“I couldn’t believe for such an amount of money that [JPMorgan] wouldn’t want to do the right thing…. I imagine that for Jamie Dimon, this is like a nickel falling out of his pocket.”
~ North Carolina insurance broker Bill Rice
Long-time Solari subscribers know our concerns about New York Fed member bank JPMorgan Chase, banker to the likes of Bernie Madoff and Jeffrey Epstein. Wall Street on Parade’s Pam and Russ Martens regularly report on the bank’s felonious track record and the unsavory behavior of its CEO, Jamie Dimon. In 2019, after we compiled a list of legal and regulatory settlements JPMorgan Chase had paid out between 2002 and 2019, a member of the Solari team captured the moment with the word “flabbergasted.”
We were, therefore, entirely unsurprised when we came across the story of Elaine Silverberg, who in the 13 years since her own retirement has tried in vain to get JPMorgan Chase to pay out on her late husband’s vested retirement package, which, according to news coverage in the New York Post, “has been sitting untouched for more than 35 years.” The bank claims that Silverberg’s husband—a career systems analyst at Chase Manhattan Bank (which in 2000 merged with JPMorgan)—failed to fill out the requisite paperwork before his premature death in 1988.
Although external attention from the press and a former New York congressman, and internal criticism from Chase employees, has not embarrassed JPMorgan Chase into doing the right thing, the story about the unpaid $53,000 pension—worth an estimated $331 a month—did attract the notice of two sympathetic insurance executives in North Carolina, who decided to send Silverberg a check for the full amount. As the The Post reported on March 3:
“Roy Messer, a 57-year-old health insurance broker…and his business partner Bill Rice, also 57, said they were shocked by the penny-pinching from the bank run by Jamie Dimon and took matters into their own hands.”
Giving a more positive spin to the word “flabbergasted” in her description of her reaction, Silverberg said, “In this crazy world we live in, it is remarkable that such kindness also exists. I am flabbergasted at their extreme generosity.”
While we admire the action of these two humble insurance brokers, we hope that Silverberg will continue to hold JPMorgan Chase’s feet to the fire. We also remind any JPMorgan Chase employees or customers who still think that where they work or bank doesn’t matter, that if the bank is willing to chisel Silverberg out of $331 a month, all bets are off as to its potential behavior with other employees and customers.
Related:
Widow shunned by JPMorgan over husband’s $53K pension gets surprise check—from good Samaritans
JPMorgan Chase Charged by Yet Another Internal Whistleblower with Cooking the Books
Related at the Solari Report:
JPMadoff: The Unholy Alliance Between America’s Biggest Bank and America’s Biggest Crook
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