Hundreds of Illawarra retirees fear their retirement savings are lost after their investments vanished in the collapse of fund manager Trio Capital last October.

Many of them were clients of Colin Warne, an established financial planner who is now a director of Wollongong's Dominion WFS. Dominion acquired the Trio clients when it purchased Warne Financial Services in 2008.

In 2000 and 2001, Mr Warne was involved in the unregistered managed investment scheme known as the Queen Victoria Project.

According to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, he helped raise $4.6 million to invest in the scheme to buy the Blue Mountains' Queen Victoria Hospital and turn it into a retirement village.

Most of the 70 investors, mainly retirees, were from the Illawarra and most were Mr Warne's clients.

The project went into receivership and in 2004 the NSW Supreme Court found that Mr Warne and company Tasman Investment Management Limited had breached the Corporations Act by operating an unregistered managed investment scheme and not registering the scheme with ASIC.

ASIC obtained court orders that permanently banned Mr Warne from operating a managed investment scheme.

The ban does not, however, restrict Mr Warne from working as a financial planner.

The Mercury spoke to one retired client of Mr Warne who was caught up in both the Queen Victoria and Trio collapses. After losing more than $50,000 in the first scheme, he stands to lose a further $500,000 in the Trio failure.

The 61-year-old investor from Wollongong's southern suburbs, who did not wish to be named, said the experience had shaken his faith in the financial planning industry.

"I will never go back to a financial adviser again; I will do it my way from now on," he said.

"As investors, we've been let down poorly."

Mr Warne and Dominion did not respond to requests for comment.

At the time the ban was imposed, he said the breach was technical and the project had failed because of delays in obtaining development approval.

A financial planning firm with which Mr Warne was once associated, Symes Warne and Associates, has distanced itself from Mr Warne and declared it is undergoing a name change.