Ken Thompson - Wachovia President and CEO

4 Responses for "Ken Thompson - Wachovia President and CEO"

1. ken thompson | Thehotopic June 2nd, 2008 at 8:47 pm

   […] Ken Thompson - Wachovia President and CEO […]

2. wachovia June 10th, 2008 at 3:58 pm

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3. Rhonda Walsh August 14th, 2008 at 8:58 am

   For Ken Thompson, I would like to ask for your assistance in the matter of our problem at one of your banks in Palm Coast, FL. My husband and I are on a fixed income, and we had an issue regarding PayPal, which was handled by a wonderful C.S.R. Erica, the problem is that the fees associated with the unauthorized use on July 30, were not returned until 8/12 -although the money was -this then caused 5 more overdrafts, and I was told that because the bank just issued a credit (which was due me) that they would not be issuing any others. If the original credit was done in a timely fashion, the 4 life insurance policies would have been paid, and not charged $35 each -and putting our life insurance policies in jeopardy. Furthermore, there was another bank error in February, which Jenessa Munson handled, and she sent me the letters to send to my creditors, and also returned the overdraft fees. The next time there was a problem,I spoke to a manager, I did not get his name, but he promised to return 40% of these fees. I asked if he could put me through to someone who could explain something to me, and at the end of the conversation, I told the person that the manager told me he would issue me 40% of the fees. This woman was not so nice, and told me since the bank just issued me a courtesy credit (deja vu?) that they would not be able to help me. OK, you have some exemplary people, then there are the other ones who answer the phone with an attitude like I am disturbing their day, and the drill sgt. that has been helpling me with another issue since I made a mistake, and paid my bills twice, and your wonderful dispute person Amanda tried to help me. I have had a bad time of it trying to refinance, and I try to pay all of my bills on time. I did not have to pay the mortgage because I was refinancing, but it had not gone through yet. On the first of August I panicked. I forgot that I had already paid the bills in July sometime, and I went ahead of paid them again. I have never done anything like that before, and I did not know what to do. We are both disabled, and we live on a fixed income -besides, I do not know anyone who could afford to pay each and every bill two times in the same month. Maybe you can -I cannot. So, Amanda said to fill out the ACH form, gave me a fax number close to her, and then she would help me to retrieve the funds for that day. When I tried to contact her personally, I do not remember the person’s name who answered, but it was one of those who was put out before I even told her my problem -she insisted that I had to refax the form to the “right” fax number, and I probably got Amanda into trouble, although not intentionally, I assure you. Amanda and Erica are the ones that your commercials speak about providing excellent customer service -they should get awards for their kindness. Before I even told them my story, both of them listened attentively, treated me with respect, and honestly had desire to help me fix t he problem. The other people that I will not mention, because I did not bother to write down their names. The fact is Mr. Thompson, I believed in your bank when I opened my accounts and told them the horror stories I had experienced with another bank. I was told that Wachovia does not do that to their “little” accounts. I do not have a large corporate account. I am just an ordinary person, and trying to make it on disability, and raise two kids. The issue regarding these other 5 fees now is principle. I should never have had them to begin with, and if the $70 fees that were associated with PayPal was returned along with the PayPal amount of unauthorized use, the other fees would not have arose. Can you please help me? Rhonda E. Walsh and Paul F. Walsh the account is the checking account, and money was also taken out of our savings account, and I was charged for that as well. Sometimes it feels wrong, and this time, I must insist that I am right on this issue. Had I any doubt in my mind, I would not have taken up your time to write. Respectfully, Rhonda E. Walsh

4. Louise Doyle August 14th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

   August 9, 2008

   North Carolina Commissioner of Banks
   4309 Mail Service Center
   Raleigh, NC 27699-4309
   919-733-3016
   Fax: 919-733-6918

   RE: WACHOVIA BANK

   TO: Investigations Department

   I am writing to let you all know about the unspeakable things Wachovia Bank has done to my 77 year old mother Louise Doyle.

   Totally against my advise my mother made the very big mistake of turning all of her financial investment accounts over to two Wachovia financial advisors in Beaufort, South Carolina named Mike Rentz and Gene Garlington in the later part of 2005.

