Posted on 11/25/2014 7:40:09 PM PST by Kartographer
At the height of the 2009 financial crisis Ms. Ronstein was facing a home foreclosure. After her husband passed away that same year the widow was searching through personal records when she happened across a 30-year old CD purchased by her husband in 1984 for the sum of $18,000. The CD, which offered the bearer a 10.9% interest rate and renewed automatically until it was cashed in, was originally issued by First Interstate Bank, an entity that has since been acquired by Wells Fargo.
At the time, Ronstein faced the real possibility of having her house seized for failing to pay her mortgage. The CD was like a dream come true. All her problems would be solved, which is exactly the reason why her late husband originally purchased the CD and gave it to her for safekeeping.
But when Ronstein arrived at Wells Fargo to trade in her financial instrument, she says that not only did the bank refuse to make good on the Cash Deposit, they practically laughed in her face.
But when she tried to get the money that she believes is rightfully hers, she the bank “practically almost laughed at me.”
(Excerpt) Read more at shtfplan.com ...
Ping!
Sounds like she’s cheating the bank. First Interstate started out as First National Bank of Arizona and they were just a state bank with local home town procedures. It’s likely they didn’t keep the certificate and now Wells Fargo will get ripped off because of it.
There were so many bank mergers that a lot of stuff like this happened. We handled a case like this at the law firm I worked for. The lady got her money eventually, iirc.
That paper is fungible, paper for money to be reconverted to money plus interest under agreed upon conditions.
No bank ever paid on a paper and left said paper in hands not their own, unless, as it was paid off, it had been marked PAID in one form or another. That assumes some bank in Podunk wanting to humor Granny.
IMHO, Wells Fargo is trying to weasel out of a just debt.
I’m telling it happens. I worked at that bank long ago.
Er, “telling you”
My father had purchased it for me as something to fall back on in an emergency and put it in his safety deposit box. He died in 1982.
I didn't know what happened to the CD, don't ever remember seeing it or cashing it. It's something I would remember because it's the only one I ever had.
I do remember going with my sister and aunt when they opened the safety deposit box. My aunt got all her CD's, $80K worth my father was keeping for her out of some property of hers. My sister scooped everything else up, put it in a bag and took it home to a different state.
She might have said there was a CD in there; I don't remember. She and i were named as joint executors in the will but I gave her a power of attorney to handle it all and put no expiration date on it. I don't have any records of getting any more 1099's and assumed my sister cashed it.
Now years later I found those old returns and wondered what happened to that CD because the estate was half and half but this was in my name only. I called Wells Fargo who had bought out the bank that issued the CD. They acted like they tried to reseearch it for me but came up with nothing.
Naturally I wouldn't expect their records to go back that far. So I don't know if I ever got any of it or not or what happened to it. This isn't a case like the one in the article but it just shows how you can have an asset and forget about it.
If your sister had your general POA, then she got the money.
Ask her what she did with it.
Your post would be funny if I didn’t understand just how serious you are.
SOP on these situations is to stall stall stall cost the person as much as you can in time or money. Most will give up the fight or settle ask Donna I bet she can tell you about ‘little people’.
Just clerks being trained by the senior clerk. Procedures would be corrected at some point . . . but lots of stuff happened.
Not all banks. Wells Fargo has a documentable history of causing commotion with their customers. They can’t buy enough ads to erase their banking personalities.
I trust banks like I trust casinos. The only difference is the customer service at the casinos is far better than the banks.
I trusted her totally. I'm afraid if I ask her she will not remember, she would say I got it in the settlement of my father's estate, she could have taken half of it which may have been her right (I forgot my father was on it as co-something but I got the 1099's).
I'd rather not know because it's painful what happened with the next estate. I never got over $70K, my share of the cash from my aunt's estate. I asked her what happened to it and she said it probably went in a business account. It should have been put in an account in my name in a separate account.
I think they thought I would blow the money like I did and I also think they wanted to buy me out of my share of property so they left everything in the estate (another relative) since 1989.
I got into a financial difficulty and wanted my property in my name so we had a long legal battle. I accidentally found where I had signed the papers where I had received the cash and the property. I didn't even get a copy of the will (this was another relative) which is some kind of executor malfeasance.
