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Read Our Story...
In 1999, my husband (then just my boyfriend) invested over 1/2 a million dollars with First Union/Wachovia. We also had loans with that bank. When the First Union/Wachovia merger took place, our portfolio began to suffer. We received new account managers frequently and no one really knew what was going on with our investments. We were repeatedly told not to worry. "This is a long term relationship we are building" Wachovia would tell us "So fluctuations in the market won't effect us in the long run." We were trusting the employees and account reps. The problem became worse with every dollar Wachovia lost. We asked for some form of management intervention about mid-2002. This made some one mad at Wachovia and our customer service really suffered. When our investments dropped to less than half of their original amount, Wachovia sold our stocks (in a matter of days) and put the balance into a MONEY MARKET earning less than one percent. We were not made aware of the sale until after Wachovia had completed the sale. We were informed that we had no rights to how the investments were handled therefore Wachovia owed us no explanation or forewarning.
Now, mind you, we continued paying on all of our loans as agreed, but we were paying a point over prime on our loans when his investments were only earning less than one percent. We complained to and had a meeting with Wachovia. In this meeting, we were told by Wachovia that if we renewed our largest loan for another year, Wachovia would place our dwindling investments back into a higher yielding account. We agreed to this but only if Wachovia would agree to let someone on the local level handle our accounts. We had a bad taste in our mouth for the "DOWNTOWN OFFICE". Everyone was in agreeance when we left that meeting and we felt good. We could refocus on our business and let the investments try to grow.
Nope! We continued to make our monthly payments and Wachovia refused to transfer the investments. In fact, Wachovia informed their employees not to talk to us anymore. There went the local level service. We were told that our "FILE' had been pulled and they were not allowed to talk to us about our investments or accounts. WHAT? The meeting was for nothing other than a trick to get us to renew our loans.
So, what do you do? We called and argued with everyone in Wachovia about where the money was and why there was no one to help. The local level people that saw us everyday felt bad and didn't know what to say, it wasn't there fault. We continued to pay our bills on time, at least we still had our good credit. (and it was really strong!) We insisted on paying our bills on time even if Wachovia wasn't going to make good on their promises.
Another year goes by and what is left of our investments is making less than one percent return. Our business is hanging in there but the stress was increasing. No one at Wachovia was saying anything about the long term relationship anymore. In fact, no one would call us back. Our future was disappearing before us and we working triple time to save it; everything else became "not as important" My husband took a job working on the road making as much money as he could. The goal was to replace the money Wachovia was losing. I stayed home to take care of the businesses we had started and the family. 6 days out of 7 my husband was working on the road. I became a single parent to my daughter and his 2 children that were now living with us full time. That took a toll on our whole family and our marriage.
For over one year, no one from Wachovia would talk to us or call us back. Until it came time to renew that largest loan again, you can bet your bottom dollar someone from Wachovia called then. For 5 years we received praise from Wachovia for being such valued customers; personaly and in our business. Now we were not even worth a return phone call. My husband told Wachovia "you still haven't reinvested our portfolio". Once again, the communications stopped, until about November 2004.
That is when we received the worst letter from a bank that anyone could ever receive. It simply (and coldly) explained that Wachovia had elected to "accelerate our loans"..... AND...the money we had in our investment account had already been used to pay down our loans...... AND...we were given limited time to pay the balance of those loans or face a "DEFAULT" on our credit.
Needless to say, we couldn't pay those loans as quickly as Wachovia would have liked. We decided to refinance the historic house I had restored for my new business. We were going to transfer the balances to a new financial institution. My credit score was about a 720 at that point in time and it would have been no problem.
I needed proof from Wachovia that one of the loans had been paid in full and that our pay history had been perfect. I emailed Tom Farr at Wachovia and asked him to supply me with something stating that information. Wachovia's reply floored me; "NO." and Mr. Farr even went so far as to ask me when I was going to pay "him his money"! How the hell did Wachovia expect me to pay them back if they refused to show our timely payments and even more so, that over half of our loans had been paid in full? and who is this guy that wants me to pay "him his money"? I didn't borrow any money from Tom Farr. (This information is in emails between me and Mr. Farr)
We had nothing to show the new lender where we had paid our loans off and Wachovia only reported the DEFAULT to the credit bureau. Oh yeah, I forgot, we had that simple (and cold) letter that Wachovia sent us. The one where Wachovia tells us our investments had already been used to pay off our loans. I was too embarrassed to show that to any bank not to mention it was a very unprofessional document. After Wachovia showed me in DEFAULT, my credit began to plummet. When something like that hits your credit bureau it hurts. All those years of trying to maintain a perfect credit history and Wachovia drops my beacon score with one fatal decision. Thru no fault of our own, we were loosing everything.
At this point in time, it was very difficult to find any one to help. When you are on the outside of this problem, it is difficult to see how frustrating this fight was becoming. I refused to let this bank bully us. We began to contact anyone and everyone that might be able to help. It was not easy, not at all. You see, there is a conflit of interest with a bank that takes your deposits, gives you loans and invests your savings. Who do you complain to? SEC, FDIC, attorneys? Who? We complained to the SEC. We talked to attorneys. We wrote letters. If you think dealing with a few NSF charges is time consuming, try fighting the whole banking system. No one was there for us and Wachovia knew that.
Of course, when Wachovia decided to sue us for the balance on our loans, we had no choice but to fight back. We have never disagreed to the balance we owe Wachovia, they didn't have to take us to court to get paid. We are fighting Wachovia because we want our story heard.No one should ever have to go thru what we have been thru. While life moves on and we have not given up, we are still recovering from the damages caused by Wachovia's lies. Don't trust Wachovia. No matter what you read, no matter what you are told, no matter what you sign, Wachovia will lie to you to get your business and will lie to you to keep your business. No matter what damage those lies cost the customer. Tell a friend to leave Wachovia.
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