   At the time my mother turned her investments over to these Wachovia financial advisors she had a large amount of stocks with Bank of America and Southwest Georgia Bank which she had owned for years
   amongst other very good stocks. My mother owned a home which appraised for $690,000.00 which was
   paid for and she had gone to Wachovia to get a small $50,000.00 loan to pay credit card bills. My
   mother’s credit was excellent and her income was definitely strong enough to quality for the loan with pretty much no questions asked especially when her $690,000.00 home was going to be used for the loan. Believe it or not Mike Rentz with Wachovia made my mother believe the only way she would be
   able to get him to give her the loan is if she placed all of her financial investments with him and to my
   dismay she went ahead and did it. My mother wanted to take out the loan instead of selling any of her stocks which were doing well and the rest of her money was tied up in IRA’s which she would have had to pay a large amount of taxes on had she withdrawn the $50,000.00 she needed from the IRAs.

   Not long afterwards in February of 2006 my mother started getting a really bad gut feeling about Wachovia and the two financial advisers she was dealing with and realized she should never have mortgaged her home
   especially for $50,000.00 given it’s value so while I was listening she called Mike Rentz and asked him to go ahead and take the money out of one of her investment accounts to pay off the mortgage. As soon as she told Mike what she wanted to do he literally began screaming at her like she was his 6 year old child and questioning her over and over and over about why in the world she took out the mortgage in the first place if she was just going to turn around and pay it off so early. My mother’s husband had died two years earlier and apparently Mike never thought someone else would be listening to the conversation. My mother was completely shocked as was I at Mike’s behavior and she was almost speechless. As my mother tried to explain to Mike (not that she owned him any explanation whatsoever) he began screaming at her again telling her what a pain it was for him to get the $50,000.00 mortgage through for her and how ungrateful she was and on and on before he literally slammed his phone down and hung up on my 76 year old mother.

   If this sounds unbelievable you can imagine how I felt having actually just witnessed the entire event myself only being left wanting so badly to pick the phone up to call Mr. Rentz and cuss him out to say the very least. My mother begged me not to since she feared he could really mess her up and it seemed like he was the type of person who would. My mother became so upset by Mike’s behavior and so scared he was going to take advantage of her she started becoming extraordinarily depressed and scared of Mike.

   What happened next is explained in a letter I wrote to the Department of Social Services in South Carolina. It concerns what my mother’s oldest daughter Roxanne Beam and my mother’s sister Dorothy Rabon did to my mother while my other two sisters just sat by and watched and attempted to do absolutely nothing about. This situation is in fact intertwined with the situation with Wachovia so it is necessary that you understand these additional facts contained in the letter and also within this letter concerning the woman and events.
   It was a horrible situation in which my mother was victimized again at the hands of people she trusted and had always done so right by.

   To sum the facts up as briefly as possible for the purposes of this letter I will quickly tell you that within a week of my mother making the above referenced phone call to Mike Rentz asking him to pay off the $50,000.00 mortgage Wachovia had on her house my mother’s oldest daughter Roxanne and my mother’s sister Dorothy Rabon tried to have my mother committed to a mental hospital in Columbia South Carolina.

   My mother having given Roxanne a power of attorney (non court ordered) mistakenly thought Roxanne had
   total control over her and she had to do what Roxanne said. Roxanne and Dorothy took my mother from her house in Beaufort, South Carolina and drove her to Columbia, South Carolina which was two hours away. They told my mother they were admitting her to the hospital for a bladder infection when in fact they were getting her to sign herself in to the psychiatric ward of the hospital. Roxanne then told my mother that she was having to return to Florida for work when in fact Roxanne drove back to Beaufort and back to my mother’s house and had the locks on her doors changed and never told my mother she did that. Roxanne then apparently started meeting with Mike Rentz and probably Gene Garlington which I suspected she would do so I called Mike Rentz and told him that Roxanne was going to get in a lot of trouble for what she had done to mom and that he was not to sell or trade any of mother’s investments until she got out of the hospital. Needless to say I had to leave that message on Mike’s Rentz’s voice mail and needless to say he never called me back as I asked him to.

