Unfortunately, offshore pensions and savings plans have been seriously miss-sold by some financial advisors working in the Middle East - amazingly, despite better regulation and most expatriates having heard horror stories, this still happens. Here are some of the most common complaints from those miss-sold savings plans:

I was sold a savings plan as a single premium investment
Most offshore pensions and savings plans have an initial period after which contributions can be stopped without penalty. On 10-15 years policies, this initial period is normally in the region of 12 to 18 months.

This sometimes leads to rogue advisers selling such policies as a single contribution policy. They say that as contributions can be stopped after 12 months, the first annual contribution is all they need to invest - but the option remains open to contribute extra money in the future!

However, whilst contributions can technically be stopped after 12 or 18 months, the charges (and commissions) are calculated on the total contracted contributions; i.e. the annual premium (or lump sum as the victim intended) multiplied by 10 or 15 times! As such, by only paying one annual contribution, they are effectively increasing the charges on that investment from, let's say, 2% per annum to 20% to 20% per annum!

The advisor will have disapeared by the time the second annual premium is due and the victim finds out the true nature of the polciy, effectively leaving the victim with a worthless investment.

There are lump sum versions of the offshore pensions and savings plans available which do not contract policyholders to further contributions and only pay the adviser for the initial amount invested. As such, if you take out a single premium offshore investment, ensure it is not a 'regulat premium policy' otherwise you will be left with a useless investment whilst the adviser moves on to Singapore or China with a huge chunk of your money. 
 
The charges and/or penalties were not explained to me
Ultimately, it is up to you to ensure you understand all the additional allocations, charges and penalties before you sign the application form in which you are declaring the same. There are seven areas you should investigate:
 
1. What is the allocation rate? - this can be 95% to 105% (without special offers). Also do I get this allocation rate just
    for the 'initial period' or for the full term of the policy.
2. Do I get any loyalty bonuses after a set number of years?
3. Is there an initial period and, if so, what are the additional charges in this period?
4. What is the annual management charge for the policy? Does this reduce after a set number of years?
5. If there is not 'initial period', are there penalties for stopping or reducing contributions?
6. Is there direct access to funds or does the policy use 'mirror funds' with their additional hidden costs? (see page on
    mirror funds which explains why these can add up to 1.5% per annum to annual charges).
7. Is there additional charges for paying by credit card?

Even when you are happy with the answers to these questions, it is unlikely that you will really know what the policy will cost you after all the charges are offset by the enhanced allocations and loyalty bonuses. As such, also ask for 'reduction in yield figures' which show how much your policy would need to grow by each year just to cover the charges.
 
The best policies will have reduction in yield figures of just over 1% for a 10 year policy and in the region of 0.5% for policies 15 years or longer - remember you will have to add on to this the additional costs of mirrors funds if the policy does not offer direct fund access.