Backlash grows against local credit union
Click below for a look at the newest installment in the suit of Pastor T. Elliott v. Arrowhead Credit Union.
Elliott was wrongfully arrested and taken to jail thanks to a mixup by the credit union in December.
Now, more people are coming forward, to basically say one of two things: A) The union is incompetent and has a poor customer service record or, B) The union is out of touch and even malicious toward the local black community.
The union is not commenting, citing ongoing litigation. The case is scheduled for court May 2. The union has a motion to throw out the case to be heard on May 1.
The union is also not commenting on what steps they have taken to improve since the incident. CEO Larry Sharp promised in a letter dated Dec. 21 to take measures to "ensure that this type of problem never happens again."
SAN BERNARDINO — Facing a potentially costly lawsuit after its account records resulted in the wrongful arrest of a prominent local pastor, Arrowhead Credit Union is weathering growing backlash from community leaders.
In December, inaccurate bank records and overblown allegations by bank associates led to the arrest of Pastor T. Elliott of Mount Zion Baptist Church, according to a suit filed by Elliott.
The credit union’s President and CEO Larry Sharp cut Elliott’s church a check for $3,000 - the first donation to Mount Zion since it’s 1962 founding - and issued a letter of apology one day after the mistaken arrest. In his letter, Sharp swiftly acknowledged blame and vowed action.
Sharp wrote in a letter dated Dec. 21, 2007, “it is clear to all of us that there was a breakdown in how we handled the situation and we have taken appropriate measures to ensure that this type of problem never happens again.”
But Arrowhead officials today are mum on exactly what measures they have taken, citing ongoing litigation resulting from Elliott’s suit.
Arrowhead spokesman Pete Aguilar, who also serves on the Redlands City Council, stressed that steps have been taken to improve banking policies. He would not provide specifics, citing ongoing litigation.
“We’ve adequately addressed the issue in our policies and procedures and continue to review those policies and procedures on a monthly basis,” Aguilar said.
But a growing number of people, including elected leaders, black church leaders and residents are calling for major reform at Arrowhead. Some are even hinting at boycotts.
Hank Mitchell, a former customer and small business owner who lives in the north end of town, said he severed his relationship with the bank after about one year after repeated mix-ups and unwarranted penalties.
“They had a problem with crossing accounts,” Mitchell said. “Once they sent us another woman’s mortgage information, name, Social Security number, all the privileged information ... they really exposed her to identity theft.”
Mitchell said he thought the problem was ineptitude, not malice.
“The trouble with them is their bureaucracy is so deep, they stumble over their own feet,” he said. “Customer service is just terrible.”
But others see the wrongful arrest of Elliott, which culminated in the pastor being locked in a cell with other inmates, as a more sinister problem.
“I’ve never recommended them to anyone, but now I’m going a step further,” said Harvey Jones, head pastor at Book of Acts Church, a 28-year-old mostly African American congregation on Sterling Avenue. “I’m recommending to my congregation that they bank with someone else.”
Jones said his stance is built on a mix of personal experience and news of Elliott’s wrongful arrest.
He said his own 20-year relationship was recently canceled by the union after repeated mix-ups and unwarranted penalties.
“I think it’s a mix of bad business and racist overtones,” Jones said. “They support plenty of groups in the city, but they have no history of supporting black ministries.”
Aguilar would not comment on Jones’ accusations.
Elliott himself has indicated he may draw Al Sharpton or the Rev. Jesse Jackson to the area - both have visited on his invitation in recent years - to speak out against the union. He said he was exploring an alliance with about 100 other African American pastors regionwide in opposition to the union.
7th Ward City Councilwoman Wendy McCammack, a longtime customer of the union, said she has never had a problem with her account, but that she was stunned to hear of Elliott’s arrest.
“The real question is what have they done to prevent this from ever happening again,” McCammack said.
Aguilar did defend the institution by pointing to it’s large customer-base.
“We have 163,000 members who we value and feel we’re providing great customer service,” Aguilar said.
Mitchell, who doesn’t know Elliott personally, said he didn’t see the problem as a racial issue, but that he backs the pastor’s decision to sue.
“If it was me taken to jail on a mistake, I’d be owning Arrowhead by next year,” he said.
I'm wondering what kind of clerical error they made in the first place??? Did someone by the same name get mistaken for Pastor?
The precise clerical error isn't specified. ACU provided formal written apology and a $3,000.00 check to T.E. within 24 hours.
This is a copied & pasted direct quote from:
http://www2.sbsun.com/news/ci_8966512
"The owner of the alleged stolen check said he didn't know Elliott and had never reported the check stolen, as no unauthorized funds had ever been withdrawn from his account."
Let there be Peace on Earth, and let it begin with me...
