harm split into percentages.

If you only complain about your adviser, you may miss the route through the platform. If you only complain about the platform, you may miss the residual harm caused by the advice itself. The InterPrac decision shows the gap directly.

The companies behind your fund — who they are and what they do

Two of the names in the diagram above are easy to confuse — the super trustee and the responsible entity. It is worth a minute to separate them, because each one is a separate respondent in your case and a separate complaint route.

Your money does not sit in a single company. It travels through a small chain. A super trustee (sometimes called the platform) is the company that legally holds your super and runs the member account. Macquarie, Netwealth, Equity Trustees and Diversa are super trustees. They are the gatekeepers — they choose which investment options sit on the platform menu, and they have a duty to keep unsafe ones off it.

A responsible entity (RE) is the company that operates the fund itself — the investment vehicle your money was placed into. Shield was operated by Keystone Asset Management. First Guardian was operated by Falcon Capital. Both Keystone and Falcon Capital are responsible entities; both are now in liquidation. A fund of this kind is called a managed investment scheme (MIS) under the Corporations Act, and the RE is the company legally accountable for how that scheme is operated.

The short version, in plain Australian:

• Super trustee — picks the menu and watches over the menu (Macquarie, Netwealth, Equity Trustees, Diversa).
• Responsible entity — runs the dish (Keystone for Shield, Falcon Capital for First Guardian).
• Advice firm — picked which dish you ate (InterPrac, MWL, FSGA, UGC, NGA, or others).

Each one is a separate respondent, and each one is a separate complaint route. That is why one complaint is rarely the whole story.

Part Six — What I have built.

This section is the one to read carefully if you have any doubt about whether what I am offering is a serious service or a shortcut. Most services that emerged after these collapses are either lawyers (expensive, slow, take a percentage of any recovery), or templates that drop your name into a generic letter. What I have built is neither. It is a structured process anchored to AFCA’s own published methodology, with independent verification built in.

How the maths works — the ‘but-for’ test

AFCA does not ask “how much did you put in.” It asks a different question: where would your super be today but for the bad advice. The gap between where it actually is, and where it would have been in a properly chosen fund, is your loss.

The arithmetic is published — sections 2.1 and 2.2 of the AFCA Approach to Calculating Loss in Financial Advice Complaints (December 2023). It is not a secret formula. It is the same one AFCA’s own panels use to decide cases like yours, including the InterPrac lead decision that ordered $118,931.15 plus interest.

The eight inputs to the maths

The calculation needs eight numbers from you. Four describe what actually happened. Four describe the counterfactual — what would have happened with appropriate advice.

What actually happened (the four actuals):

• Your rollover amount — the dollars that left your prior super fund on the day of the rollover.
• The rollover date — the day the money landed in Shield or First Guardian.
• Any compensation already received — the capital that Macquarie or Netwealth has already returned to you, if anything.
• Your residual balance today — what the platform shows is left in the account, including any withdrawals.

What would have happened (the four counterfactual):

• Your prior fund — the super fund and investment option you were in before the rollover.
• Your prior option’s actual returns — the published, audited returns of that option over the period, sourced from Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) MySuper data or Chant West choice-product data, depending on which side of the line your option sat on.
• The next-tier comparator — where AFCA does not have your specific prior-option data, the AFCA Approach falls back to a respondent-fund equivalent or an SR50 industry index.
• Interest from the date of loss — the prevailing Reserve Bank cash-rate-plus-margin used in AFCA determinations.

How I check the answer — two calculators, AFCA finalises

I run two separate calculators. One I built. One I built independently to check the first. They have to agree to the cent or I won’t release the document. The final number isn’t mine to say — AFCA finalises it from your actual transaction history. What I give you is the work that gets you there, fully documented, every number traceable.

Every page of the document carries the methodology version, the AFCA decisions it relies on by case number, and a “verified” or “unverified” marker on every figure you provided. An independent reviewer with the audit trail can reconstruct every figure from your inputs to the final number.

Why this matters at the human end

I read every email and reply within two business days. You will not get a stranger or a bot replying. If the calculators disagree by even a single cent, I would sit down with your case personally before the document ships. If you write to me after you receive your draft, I am the one who replies.

Part Seven — How you actually use it.

You fill out a form (about 15 minutes, from your phone if easier). By 4pm tomorrow you receive a real, lodgeable PDF, plus an email that walks you through AFCA’s portal step by step with one-click copy buttons for each block of text. You read it. You change anything you want. You lodge the complaint yourself at afca.org.au — free. You email me anytime.

I am not a lawyer, financial adviser, your AFCA representative, or a class action firm. I do not guarantee any legal outcome or financial compensation. AFCA decides what your complaint is worth.

