Dear Ms Wise, I inherited some money from an elderly relative about 10 years ago. It was a life-changing amount, but not enough for me to quit my day job. I found a financial adviser through a personal recommendation – I was one of his first clients when he went into business on his own. I put the kids through school and uni, put money into super, invested in ETFs, bought my first house and did a bit of travel. Fast-forward several years, he gets made a partner with one of the fancy firms and sacks me as a client – for not being rich enough. Is there an ethical problem here? And how do I find a new adviser who isn’t going to do the same thing? Dorothy
The wisdom: You’re not alone. In fact, more than 500,000 Australians have been ‘sacked’ by their financial advisers in recent years, says Angus Woods, the executive director of Advisor Ratings, a searchable database of registered financial planners.