Frustration meter in the red

I have had a lot of hurdles to cross since my mom passed away when it comes to the many, many items that have needed to be addressed, not to mention the emotional aspects of it.  Well yesterday was the most frustrating day thus far when it comes to the task of handling my moms estate.

Years ago mom said how she wanted to get my name on her bank accounts as well as give me power of attorney.  Somehow that time never came.  I feel partially responsible for the headaches I now have as a result of this not happening.  I could have pushed mom harder to get it done.

So anyway, yesterday I headed to the same Wells Fargo branch that I have been dealing with trying to get her bank account and IRA liquidated.  It was determined that we could not use an estate account because of the way Summary Administration probate works where there is no executor or personal representative.  Instead there needs to be three checks cut for each account my mom had, splitting each one in a third.  With her bank accounts that adds up to a total of nine checks.  Her IRA, which for some reason can not be handled at the same time, will go through a similar process so in total there will be four checks going to myself and my siblings.  This is a pain in the ass from my perspective since I have been managing things from the start with the assumption that we would be able to split the funds after expenses and costs were taken out.  Now that stuff has to be taken out after the split and returned to me via Todd and Torrin writing a check back to me.

I still do not feel assured that those accounts will be liquidated and split as I was told they would be just based on the way things have gone.  The branch manager was totally clueless on this process and he has gotten some conflicting information from the people he has had on the phone.  I can only hope it is handled quickly and properly.

So while I was dropping off the paperwork to get the bank accounts handled I brought up to the branch manager my mom’s stock assets.  Mom had Sherwin Williams stock that she got as an employee back in the 80’s.  It was a reinvestment account so over the last 30 years what was originally 2 shares had grown into around 60 shares.

I thought I had a simple plan to handle these assets.  I obtained online account access to the stock which just happened to be another Wells Fargo account.  Once the court order was signed I went in and executed a sell order on all of the stock, or so I thought.  When the check showed up the other day it was a little more than a third of the total value of the account, wtf??

I went back online and looked.  There were 32 shares still sitting in there and I was unable to do anything with them.  I later discovered that the reason was those 32 shares were stock certificates, something different than electronic shares.  Well I now I had a whole new set of problems to deal with.  I called up the support number for the account and explained my situation.  Well as soon as I told the rep that I was accessing my deceased mother’s account she immediately told me that she had to disable online access to the account.  I wasn’t pleased but couldn’t really argue otherwise as from a security perspective that would be a red flag.  Luckily I had taken a screen shot of the current account status before my access was revoked.

I continued to outline my dilemma and asked how I would handle it.  She said that the ownership of the stock needs to be transferred via something called a Stock Power Form which she emailed to me.  I had this form with me and presented it to the branch manager for guidance on how to fill it out.  I pointed out a particular section of the form that required a “Medallion Signature Guarantee”, something I never heard of but sounded ominous.  The branch manager again did not know much, but he did know that his branch did not have anyone that possessed this stamp, evidently it is something you have to be qualified for, almost like being a notary.  He did know enough to tell me that a branch about 5 miles away did have staff with this title and that I could go there.  So that’s what I did.

I drove to the next branch and while I was waiting filled out the sections of the form that were straight forward.  After about 15 minutes I was told they could see me.  I presented my form to the bank guy.  He looked it over and said all he would need is my Wells Fargo debit card.  Huh?  I told him I don’t have a Wells Fargo account.  He said that they couldn’t help me, the only way they can do the signature is with a current Wells Fargo account holder.  They said I could open an account but even if I did, I would have to wait TWO MONTHS until they would be allowed to do it.  WTF!!  I told them the branch manager I just talked to did not mention anything about this restriction, he definitely knew I did not already have a WF account.  They shrugged their shoulders and apologized.

They said that I should be able to get the signature at the credit union that I belong to.  This did not compute to me, why would I go to my credit union to get authorization to transfer stock managed by Wells Fargo.  The WF guy assured me that they could do it as this Medallion Signature is more or less a higher level notarization that is required for stock transactions.  Ok fine, I headed to my third financial institution of the day, thank goodness I have an understanding boss.

So I get to the CU and wait for another 20-25 minutes to see someone.  I get waited on by a woman that I have dealt with before on other loan paperwork.  She said she sort of recognizes me.  I explain to her what I needed and why I needed it.  Her initial reaction was tentative, I could tell she didn’t really feel like dealing with it.  She told me she needed certain documentation to consider doing it.  She said it in a way that made me think she thought I didn’t have it with me so she could dismiss my request and move on.  Unfortunately for her I had the death certificate, court order and stock statement, sort of.

