The 74-year-old never gambles on the horses or the lottery. When his banks tried to sell him an investment product, he would say: 'Please, I don't need any funds or stocks.'

Now he fears he may have lost the two million Hong Kong dollars (S$382,404) of savings and pension he and his wife had built up since he arrived here penniless from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in 1955.

While the global financial crisis has triggered massive and unprecedented government intervention to try to shore up plummeting markets, his story is a potent indicator of how the squeeze affects ordinary people around the world far removed from once-mighty banking and investment titans.

Mr Tam and his wife had saved the money over almost four decades from what was left after raising four sons. He worked as a wood craftsman during the day and a security guard at night, while his wife was a cleaner.

'We earned the money with our own hands and we would not do anything risky with it,' he told AFP.

In mid-August, Mr Tam received a phone call from his long-time financial advisor at Hong Kong's Dah Sing Bank.

At the time, shares in US investment bank Lehman Brothers were collapsing on concerns that the 158-year-old company could not raise enough capital to cover mortgage losses.

None of this was mentioned and instead Mr Tam's advisor told him about an attractive 'savings plan' offering interest of 3.8 per cent, significantly higher than the 2 per cent he was getting.

'He said the plan was great and that although Dah Sing was not the 'boss' behind it, there would be no risk at all. He advised me to transfer all my money into it,' Mr Tam said of his advisor.

Mr Tam, who dropped out of school and is barely literate, said he had never heard of Lehman Brothers when he was sold the so-called minibonds, a complex financial instrument linked to both bonds and derivatives.

Even if he had, he would not have known that the US$600 billion (S$890 billion) Wall Street giant was behind what he had signed his life savings into.

His financial advisor gave him an English-only document spelling out the nature of the 'savings plan' and made no attempt to translate it for him, he said.

The document, seen by AFP, contains a scribbled Chinese note on one page saying the products were 'principal protected' - which Mr Tam said was written by his financial advisor.

On another page in smaller English print, the document reads: 'There is a risk that any investor may lose the value of their entire investment or part of it.'

On September 15, the US bank filed for bankruptcy.

Mr Tam said his financial advisor contacted him that day and said for the first time that his money had been used to buy Lehman Brothers financial products.

Mr Tam tried but failed to locate the advisor at the bank, but said the manager showed him the document he had signed, drew brackets around the words 'Lehman Brothers' and asked him: 'Here, can't you see the name of the issuer bank yourself?' He said he was now having trouble sleeping and eating, and his wife was suicidal.

They are among the more than 8,000 angry Hong Kong investors who claim that various local banks mis-sold them the 'mini-bonds' and other complex financial products backed by Lehmans, which are now potentially worthless.

Their combined loss could be around 12.7 billion Hong Kong dollars.

It's not just in Hong Kong. In Singapore, about 600 investors who have lost savings rallied on Saturday urging the city-state's central bank to help recover their money.

Like Mr Tam, many of those who gathered were retirees who invested their life savings in financial products linked to Lehmans and other institutions.

They, too, told AFP they felt 'cheated' and 'betrayed' that the banks did not fully inform them of the risks when they were offered the products.

A spokeswoman for Dah Sing Bank refused to comment on Mr Tam's case.

But asked why they continued to sell Lehman products despite knowing the bank was close to collapse, she told AFP: 'The rating of Lehman Brothers was still high at that time.

'Its collapse happened so suddenly that it was unexpected for all of us.'

For weeks, the investors have staged protests outside the banks and clashed with police to demand a full refund of their original investments.

The city's de facto central bank said it is investigating the banks which sold the products, and politicians have threatened class action suits.

Sitting under the trees to recover after an hour of shouting slogans and waving placards in a recent protest outside the city's legislature, Mr Tam said: 'I will keep protesting until they give me back my money.

' What else can I do?' -- AFP