Irmgard Greiner, 92, trusted Commerzbank with all her savings for over six decades. Then the bank recommended a lucrative investment -- for a duration of 20 years. The retired teacher found out too late she can't access the money until she turns 108. Now she is waging a battle to regain control of her assets.

Irmgard Greiner, a German pensioner who lives in a suburb of Dortmund, recalls the day four years ago, just before her 88th birthday, when a financial adviser from Commerzbank sat on her settee giving her financial advice.

Irmgard Greiner is fighting a legal battle to get back a
40,000-euro investment. Photo: Spiegel Online.

She recommended that Greiner invest €40,000 ($53,000) in a so-called closed fleet fund, administrated by a trust company, with no option for cancellation -- meaning the octagenarian wouldn't have access to her money for two decades. Greiner says she wasn't told about that last part, the bit about not being able to cancel the investment, on that afternoon. But it is included in the 66-page prospectus.

Irmgard Greiner doesn't hear well, but she has good eyesight, even without glasses. However, there wasn't time to read the small print that afternoon, she says.

"The purchase of the investment was the express wish of Frau Greiner," the bank counters. "She wanted to make a long-term investment because there are no heirs and the assets were to go to a foundation in the event of her death."

The bank adds that the financial adviser "weighed all the advantages and disadvantages of the investment together with the client. That particularly involved the long duration of the investment. Irmgard Greiner decided after the extensive consultation to invest a small part of her wealth firmly in this stake."