Part Eight — What it costs.

Your first complaint is free. Always. No card, no trial, no auto-renewal. It includes my review of any settlement offer the firm makes against that first complaint.

The free service is the same as the paid service. Same form, same calculation methodology, same independent verification, same plain-English document, same delivery window, same personal reply when you email. I do not sandbag the free document. I am willing to prepare a free first complaint for every Australian still caught up in this. No Aussie left behind.

The bundle — every other complaint your case can support — has four prices and you choose which one:

• $25 / week over 12 months ($1,300 total).
• $49 / fortnight over 12 months ($1,274 total).
• $97 / month over 12 months ($1,164 total).
• $997 upfront, paid once.

The bundle covers unlimited additional claims your case can support (the platform, the trustee, the fund, sometimes others — whatever your case actually needs), including any future claims, for the next five years.

There is a 14-day refund, no questions. For 14 days from your first payment, reply to any email I send you with the word “refund” and I’ll refund every cent that’s cleared and cancel future charges. No questions, no forms, no friction.

If money’s tight

If you can’t afford $25 a week, email me directly at graham@grahammarsland.com and I’ll prepare all your claims for you for free. No catch. The generosity of other Aussies caught up in this collapse is what enables me to do this.

I respond within 2 business days. If your situation is urgent — health, hardship — say so in the subject and I’ll move you up.

Part Nine — The community model.

The biggest cost in this situation is doing nothing. If you do nothing, you may forfeit compensation that is currently available to you. The window for insolvent firms is open right now because so few of us have lodged. It can close.

This service is designed to help every Australian caught up in this collapse pursue the compensation they are owed, whether you can pay for the paperwork or not. The free first complaint is the same service as the paid bundle. Same form. Same methodology. Same verification. Same document. Same reply when you email. I do not sandbag the free service.

You’re getting this because someone else paid it forward. When you’re back on your feet, you’ll have the same chance to do that for someone else. Until then, you don’t owe me anything.

If you can afford the bundle, you are doing more than just securing your own case. You are directly funding the time and technology required for me to prepare this same service for a fellow Australian who has lost everything and cannot pay. You are a victim too. We are in this together. If you can pay, you keep the door open for someone who cannot. No Aussie left behind.

Part Ten — Who I am.

I am Graham Marsland. I am an accountant by training with an MBA and a Juris Doctor from RMIT, Melbourne.

I did not lose my super in these collapses. I watched what happened to people I know. The advice given was reckless, and the system failed to catch it. I built this service to make the path to AFCA accessible to everyone affected, regardless of means.

This is a rare business where most companies hide behind the people who built them. This is me. This is my company. I am proud to put my name behind it.

Part Eleven — How to start (and how to do it without me).

If you would like me to prepare your complaint:

Start your free first complaint draft here →

About 15 minutes of form. By 4pm tomorrow you have a draft PDF and an email that walks you through the AFCA portal step by step. You lodge it yourself at afca.org.au — free.

Already started? Sign in →

Or just email me first if that is easier: graham@grahammarsland.com.

If you would prefer to do this entirely on your own — and many people will, and that is genuinely fine — these are the resources I would point you to:

• takeyoursuperback.com — funded by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), run by Super Consumers Australia. ASIC began directing affected investors to this site on 6 February 2026, and it is the resource I would use if I were doing this myself.
• afca.org.au — AFCA’s own site has a dedicated page for the Shield and First Guardian collapse, including the recorded 23 October 2025 webinar, a written Q&A document, and links to all five published lead decisions and the broader 44 determinations issued so far.
• asic.gov.au — ASIC publishes regular updates on its enforcement actions and maintains dedicated First Guardian Master Fund and Shield Master Fund pages.

I built my service for the people who tried that path, found it overwhelming, and stalled.

What’s different here

ASIC’s takeyoursuperback.com tells you how to lodge an AFCA complaint. I prepare the document for you. You still lodge it yourself at afca.org.au — AFCA prefers it that way — but the work of writing it’s done before you start.

That work is the difference. AFCA decisions hinge on what’s in the document: which respondents you nominate, what loss you claim, how you cite the methodology. Most people get this wrong on their first try. I get the document right.

Part Twelve — You have nothing to lose.

You can take the free document I prepare, lodge it, and never owe me a cent.

You can take the free document, decide it is not for you, and walk away — and never owe me a cent.

You can pay for the bundle and ask for your money back inside 14 days, no questions, no forms.

There is no version of this letter where taking the free first complaint leaves you worse off than you are now.

No Aussie left behind. Start with the free first complaint. Decide everything else later.

Take the free one. Pay it forward when you can. Until then, no debt runs to me.