   Three weeks later and after enormous effort on my and my husband’s part we finally managed to force the hospital to release my mother who was calling us over and over asking for our help in getting her out. At the same time we were being called and threatened repeatedly by Dorothy Rabon and supposedly on behalf of the hospital not to call my mother back and we were being threatened by Roxanne and Dorothy that we would never see or hear from my mother again. Fortunately there was one or two employees who worked at the hospital who realized what Roxanne and Dorothy were up to and they helped a great deal in helping us help my mother.

   Nevertheless what happened next is equally unbelievable. Not long after my mother got out of the hospital she went to see Mike Rentz and Gene Garlington and she asked them about the Southwest Georgia Bank stocks which she had emphatically told Mike and Gene to hold at their office and NOT sell during a conversation which took place well before she was put into the hospital in Columbia by Roxanne and Dorothy. That is when Mike and Gene admitted to mom they had gone ahead and sent the stocks in while she was in the hospital and there was nothing that she could do about it and that she had no choice but to sell it. Mom was FURIOUS to say the very least and she basically verbally tore both of them up one end and down the other. Apparently Mr. Rentz and Garlington had also sold practically every other investment mom had and put her into “EVERGREEN” and an annuity which she absolutely didn’t want and which were all basically junk. Not surprisingly my mother left the bank extremely upset and not knowing what to do but later ended up going back to Mike Rentz’s office and she demanded that he sell the annuity. It was during this time that Mr. Rentz actually threatened my mother that if she didn’t do what he wanted her to do with her money he would call Roxanne. Luckily my mom persisted and forced Mike to sell what he had bought against her will. My mother then took all of her investments away from Mike and Gene and Wachovia and gave them to a woman named Whitney McDaniel at A.G. Edwards which Wachovia now owns. In the meantime my mother lost a great deal of money to Mike and Gene and Wachovia but she didn’t think there was anything she could do except report them to the SEC although she talked to a lawyer who told her to just give him the green light since she definitely had a case against Mike Rentz, Gene Garlington and Wachovia.

   I would like to say the saga was over once she changed to A.G. Edwards but unfortunately it wasn’t. My mom put her money into a Certificate of Deposit and a Money Market which she was told were rolled into IRAs. My mother also had told Whitney McDaniel all about what Mike Rentz and Gene Garlington had done to her and felt Whitney was a nice person who she could trust her so one day last year in I believe July or August when Whitney called my mother to tell her about a “GREAT” and “REALLY SAFE AND SOUND” investment in which my mother could earn 6% my mother thought Whitney was really a great advisor and she gave her the OK to buy what Whitney never told her was a 45 year - AUCTION RATE BOND. Needless to say we recently found out on our own that the $50,000.00 45 year auction rate bond Whitney sold to my 76 year old mother is worthless. Apparently the retail investors all started dumping the auction rate securities in July or August of last year which is exactly when Whitney called mom. Reportedly the brokerages didn’t want to suffer the loses they saw were on the way and so they started calling their “unsuspecting and not so savvy individual investors” like my mother to pawn the “soon to be worthless” bonds off on. Mom recently called Ms. McDaniel to get her explanation and Whitney’s reaction and statements were priceless. Basically Ms. McDaniel tried to blame it on mom’s new financial advisor who has been doing nothing but trying to help mom recover from what Mike, Gene, Whitney, Wachovia, and A.G. Edwards did to her.

   Mom did report Mike Rentz and Gene Garlington and Wachovia to the SEC in December of last year. I in January of this year wrote the enclosed letter which addresses just a little of what the above named people have done to mom over the last few years however I didn’t go into the $50,000.00 auction rate (security) bond because the letter was written before we found out what Whitney McDaniel had done and that she most likely knowingly sold mom what she knew would become a worthless bond.