She said that the value of the stock needs to be verified and required a current statement.  I told her I had older paper statements with me but not the very latest.  I did have the screen shot of the account status prior to my access being revoked that morning sitting in my Dropbox.  She said I could email it to her bank email address.  My first email to her arrived with a Dropbox link in it.  The CU firewall evidently forbids access to Dropbox so she could not get the file.  Ok, I am resourceful so I instead saved a copy of the screenshot to my phone and emailed it to her as an attachment, twice.  Evidently the CU email system shit cans emails with .jpg attachments.  WTF.

I was getting very aggravated.  The amount of stock in the big picture was very small and the woman could just look at the image on my phone to verify it, but no, she needed a print out.  With my developing understanding that a Medallion Signature is really just another way to confirm the identity of someone I did not understand why this song and dance was being asked of me.  I have been a customer of the CU for going on 15 years, I have all the paperwork that confirms my mom’s death, and the stock transaction I am trying to get done has absolutely nothing to do with the credit union and everything to do with Wells Fargo.  The woman said she could not proceed until she had the stock account print out.

Well my internal gears were still spinning.  I suggested to the woman that if she could give me a personal email address that does not have such restrictive filter.  She was not interested in that option.  I still was not going to give up.  The credit union office is literally next door to one of our branch offices.  I told her I would be back in 10 minutes.  I walked out the door and down to our building.  I hopped on one of the girls computers, accessed my email and printed the fcking stock statement and marched right back into the CU.

I came back into the woman’s office with the stock statement triumphantly in my hand.  She greeted my accomplishment with a “too bad, so sad” tone as she told me that while I was gone she called a “supervisor” and explained the situation.  She said she was told that because the court order has all three of our names on it that they can’t do the stamp.  As you can imagine, I was not pleased.

As I was entering my 3rd hour of fcking around with banks my patience had eroded.  I went on probably a 5 minute rant where I expressed my discontent that the credit union was being so uncooperative in this process.  The woman said that beyond having the three of us present at one time she did not have any advice for me.  I told her that it was ridiculous to offer that as the only viable answer considering the geography of the three parties involved.  As I ranted and ranted she had this look on her face that annoyed me further.  I could tell she was just waiting for me to finish and she wasn’t really listening to my logic.  She didn’t give a fck.

The bottom line was if this woman looked at the situation realistically she could have just stamped my form and sent me on my way, with no issues.  However, in this cover your ass, make decisions based on policies written without allowing for consideration for personal judgement world, she took the easy way out.  It’s always easier to say no.

I left the credit union office fed up to the utmost level.  I called my lawyer that handled the probate.  He said the signature medallion stamp was stupid and shouldn’t even be used anymore.  He also said that the CU rep was out of line denying it but he had no alternative action for me, he can’t force them to stamp it.

I arrived back at the office fuming, hungry and annoyed I had to skip my lunchtime gym session.  I called up the main credit union office to again pitch my case.  I call and explain my situation briefly which got me transferred to a bitchy sounding woman.  I explained my situation a second time.  She offered up a simpleton response saying “I guess she cant do it because of multiple people involved”  When I tried to explain the details of why that answer was not good enough I got a “Please hold” followed by music.  The bitch threw me on hold for close to 5 minutes until a man picked up.

I told him that whomever I just talked to threw me on hold with no explanation and that I thought that was rude and unprofessional.  I asked that if he knew who took the call last that he informs the woman or her supervisor that I did not appreciate it.  I then began my explanation a third time.  Unlike the first two people I spoke to, this guy actually listened to me and understood my frustration that nobody is considering that my brother and sister are out of state and that saying they need to be present was ridiculous.

He put me on hold multiple times while he sent internal communications to a number of people trying to get some traction that we could use to call back the branch I was at and instruct them to provide the stamp on the document.  He really tried hard but ran into the same magical “supervisor” that is more interested in procedures than customer service.  He said officially the answer is still the same but he actually advised me to go to one of the other local credit union branches to see if I deal with a rep that realizes the situation and acts appropriately based on it instead of hiding behind a supervisor on the phone.  It seemed bizarre that this was the official recommendation.

Since then I sent out an email to my brother and sister expressing my frustration and asking if either of them had Wells Fargo bank accounts which MAY make the process more doable.  Todd called me last night and said he did so I am calling back Wells Fargo today to see if we can get away with just him being present to sign the form to transfer the stock ownership.  I am crossing my fingers it is.  I could use some good news.