The financial planner and the fraudster

Wednesday, November 22nd 2006, 9:58PM

by Philip Macalister

I suspect most financial planners would be pretty happy to have a client with more than $3.4 million and pulling in $50K plus every fortnight.

Well, that is unless it was Wayne Patterson (47) who recently admitted multiple fraud and forgery charges making him one of the largest benefit swindlers in the country.

Like many readers I had been following the story of Patterson - partly because it was so unbelievable.

The biggest chuckle though was when I heard an item on the television news about Patterson and said to myself I know that voice.

Turns out the landlord of the fraudster's home was Auckland financial planner Paul Markham.

I guess if Markham had been giving Patterson financial advice instead of just collecting a couple of hundred bucks a week in rent, he would have advised to do some other things with the money besides stashing hundreds of thousands of thousands of dollars around the house and garden.

As for the 12 gold bars, well they may be a good investment according to some planners I have heard from recently.

In the end it's nice to know that not all financial planners are anti investment properties (not sure if they get recommended to clients though) and that Markham may have lost his tenant, but at least his ordinary house is now a "mansion" with an expensive and exotic garden!

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