It may be that I'm jumping the gun on this as I JUST found out yesterday 4/7 that there is an "issue" with this checking account.
As noted, there is approximately $28,000 in a this checking account. The account belonged to my Dad, who passed away on Feb 28th of this year; and my wife.
Dad had been ill, and in the hospital since the end of Nov, so my wife has been writing checks and such with no problems. When Dad died, we called the 1-800 number, and advised him of his death. We also asked specifically about the "right of survivorship". We were told to just present a death cert to the local bank, and the ownership would fall to my wife.
My wife went to the bank when the certs came in, and when she asked for a CSR, she was told that this could be taken care of at the counter. Dad's name was taken from the account and my wife signed another signature card. We called the local bank the next day and comfirmed AGAIN that ownership fell to my wife.
She has gotten one monthly statement since then that shows only her on the account (though they didn't get the address right!).
In that I've power of attorney, named in the will as executer, and every other piece that could be done prior to Dad's final illness; I thought that we would maintain this account to pay the medical expenses as they come in and NOT mix accounts with our regular bank. Well, we've cut a number of checks to pay these expenses between 3/20 and now. HERE IS WHERE MY INITIAL PROBLEM LIES!
Why would these folks hold this account without any notification?
My Dad lived right next to us in a home we bought so he and my Mom would be close (she passed in 2000). Though we diconnected his phone, they have OUR phone number and BOTH addresses to contact us if there is a problem, AND an on-line account that they could have contacted us through!
They can find a way to say "Hey! We returned this check for NSF!", but can't find a way to say "We have a concern, so we're freezing this account!"
Of course I went right to the on-line account, and it just showed $0.00 available. You can guess our horror at WHERE did 28K go to?! We then called the 1-800 number, but was only told that "You have a hold on this account, and you need to go to your local bank on Monday". They could not give us ANY idea of what is going on!
Now there MAY BE a reasonable explaination for this "hold", but WHY WAS THERE NO NOTIFICATION?
I've read about what some of the people have gone dealing with this company on this site, and I felt that I just HAD to register and post my 2 cents! I can ALSO tell you that IRREGARDLESS of their reasoning for the hold, both accounts will be pulled ASAP!
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