GLTC's association to hire lawyer to find missing $50,000 CD

In its quest to find the missing proceeds of a $50,000 certificate of deposit, an association of local transit employees has decided to get a lawyer.

The association, made up of Greater Lynchburg Transit Company employees, has been trying to figure out what happened to its five-figure investment for more than a year. The group has the physical certificate, but when it tried to redeem it last year, the bank said it had already been closed out in 2003.

The association had no record of that, and group leaders said the bank could not produce any verification.

“We went around and around and around with Wachovia (which is now Wells Fargo),” Gloria Berkley, the association’s financial manager, said during a membership meeting Tuesday night.

“The legal department (of the bank) in Charlotte, N.C., said there were no records,” said association board president Jewel Jennings. “They were purged. That’s the only answer we’ve ever gotten.”

The missing money grew into a source of tension among GLTC’s workforce. The employee association was a voluntary organization that provided dues-paying members with life insurance, sick pay and other supplementary benefits.

It was disbanded in 2010. At that time, officials sought to redeem the certificate of deposit and divide the proceeds among its 40 remaining members. The certificate would have been worth more than $63,000 today, according to old association bank statements.

Frustrated with the lack of progress and information, GLTC employees brought their concerns to the company’s board of directors, who advised them last week to get an attorney and compel the bank to produce its records.

The board was skeptical about claims the records were discarded and questioned how the certificate was cashed if the association still had it.

“2003 was not that long ago,” board member Lee Beaumont said. “You can go back and get your checking information from then … You got to turn the screws on them a little bit.”

The association reached the same conclusion during Tuesday’s meeting and voted to take steps to find an attorney. They asked GLTC board member Christian DePaul, who’d been invited to the meeting, to help in the search.

DePaul, a financial advisor in his private life, seemed surprised by the request, but agreed to make some inquiries. He said he felt hiring an attorney was the right thing to do.

“You still have the certificate,” he said. “The onus is on the institution (bank).”

In an interview last June, a spokesperson for what was then Wachovia said the bank would allow an authorized account signatory to cash out a certificate of deposit without presenting the physical certificate. Records related to the transaction would have been purged after five to seven years.

Tuesday’s meeting was attended by 20 association members. In addition to agreeing to seek legal representation, they voted to appoint member Barry Williams, GLTC’s transportation supervisor, to the small leadership group working on the issue.

The membership felt Williams would bring fresh eyes and help improve communication, which they stressed, was critical. Employees, including Williams, were upset with the lack of information coming from association leaders in recent months.

The mood of the hour-long meeting seemed to improve slightly as the group began to focus its ire on the bank. Several members said they wanted to let go of past tensions and start working together.

Afterward, Williams said he was glad they met and were opening the lines of communication.

“We’ve found out more in the last two weeks than we did in the past 20 months,” he said. “Hopefully, it helped clear the air.”

Debbie Evans, an association member and GLTC bus driver, said she was pleased with the new direction they were taking.

“I think it’s going to take a lawyer, it’s going to take a civil suit, to hit the bank hard and say where is the money?” she said.

Both Williams and Evans said even if the money is gone, the members want to know what happened to it.

“$63,000 doesn’t just (snaps fingers) vanish like that,” Williams said.