CFP Board Punishes 27 Planners For A Wide Range Of Infractions Hot

Although the wave of punishments represents the biggest purge of planners from the CFP community in years, it also covers a wide range of infractions.

Some of the planners getting the letter actually made grossly unsuitable investment suggestions, for example.

Forging a client's name on paperwork earned a 30-day suspension from active CFP status, while even being convicted of assault only brought the harshest punishment in the CFP Board's arsenal: being forbidden to call yourself a certified financial planner ever again.

Naturally, the advisors cited tend to be under the oversight of the SEC, FINRA, or both, and so also face censure from those bodies -- if appropriate.

But in a world where the planning community has been lobbying for tighter regulation of the industry in order to shake out fake planners, it's ironic that the planning community's own measures against the worst wrongdoers have relatively few teeth in them.

At worst, even a felonious planner loses the marketing edge that the CFP brand provides. Interesting.

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