A sample snippet from my most recent telephone conversation trying to wrest one of my mother’s investment accounts away from the financial institution managing it:
Customer Service Supervisor: “The IRS requires us to take this information.”
Me: “Are you a lawyer?”
Customer Service Supervisor: “No.”
Me: “Are you an accountant?”
Customer Service Supervisor: “No.”
Me: “Former employee of the IRS?”
Customer Service Supervisor: “No.”
Me: “Read a directive from the IRS requiring you to collect it?”
Customer Service Supervisor: “No.”
Me: “So, you don’t know what the IRS requires. That is not what the IRS requires. It’s what your organization requires. I’ve already supplied that information to your organization three times. Let’s move this along or my next step will be going to the court.”
That conversation lasted about an hour and followed five rounds of correspondence (each round produced requests for new, additional information) and more than 20 hours of my time chewed up on what should have been something trivial.
We had the same problem with a middle-manager at our bank stating that the “IRS required that such-and-such…” . On questioning the manager on what he knew to be only a local bank policy, Doug was threatened with having the police summoned.
We were flabbergasted, went to a different bank branch and had our business taken care of, no questions asked.
I feel for you, Dave, this is absolutely outrageous.
You’re getting grumpier by the day, Dave!
While I know these events are no pleasure for you, Dave, I sure enjoy reading the posts you write afterwards!
That’s a verbatim transcript of that portion of my conversation, BTW.
Tell them you are going to sue them, personally and institutionally, for lost profits. That will get their attention. In fact, if I recall correctly, you were going to take the proceeds and short several commodities futures. Right!? ………Right!?
Sue them? Bring in the government? Actually, have you tried having your lawyer write them? Should not be necessary, but it seems to work sometimes. That helped get some of my mother-in-law’s assets free.
Steve
Throw around the word “wrongful conversion,” and a man with a beard and top hat told me to.