She was using my power of attorney and acting in my name for all sorts of things concerning my affairs and just gave me money when I needed it which I didn't need too much. I think she was afraid I would screw it all up.
I never thought this could happen. What really set me off is they threatened me. If I didn't sign papers and a release over to them now, they were going to file a suit against me. That made me furious. And it happened again, and I got mad again and got my own lawyer.
That is how I found out what all had been going on. Because I didn't cave and found various proofs I ended up with my property in my name and what I consider an equitable cash settlement, especially since I didn't forget they won a car worth $10K and offered it to me; I didn't want it because I liked my car, so they gave me FMV which was a nice thing to do.
It still hurts; I finally got threatened a third time with a law suit and caved because by then I knew what a partition suit was. I realized they had the money and the clout in a state with corrupt judges and if I lost I'd have and it was the way she said, "We'd win!" on the phone.
I'm still hurting about it. My father would have been upset. Never ever no matter how much you trust someone, make an unlimited power of attorney with no expiration date on it.
Now I see things about our relationship going all the way back and I see how we didn't really have much of a relationship at all ever. She was younger than me, prettier than me, smarter than me, went to the Ivy league school, married a wealthy banker and my life through MY OWN CHOICES brought me so low.
Now I am managing all my own affairs myself including a farm and selling my half of crops and am being very responsible.
Family relationships are so delicate. We were a family who didn't fight over property, wills, etc. All my life I just gave in to her; it wasn't worth fighting over. Finally I had to fight. It still hurts so bad and I don't feel the trust I felt for them before and I do appreciate what they have done that was nice and for my children, made their Christmas every year, sent them nice presents.
So they aren't bad people. It's just something that I have to face up to. I have been cursed with this mental illness for so many years, I am able to function mentally very well but I can't travel. I can't go to visit them or anyone.
I'm afraid to ask her what she did with it. I don't write to her very often. She was coming down to see me for my 1 hour per year. Then she got sick. I wrote and hoped she was ok. Then I remembered she won't come in my house because it is messy. It's not that bad but cluttered and I can't wash the windows. It's not packed with trash, not like that.
We had to sit in the car the last time she came. She wouldn't come in.
I don't know what to do. I want to repair the damage but if I can't totally forgive her or still feel the hurt (now it's a lifetime of it which some things are certainly not her fault and I know it), I don't want a relationship like that any more.
A lot of things I had forgotten since my childhood. When I was about 50, the memories started flooding back. I have to look at things that are very painful that I blew off at the time. I have a therapist but I don't get anywhere with anything but at least she listens and I get an hour and by the time I leave I am so upset and hyperventilating and unsteady on my feet I can hardly stand at the desk to get my next appointment.
II think I'm not being fair to her. Or myself. I don't ever want to face my brother-in-law again and I used to respect him and brag about how proud i was of them and all the neat things they had and did.
While all this was going on with my sister, my son killed himself at age 42 two years ago come Dec 5. He changed his life ins beneficiaries to his two sisters, my daughters. They ended up in my son's widow contesting the beneficiary change.
I have encouraged my daughters, helped her lawyers, insisted on always the truth; it was going to go to jury trial, $1.5 million. Finally today my daughter came over and showed me the papers and her check $400K. Her sister got $400K. And we got his two boys $200K each in a trust managed by a third party so his wives can't manage it. And the stepson got the interest when they finally got it in an interest bearing account will get about $32K now because he's 18. I asked the lawyers if they could make the boys age 25 to have the proceeds and that's how they did it. It's all so complicated.
The lawyers ended up with I think about $300K. It's such a relief that all the ugliness you cannot imagine what people can do to others on account of money. She had people lined up to lie for her; my daughters had to prove they didn't do it. Dirt after dirt after dirt. They had my children's father and stepmother lined up to testiffy AGAINST his own daughters.
My son's wife had been having an affair with his friend and business partner, had a child by him well after my son died. Now she hates my daughters so they won't be able to have a relationship with the boys and neither will I; in my case it hurts too much.