   I wish I could say that’s where it ended however unfortunately it didn’t because on August 1, 2008 just nine days ago Roxanne decided to illegally transfer over the internet approximately $16,000.00 from the Wachovia checking account mom left open for her social security deposits. Up until about three weeks ago mom made sure she didn’t keep any money in the account because she didn’t trust Wachovia and basically she didn‘t want to go through the hassle of the changeover with SS. However about three weeks ago she had $24,000.00 put into the Wachovia account from her investment account with her current financial advisory with the plans to take the money out because here again she didn’t trust Wachovia plus she knew that Roxanne had a way of conning the banks into giving her access to mom’s account even though they had already received copies of the “revocation” of Roxanne’s power of attorney and had been informed Roxanne was not to have access to the accounts under and circumstances. Roxanne had also received a copy of the “revocation” of her POA in January of this year but that didn’t stop her from wiping out $3,000.00 from one of mom’s Bank of America accounts a couple of months later using the power of attorney which she knew had been revoked. Bank of America didn’t hesitate to put the money back into mom’s account and took full responsibility. Bank of America also admitted right away they had a copy of the “Revocation” however Wachovia has lied and tried to deny they received a copy which I know they received because I was with my mother when she brought it to a Wachovia branch to have it filed to her account.

   Nevertheless mom called Roxanne and told her to return the money and I told her she would be prosecuted if she didn’t return the money to mom’s account. Roxanne tried to tell mom she took the money to keep it “safe” for her however Roxanne didn’t offer any explanation as to how she could possibly claim that considering once she transferred the money from mom’s account and into her account, she cashed all but $3,000.00 of the $16,000.00 out. Another words why did she withdraw it from her own account and why is it before now mom had not heard one word from Roxanne since December of last year including not one word about what she did with the other $3,000.00 she took from mom’s Bank of America account months ago. Not to mention why didn’t Roxanne call to tell mom she had taken the money out instead of mom having to find out on her own and then having to track Roxanne down which by the way was not easy considering she has been hiding behind a P.O. Box and a cell phone with a New Jersey prefix when she lives in Florida.

   Now for the latest with Wachovia. Mom told Roxanne if she returned the $16,000.00 back into her account within two days she would ask Wachovia not to prosecute her. I also faxed a letter to Wachovia informing them that mom didn’t want Roxanne prosecuted and at the same time I faxed a copy of the same letter I am enclosing herein which I wrote on January 2, 2008 which also briefly referenced what Mike Rentz, Gene Garlington and Wachovia did to my mother.

   Low and behold I never received a call back from the investigator with Wachovia and now that Roxanne has put the money back into mom’s account BELIEVE IT OR NOT WACHOVIA REFUSES TO GIVE MOM HER MONEY. The excuse is that since I sent them the letter about what Roxanne and Mike Rentz and Gene Garland and Wachovia did to mom they have a right to keep her money and not lift the restriction from her account which mom had requested be put on her account the night we discovered the $16,000.00 was gone. I called and talked to Ms. Jamie Manwell with Wachovia (888-647-3648 ext 35537) and she did in fact confirm that they would not release the restriction from mom’s account so she could take her money out because of the letter I sent to them. We also let Ms. Manwell know the phone call was being recorded. I then called the local FBI office and they recommended we write to this office and also hire a lawyer to sue the hell out of WACHOVIA which we are doing this week. I don’t know if this will be any help in FINALLY putting Wachovia out of business however it doesn’t really matter because from what I have seen and read and I won’t argue with the experts who have reported that Wachovia has a long history of “elderly abuse” and recently lost millions of dollars in a lawsuit for the very same occurrences we are alleging. I imagine Wachovia will be out of business one way or another in the near future with or without my help although I intend to do everything in my power to make it happen as soon as possible.

   It is a well known fact that Wachovia Bank deservingly earned the nickname “WALK-OVER-YA” years and years ago. By the way, my mom hates going into any Wachovia branch at all for anything because every time she does the Wachovia Financial Advisors hound the hell out of her to give them her investment accounts to handle! OH MY GOD! You should see the expressions on their faces when she breaks the news to them about what Wachovia already did to her and that Wachovia would be the very last place in the world she would ever put her money. Now they’ve done it again except this time they are going down one way or another. Luckily Wachovia just extended the statute of limitations which otherwise had run out for what they did to mom in 2005 and 2006 when my mother was simply to busy to take the time to file a suit. Filing suit against Wachovia is now our top priority and now we have the time.

   You may reach me at 828-413-6293 with any advise, recommendations. Thanks for your time.

   Charlotte Palm