The Tale of BB&T Bank Robbing a Grieving Family

For the last 5+ years, my daughter and myself have dedicated ourselves to the care and well being of my elderly father. He was in advanced dementia, had congestive heart failure and type 2 diabetes.Despite my multitude of health problems, I set aside any vestige of a life to stay at home and care for him 24/7. No home health, no help from any remaining family, agency or church, just me and my daughter. Brianna (my daughter and main victim of BB&T) worked 12 hour days, and traveled hundreds of miles keeping up with his mountain of bills and expenses. My father received $1800 a month from Social Security and this didn't begin to cover what he needed on a monthly basis. However we did what we had to do, to make his last years happy and kept him at home.

On October 20, 2015, my father passed. While I know he is now at peace with his wife and son, it was still devastating. We were just beginning to heal from the wounds his passing left, when BB&T decides to make a horrible and painful time, exponentially worse. You see, before he was completely incapacitated, he and my daughter opened a joint bank account with BB&T since she was primarily responsible for all his bills, he wanted her to have immediate access to his funds. When he passed, we contacted the Social Security administration and were assured that we could use his final October check to aid in his final expenses. The check for $1842.60 went in the account on 10/29. If anyone thinks this covers a funeral, they are sorely misinformed. By federal law he was entitled to the October check. This was not a gift or charity, it was his.

Friday, Novemeber 13, 2015 my daughter awakens me frantic. She was checking her bank balance to see if her paycheck had been deposited. Too her horror, BB&T had subtracted $1842.60 and sent it back to Social Security, We immediately piled in the car and went to our local Social Security office. We explained what happened and the extremely nice gentleman informed us that Social Security had not requested the money back, but in fact BB&T had taken it upon themselves to return the money. We were given papaerwork to fill out to recoup our losses and were told it would take 6-10 weeks. Meanwhile checks for monthly bills are bouncing all over the place, the animals are going to need food, cars need gas, prescriptions will go unfilled, and we will eventually need to eat. So, off we go to BB&T to hopefully get some answers.

We are greeted by a nice young man named Jeremy. Jeremy was very perplexed when we explained our situation. He contacted his superior, Sue and was told this is standard procedure for BB&T. Jeremy then stated that since we would EVENTUALLY get the money back from Social Security, what did we expect them to do? Ummm, how about correct your mistake? How about apologize for taking my daughter's ENTIRE paycheck and think that it's OK because you can? It's inept, heartless, untouchable institutions like BB&T that engender mistrust of banks and contribute to the poor economy. As a caveat, the gentleman at the Social Security office warned us about BB&T. If only we had done our research when choosing a bank in the first place, we would still be in mourning, but we wouldn't be doing it without food or power.

The Social Security administration, while a federal agency has rules and laws that they must adhere to. They can not go into a personal bank account and yank back money. They must follow due process of law. BB&T follows no such code, and feel they are untouchable. They made the decision to act on behalf of Social Security with no regard for laws or morality. Something must be done to curtail the callus disregard for those of us without the wherewithal to hire attorneys on a whim to call them to task This is an egregious act and needs to be corrected.

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