Queensland nurses Alex and David Didlock are having trouble sleeping. After signing up to a self-managed superannuation fund and tipping all of their retirement savings into it, they cannot access their money.

Up in the air is $490,000 of super invested in funds managed by Brisbane-based Australian Fiduciaries Ltd (AFL), which two years ago was hit with interim stop orders by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to “protect retail investors from potentially investing in funds that may not be suitable for their financial objectives, situation or needs” which the couple was not aware of at the time.