Niko: Media acting without thinking on Mighty River accusations

The Christchurch office of Milestone Financial Services had its phones ringing off the hook on Wednesday morning as journalists demanded answers about how it had obtained the contact details of a woman who had registered her interest to buy shares in the float.

For a business not used to being inundated with media inquiries, this was quite a shock, but not as shocking as the substance (or lack thereof) of the allegations: That Treasury had supposedly leaked the investor’s details to Milestone.

The woman, who refused to give her real name and referred to herself only as “Elizabeth”, phoned RadioLive claiming her data must have been leaked because Milestone emailed her about the share offer only minutes after she’d phoned the 0800 number.

This would have been a good time to check these wild claims with the company, because it turned out the email in question was sent to 650-700 people on Milestone Canterbury’s client database after the firm received inquiries about the float from a number of clients.