A consultant's Nightmare...

Well, this is a first. Client wants me to prepare a valuation for his firm. He is buying out his partner. Nothing terribly complicated about it. He sends me, by mail, all requested information and we talk two or three times by phone. When I have the preliminary draft prepared I grab his business card which he had enclosed and send it off.

Twenty minutes later the client calls and sounds harried. He is on the road attending a conference but wants to let me know that the email address I sent the report to is a shop-wide address and that it is not a private email address! He is not mad per se, but I could detect some frustration in his tone.

He assumed full responsibility for the mix-up, and tells me when he was gathering the info together he couldn't find one of his special, private business cards so he sent me a business card with HIS name on it, but not with the email address for sending and receiving confidential information.

Oh well, I've had equally, if not more, embarrassing situations happen to me in the past. I guess the lesson to be learned is to double-check which address the client really wants you to use when sending confidential information.