(This happened a while back – just getting around to writing it up)
When I was a kid, my grandmother on my Mom’s side started a small investment account for myself, my sister, and our cousins. It was a nice thing to do and when she passed away I transferred the address for the statements to my name. I didn’t need it and didn’t do anything with it – just kept an eye on the slow growth over the years.
The financial group that managed it from Florida eventually suggested that I drop them and work directly with the investment company – Capital Group – directly. I made those changes and updated the address again – and got the online account access all set up.
The University made some changes to the investments in 2022 for our retirement and the financial person I worked with suggested switching to a Roth IRA. I decided that I would start to pull from this investment and transfer that to the Roth – to give it a jump start. I transfered $6,000 from my checking account to the Roth and went online with Capital Group to request a distribution of $6,000 back to me. 6K is the most that I could put in the Roth at a time and I planned on repeating this next year.
I got the check, took it to the bank, and deposited it at the ATM. Simple.
And then everything fell apart.
The bank wouldn’t deposit the check and instead sent me a notice that my grandmother’s name was the primary on the check and I was the secondary. They suggested that I contact the check issuer and have them reissue a check in my name only.
I was left with a legal copy of the check that was unusable.
So, I called up Capital One and explained what was going on and asked them to re-issue the check. They were instead horrified that I had requested the check on the account that I hadn’t claimed. I was confused since my name was on the account, I had online access, had updated the address and account information – and there was nothing in place to prevent me.
Somehow, though I am not a financial expert and no one had ever told me the process, I should have Known Better ™.
I would need to fill out a new account request form, a transfer form, and provide my birth certificate, and my grandmother’s death certificate.
I explained that I didn’t have the death certificate and would have to ask relatives or request it from the records office in Illinois. In the meantime, I asked if they could cancel the check and they were emphatically not going to do that. No reason given, just… no.
So, I checked with my Mom and she didn’t have a copy – nor did her sister. I went to the State of Illinois records office online and found the form to request the certificate. There was a fee, it couldn’t be submitted online, and it would take at least… 12 weeks to process.
I printed and filled out the form, then sent it in with a check and settled in to wait.
A while later I still hadn’t gotten the certificate, but I did get a letter from Capital Group about the uncashed check. If I didn’t act on that, it would be turned over to Unclaimed Funds.
I called Capital group and explained what was going on – I was waiting on the death certificate before I could complete the paperwork and it still hadn’t arrived. I asked again if they could cancel the check to give me more time and no, they would still not do that nor give me a reason. They conceded that the funds wouldn’t get turned over for at least a year so I did actually have time. And they wrapped up the call by telling me that I didn’t need the death certificate after all – having no idea why someone from their organization would have told me that.
Seething, I hung up the phone and tried to plan a time to meet with the bank. One of the forms required a “medallion signature” from a financial organization – like a bank – and a notary signature isn’t good enough.
I made an appointment for later that week and gathered up every form of ID I had in my possession. If they wanted to see my library card, I would be ready.
A couple days before the appointment, I got the death certificate in the mail. I sighed.
I got to the appointment early and went to the reception desk to check in. Instead of just, “okay, thank you”, I had to use my phone to scan a QR code and complete 5 steps to “officially check in”.
Once that was done, it was 10 minutes past my appointment time before I was called to the office. I got out the forms, all of my ID’s (including a passport, but not my library card) and explained I needed a medallion signature.
The associate was aghast. Only the branch manager had a medallion. She went to check to see if the manager was available. I waited.
She came back with the manager who looked over the documents and explained that I would need my birth certificate, my driver’s license, the most recent quarterly statement from Capital group, and my grandmother’s death certificate.
I raised an eyebrow high enough to dislocate my forehead and said that I had all of those things, but not with me. As we were setting a time to come back, I noted that I was only a few minutes from home. The manager had time a half-hour from then available so I headed home to eat quickly and gather that paperwork.
I hurried back and sat down with the manager.
Everything seemed good until we got to the statement. I had pages 1 and 2 since that included the information about the account, but hadn’t saved the 3rd page since it was boilerplate text.
That wasn’t good enough – she needed to see page three since the other pages were 1 of 3 and 2 of 3.
I got out my phone and managed to get to the Capital Group site and somehow got logged in. I navigated to the accounts area to see the last statement and got an error. I “had requested that online access be restricted”.
Which wasn’t true – but I figured they had flipped the switch on the account after my “why would you do that?” distribution request.
The manager suggested that we call Capital Group to see if they could unlock my access so I could see and show her that pointless/critical “page 3”.
She made the call, put it on speaker, and when it was answered she explained what we were trying to do.
The associate explained that since I hadn’t claimed the account – which is what I was trying to do – that they couldn’t turn online access back on without authorization from the executor of the estate (from 20 years ago). I asked if they could verify that there was nothing account-specific on the statement and they could do that – but that wasn’t enough for the manager even though the group that had issued the statement was pretty clear on it. Audit purposes…
I sighed – loudly.
I asked when the next statement would be issued and mailed out. The quarter would end in September and the statement would be sent in October. I suggested that I could just wait for the next statement to be mailed to me and I would then have a complete copy of the statement.
The associate agreed that it would work – provided that I hadn’t restricted the statements to online only. I hadn’t – of course – and since I’d gotten the last one (well after the account confusion), I figured I’d get the next one.
We ended the call and I gathered up all the paperwork again. The manager showed me out and said I should make another appointment once I got the statement.
I went home.
More time passed and the statement finally arrived. I opened it up, verified that it had 2 useful and 1 useless pages – then called to make an appointment to see the manager later that week. I called, this time, since the online options for appointment didn’t specify the medallion/manager option.
Before the appointment, I got a call/voice-mail from the manager asking me to call back since a medallion signature has special requirements. I called back, she was busy, and she never called back before the appointment.
The day of the appointment I was running late – for me – and stopped at the outside door to try and do the “official” check in. I got 3 slow steps in the process when it didn’t recognize my number and just gave up and went into the reception desk.
I was seated and waited.
The manager met me and I explained that I had been there a few weeks ago for the same thing but was missing a critical 3rd page on the statement. She remembered me then and went through all the documentation again – and then got out her medallion stamp. Which was simply an official pre-inked stamp – nothing fancy.
Stamped and signed, then she went to make copies. I folded two small ducks.
When she got back she gave me back the originals and I gathered up all the paperwork again. I noted that I had my ducks in a row this time and said that I hoped that it worked.
Though I wasn’t really feeling optimistic.
I went home and went through everything again – from verifying the address on the envelope to Capital Group to all the paperwork and the right copies. I also included a letter asking that the original check (including the check number) be canceled and a new check be issued. And that the online access be reinstated.
The next day, I went to the post office and had it sent by certified mail.
And now I wait to see if this worked.
The best outcome will be a check written out to me that I can deposit. Next year, I’ll request another distribution – this time, for everything left in the account.
They didn’t want to treat me like a customer and I was tired of being treated like an adversary.
At this point, I’d rather be neither.
EDIT: I got the check with 0.000% fanfare.