A female IFA was left shocked after waking up to Whatsapp messages from a client and his girlfriend over the weekend.
The adviser, who preferred not to be named, told Professional Adviser she first received a text from her client in the early hours of Sunday morning at 12.45am asking: "Who the f*ck is this."
About ten minutes later, at almost 1am, the adviser then received a message from an unknown number, presumed to be the client's girlfriend, which demanded: "Can you tell me how you know Nigel."
It was not until the following morning the adviser read these messages and replied to both, explaining that she had advised Nigel the week before, helping him with a Junior ISA query he had. The girlfriend replied: "Sorry never mind" but Nigel appeared to ignore the message.
Of course, the IFA laughed this off but told Professional Adviser it did leave her questioning whether a male counterpart would receive the same sort of message and whether this was something she would have to put up with as a female adviser.
That said, she did not want this to be another complaint on a woman's experiences within financial services. "I don't really like the idea of everything being a negative, about my sex.
"I don't want to be tarnished as a young female that always has an issue about gender. I don't want it to be just what I'm known as. Gender [issues] shouldn't be a part of this profession, but it is still obviously about that."
