I ask this question as I find myself at my computer just before 3am.  For me it's not a bit of late night (or early morning!) shopping that has woken me up but rather a phishing SMS supposedly about my CBA account.  Here's the thing - I don't have a CBA account!  However, even if I did I know they wouldn't contact me by SMS with a link to their website.

Here at PFS bad financial advice and practices, so the minute I saw this dodgy message on my phone I was up to have a hot chocolate and report it to the CBA immediately.  Kudos to them for having all the details and an email address on their website so that I could simply email the screenshot to report this attempted fraud.  Job done, back to catch some shut-eye.

As financial advisers we believe it is our duty to avoid or report any kind of fraud or financial misrepresentation.  Even if my act of getting up in the middle of the night saves one person from becoming a victim of financial crime, that's good enough for us.  We set extremely high standards for our office and as part of our Quality Assurance under ISO 9001:2015 we enforce these. 

In fact, our actions as far back as 2007 stopped incorrect financial and taxation advice from affecting one of our clients.  This was recently confirmed in a Supreme Court case for which I provided documentation and was called to witness.  The judge found that our firm had acted with integrity and exposed the incorrect actions simply by speaking up.  The client was awarded damages of almost $3M and the adviser has already left the industry. We're for our industry in general and our firm to be transparent and accountable and it starts with us.