Raleigh man forced to jump through hoops to get access to his own money
RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- A Raleigh man invested thousands of dollars, but when it came time to try to get access to his funds, he couldn't make it happen.
Ed Shook is close to retirement and when he took a look at his investments, he realized some weren't doing too well.
"The problem I had, they were earning about a half a percent you know, and I thought to myself, this is a waste of money."
These investments with TreasuryDirect, a financial services website that lets you buy and redeem securities directly from the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
"They say you can transfer it out of the account, but you have to fill out this special form. After I filled out their forms and jumped through all the hoops that they asked me to, it seemed ridiculous that I couldn't do an online transfer," Shook said.
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He said he followed the instructions and mailed in his transfer request, but only got a form email back. When he tried calling, he couldn't get through. On TreasuryDirect's website, it does state that cases you send by mail may take us as long as 13 weeks to process.
"I never got any response, Diane, until you were kind enough to get involved, and boy did it change. It changed everything overnight. I suddenly felt like the red carpet came on," Shook told Troubleshooter Diane Wilson.
After Wilson reached out, a representative with TreasuryDirect said they'd work directly with Shook to make sure he had the right forms filled out to get access to his funds. After he did that, it didn't take long for him to transfer his funds out of TreasuryDirect to another investment.
"Thank you very much, and I just would say to the general public, do your research," he warned.
The Troubleshooter Takeaways are research is key especially when it comes to your money. Before investing, see how easy it is to get access to your investments, and then if there is a problem or question, make sure you will have direct communication with the company you are investing your money in.
