Consumer complaint received 2016-06-06
Product: Bank account or service — Checking account
Issue: Deposits and withdrawals — 
Company: BB&T CORPORATION (SC)

My Grandmother was diagnosed a number of years ago with XXXX. XXXX. I was asked by both of my Grandparents to handle their finances. We went to the bank ( s ) and added my name to their checking account and their mail was re-routed to my house. That was over 6 years ago. My Grandfather passed two years ago but shortly before he did, his daughter and son in law moved in. It was a " XXXX '' to hear my Aunt and Uncle tell it but I found it interesting that their house had been foreclosed on. Shortly after they moved in I started noticing checks being cashed after their social security check was deposited. My Grandparents ritually only cashed a check for {$100.00} a month for years. Several months ago, after my Grandfather 's passing, we consolidated all of my Grandmother money into one bank, BBT. We deposited over {$80000.00} into an investment account with my name and my grandmother 's name. My grandmother has a POA which names my father and my Aunt as co-power of attorneys. I asked BB & T if we could use the POA because that way both heirs would be responsible for the funds. The BB & T representative told me that Power of Attorneys have to be approved and it takes a long time and it may not even be approved. The name of the BB & T representative was XXXX XXXX. We proceed to conduct business without the power of attorney. We changed my Grandfather 's IRA account into my Grandmother name and opened an investment account with the {$80000.00} with my name and my Grandmother 's name. That gave us a total of XXXX accounts with BBT. The first account was the checking account that I was added to years ago, an IRA account with approx. {$60000.00} and we opened an investment account with my name and my grandmothers with an opening balance of {>= $1,000,000}. 
At this visit, I explained that my relatives ( my Aunt and Uncle ) had been cashing checks on ( sometimes several days in a row ) on the checking account. My Aunt and Uncle would have my Grandmother sign checks and complete for cash. This was not reported. If you look at the account history you can see all of the cash checks and on occasion my Grandmother would sign a check and leave the payee and the amount incomplete. Someone else would complete the check to " Cash '' and complete the amount. Sometimes checks would clear this account and the payee or dollar amount would be completed but they cleared the bank. The amount of cashed checks recently started to increase so I was unable to pay her bills with her incoming social security checks. Over the last few months her water was turned off because their was not enough money to pay the bill because of amount of cashed checks. My Aunt and Uncle also took my Grandmother to buy themselves a new car and my Grandmother was the borrower on the loan. Since my Grandfather passed it has been increasing difficult to pay her bills because she no longer has the benefit of his social security income. 

That brings me to today. In order to be proactive and keeping track of the account activity, I signed up for ever alert on both the checking account and the investment account. I received an alert that the investment account had a XXXX balance and that a {$1000.00} has been transferred from the checking account with less than {$300.00} left in the account. I called BBT and my Aunt took my Grandmother to the bank and opened a new account so they could have control over the money. If only BB & T had not discouraged me from opening the accounts with a POA then I would not be in this situation. They have taken away my ability to make sure that my Grandmother is financial secure. I am writing this because I made my Grandfather a promise. I promised him that I would watch every penny and make sure she was OK. I no longer can honor that promise.