If you ever thought that passing a Bar exam would exempt you from corporate policies that grind down non-lawyers, you were wrong.
A machine is a machine and it grinds everyone in range.
This letter is real. I post it for your amusement and their embarrassment, although I'm not sure it's possible to embarrass corporations that don't depend on high volume sales.
Dear Computershare,
My anger at your bureaucratic maze is such that I hardly know how to address you in a civil manner, but I will try.
NAME DELETED, the holder of the above account, is my mother in law. She suffers from dementia and my wife is her attorney in fact. I am her attorney at law, State Bar of Texas Number DELETED. I've had to establish these bona fides several times in the past and it
would be rational if you had a record of it,but you've taught me not to expect rationality.
For months, I have been trying to first get shares that were inexplicably booked under "WRONGNAME" changed to "RIGHTNAME" and then transferred to another account at ANOTHER OUTFIT where she holds other COMPANY stock.
This weekend, I reported the latest lack of result and both NAME DELETED and my wife instructed me to just sell the shares...not because selling them is a good idea, but because it seemed the only way to get loose from Computershare.
Today, I went on line to follow those instructions. I entered a sell order for one batch and as quickly as I caught my breath from how much you are charging for the service I went to the next and was informed I could not order a sale because the account was too small.
I then went to "contact us" for further instructions on how to check out of this corporate roach motel and it told me it could not send my message because the account number was wrong. That account number is on every document I have.
I called the telephone number on your 1099-DIV (I do her taxes as well) and got into a phone tree that finally disgorged this email address.
I am beginning to think it would be amusing to litigate with Computershare, particularly in a small claims situation, because you would quickly miss so many deadlines you would wind up owing more than the claim.
However, I don't own this account and I have no instructions to amuse myself. Just to disengage from Computershare forever.
Please instruct me how to accomplish that. It just dawned on me that it won't be "forever" even upon getting rid of these last few shares because I have no idea what her basis is for tax purposes. So I will have to touch the tar baby again to ask that question.
To the human individual reading this, assuming one exists: you know and I know that you, individually, are not responsible for the sins of your employer. I do not know you and I do not harbor any ill will towards you. Wouldn't it be best for everybody concerned if you would just show me the door? I promise to run though it and never look back. Believe me, I wish I felt free to say what I really think.