I still feel for people I don't know. Yesterday there was a bad accident, and I could tell from the photo that somebody didn't make it. I prayed for them all with tears streaming down my eyes. Somebody got up yesterday morning and didn't know they would be dead that day, right before Thanksgiving. Today you know how these things work, they identified the victim. An 18-year-old girl died at the scene, her boyfriend was injured but not life threatening, and the UPS semi driver was not injured.
It helps to think about others; that's how I deal with it. Other people have been through worse. It never really made me feel better but it puts things in perspective.
In the world you will have tribulation. It looks like some people have charmed lives but most don't.
I never will ask my sister what she did with it because i don't want to know and I don't want it to matter any more. I'm sure I've been a trial to her. They are ashamed of me and my family to meet the family of her daughter's husband. I don't have to be told. We weren't invited to her wedding. I didn't expect to but my daughters were hurt. I gave her an expensive present but all the best stuff was taken from her briday registry. My sister and husband raised two very nice children.
Please forgive me for going on and on. Sometimes I need to sort things out. I'll save it for myself to maybe talk to someone. Don't fret about my son; other FReepers on a couple of threads were very supportive when I mentioned it. I wish I'd asked for prayers for him while he was on a downward spiral. He planned it all out and told me what he was going to do and I didn't know how to stop him. I did call the police once and he said he was through with me and never spoke to or of me again. I'm still grieving over him and no matter what happened or what he did, wished I'd been more physically loving of him, like more hugs and more kisses when he was little. Heaven knows I adored him, just have a hard time showing my feelings. He was the light of my life; he was like a consolation for my broken spirit by his usual cheerfulness.
My son was a survivalist like this thread. He had lots of cases of MRE's, Jack Daniels in case he needed something to barter, guns and ammo, a huge safe, but he wanted to build a bunker under his basement. I used to worry like that but I gu He knew bad things were going to happen more frequently in this country. He thought the economy would collapse. He may have called that wrong. He started a precious metals business. His wife and lover pushed him out of that unscrupulously. He started a new business, drop shipping colored diamonds imported from Israel. His wife evidently never notified those Orthodox Jews running the business of his death; she got the business. I decided not to meddle in it and tell them what happened; all they wanted to do was to sell diamonds. It was starting to take off and he was so tired he couldn't eat and the anxiety was eating him alive. He texted his sister that what he was suffering was a fate worse than death.
That’s why with any bank, I will start off nice and polite, then work into being a tool if I get the runaround, then it goes to paper.
We had a PMI on our first mortgage that dropped off on request when you hit 20% equity and it was either 25 or 50 basis points on the interest rate. Wells bought the paper, and when we hit 20% and my wife called, the guy laughed at her and said “he’d like to have a mortgage like that”.
I called and gave them a “WTF ***hole??? I’m looking at the contract right in front of me!” and they were all “oh, we’ll get right on it!” A few months go by. I fire up the MS Word and put on my “I know my s*** cap” and write a detailed letter stating the contract facts and how they’re going to take PMI off, and to boot they’re going to pay for the appraisal and credit me the payment differences for the months they jacked me around.
It was off in time for our next payment and the appraisal was free and I got those differences credited. Once you start putting things in writing and sending it registered mail, stuff gets done!
Wells Fore-go ping
...Or, you could do what I did when Countrywide “lost” a mortgage payment (which they had cashed and wrongly applied to someone else’s account..they admitted it every time I called but would never “fix” it). This went on for months with them promising to correct it on one end, while threatening me for being behind in my payments on the other.
I finally called our State Bank Examiner, who wrote the President of Countrywide a letter. I have no idea what it said, but I got a call from the asst. to the President of Countrywide within days. They were VERY rude to me and made it clear that they did “not appreciate” my having involved the “State” in this matter...but I had letter in my hands within hours of that phone call apologizing for their misapplication of my payment; along with proof that they had sent correction letters to the credit reporting agencies (CC’d to the Bank Examiner).
I spent over 6 months and countless hours trying to get them to rectify THEIR mistake before having to bring in the big guns...and they got mad at ME....Idiots.
wow, I’m glad my family is closer than that. My parents are in their 80s I’ve never expected anything from them. When they die I’m sure my sister will take care of things and still don’t expect anything. All is well.
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