CFPB: That would be “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.” It’s a federal agency that fields complaints about credit card issuers, banks, credit bureaus, and the like. And mirabilis! Apparently they at least try to do something about it.
There’s nothing like the feds to get action when you sic them on a bank. Lo! These many years ago, when the local Arizona bank the ex- and I had patronized for decades was acquired by a faceless national bank, said FNB lost a $20,000 municipal bond belonging to me.
A friend-turned-CFP ill-advised me to buy this thing shortly after the Great Divorce, and it had been in the local bank’s safekeeping since then. Local bank, whose founder we happened to know and whose founder’s daughter (by then a banker herself) had gone to Stanford with the ex-, functioned like a credit union in some important ways. To wit, it had customer service.
Can you imagine?
That went out the door when the mega-bank came in, and so after a year or two of unsatisfactory relations, I told them I wanted that muni bond, because I wanted to move the money elsewhere (by now, I was acting on the advice of my current financial advisors, who happen to be highly excellent).
Believe it or not, they stuck the bond in an envelope, pasted a first-class stamp on it, and DROPPED IT IN THE MAIL!
At least, that’s what they claimed.
When it never showed up, they told me they’d mailed it to me and so it was my problem.
After much frustrating argument, I finally complained to the regional banking commission in San Francisco.
Shortly, a bank factotum showed up in person at my front door with the muni bond in hand.
This, my friends, is why you need the federal government on your side.
Take a look at some of these hilarious fiascos. For better entertainment value, enter a search term on that page: Citibank Visa. 😀
Interesting, on their unfiltered page, how many of these complaints are targeted at credit bureaus.
Oh well. Take note: this could be a useful resource someday.
……and is why I use the Credit Union for just about all of my “bidness”. But when I do happen into the last Bank I do deal with…they ALWAYS “shepherd” me to an “advisor”…. Who wants to know how they can serve me better and then try to sell me anything from a credit card to an over priced under yielding “savings account”. MAN you were lucky that “bond work” showed up. An older friend of mine misplaced this paper work and had a HECK of a time and spent too much time getting it taken care of…..
Yup. it took me a few years to figure out about credit unions. SDXB was using two of them — he had an account with the CU that serves military bases and one that primarily served his civilian employer. But I was too dumb to figure out the advantages, so I moved my money out of that bank to another bank, which was also acquired by a mega-bank, and then to another local bank…and FINALLY to a credit union! Some people are slow learners…
The ONLY reason the bank came up with the bond was that the federal banking commission became involved. The only reason I knew to seek out banking regulators was that I’d been married to a lawyer. Were it not for that background, I’d have just been out 20 grand — which the bank very obviously had in its possession.