One of the standards of local TV news is a segment that has a reporter investigate and try to help with a community member’s problems. TV stations like it because people give them the stories rather than the station having to go find one and helping viewers increases viewership and ratings. One of these segments in Denver recently highlighted a problem that a widow has been having getting funds from a bank.
Four months after her husband Jay passed away, Sharon Pallat went to the bank where Jay kept his accounts. It just happened to be a local branch of Wells Fargo.
She was there to close all the accounts and get all of the money from them to which she was legally entitled. Wells Fargo was happy to help at the time and promptly closed all of the accounts, except for one investment account.
The bank said this account would take a little bit more time to close out. That was two years ago. Despite repeated requests, Sharon Pallat is still waiting for Wells Fargo to close out the account and give her the money. Whenever she asks, she gets the runaround.
The bank has previously told her that this investment account contains real estate and that is why it would take extra time to close. FOX 31 Denver reported on this case in “Widow battles Wells Fargo to get beneficiary funds from deceased husband’s account.“
The station assigned a reporter to investigate the matter in an attempt to help Pallat get the money from the bank. The reporter got the runaround also. Wells Fargo still has not told anyone what is going on. The TV station says it will continue to stay on the story until it gets answers. For Pallat’s sake, hopefully that will not take another two years.
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Reference: Fox 31 Denver (August 12, 2015) “Widow battles Wells Fargo to get beneficiary funds from deceased husband’s account,”