Something doesn't smell right with this story? Whatever happened with Arrowhead Credit Union doesn't warrant bringing in Al Sharpton. What authority does he have anyway? This is a local issue. Is the pastor looking for justice, retribution or is he simply looking to publicize the National Action Network? You probably don't want to get to much started with that because we as a community haven't forgotten the last time Sharpton came to intervene in the Tyesha Miller case. Soon as the national media lost interest so did he. So let me give you some advice Pastor Elliot, if you are thinking of promoting that GOP funded farce of a civil rights organization here, you better think again. We got enough issues to deal with, this community needs committed leadership not the for hire kind Sharpton brings. There are experienced local organizations you could have called on to deal with this problem but you want to bring in this guy. What about that check from Arrowhead Credit Union? Were you outraged enough to send it back?
It would be even more interesting to have the state's credit union watchdog agency and the Fair Political Practices Commission investigate the ongoing inappropriate activities involving their PAC money and how it is supposed to be used just for credit union political action activities. Not for candidate support or opposition. There is way more than meets the eye here and I hope Pastor Elliot has the fortitude to continue the march.
what i'm most concerned about is not all of this collateral issues, i'm more concerned that a bank could screw up so bad, repeatedly in their bookeeping or their system is so antiquated that i could actually go to jail from their actions and then they could run and hide under some law that says they can say whatever they want about me to the police and i have no recourse but if i said something about Arrowhead, I could get sued...."now aint that a B**ch"!
i'm pissed that some of you have decided to attack the messenger and create some sort of stealth attack on the messenger and never even address the real message. (the issue) whether or not Pastor Elliott is a great guy or some heel is not relevant to me, what is relevant is that Arrowhead had a person innocently arrested! and i might add, they wont even comment, Elliott's positions are well documented, Arrowhead has said not one word! I got the feeling they basically said " we got 136000 members, so what if we screw up a couple of times, get over it"! thats where my problem is, to come from my bank? soon to be former bank!
what i'm most concerned about is not all of this collateral issues, i'm more concerned that a bank could screw up so bad, repeatedly in their bookeeping or their system is so antiquated that i could actually go to jail from their actions and then they could run and hide under some law that says they can say whatever they want about me to the police and i have no recourse but if i said something about Arrowhead, I could get sued...."now aint that a B**ch"!
damn... this is a bad situation to be in... I do not blame him at all for bringing in Al Sharpton, I mean wouldnt you??? I would, especially seeming that this bank does not want and simply cannot afford to have that kind of press. WWWOOOOOOOOWWWW!!! as far as the check to the church? they made a donation... so what... did they at all make a public apology??? NO! did they at all try to reconcile with Dr. Elliott??? NO! They wanted it to be kept quite and thats not right. They made an assumption that if they gave a donation to the church it would have just been swept under the rug... I would really feel some kind of way about that presumption if I were him.. that shows how little they thought of him and the well noted positions he holds throughout the community and the nationally within his works... SUE THEM!!!!
damn... this is a bad situation to be in... I do not blame him at all for bringing in Al Sharpton, I mean wouldnt you??? I would, especially seeming that this bank does not want and simply cannot afford to have that kind of press. WWWOOOOOOOOWWWW!!! as far as the check to the church? they made a donation... so what... did they at all make a public apology??? NO! did they at all try to reconcile with Dr. Elliott??? NO! They wanted it to be kept quite and thats not right. They made an assumption that if they gave a donation to the church it would have just been swept under the rug... I would really feel some kind of way about that presumption if I were him.. that shows how little they thought of him and the well noted positions he holds throughout the community and the nationally within his works... SUE THEM!!!!
I think Elliott took lessons from Jim and Tammy Faye.
Sorry folks...Another question popped in my mind... Why did Arrowhead give the Money to Mt. Zion rather than to Elliott? Actually he was the one wronged. Maybe Arrowhead gave it to the church to gain the benefit of a tax deduction? Maybe Arrowhead gave elliott his argument...I dont know, but while Elliott may have added to my curiousity, I'm wondering if Arrowhead had an agenda here too....
Mr. Aguilar is out there dissembling and hand waving to cover-up bad practices at his non-profit Arrowhead credit union. In similar fashion he has claims that Redlands' budget is balanced, but he covers up the fact that it's been balanced at the expense of the little guy.
Take home lesson: be careful when dealing with institutions associated with Pete Aguilar. It can hazardous to your financial health.
There's been much written on this topic by an unknown number of mostly anonymous bloggers, but I only recall SBPD mentioned in the context of being recommended for a commendation by Mt. Zion's Senior Pastor Elliott. Odd as SBPD made the determination to take him into custody. Especially odd considering ACU's dropped dime to report "suscipious activity", written formal apology and $3,000.00 "for your trouble" check received a law suit in return.
I'm looking at this from a fresh perspective, the third perspective in this situation: Law Enforcement
Isn't it so, any one of us may call our local law enforcement and receive a response?
Didn't ACU call and (2 hours later) receive a response?
Making a call for law enforcement doesn't mean the call has merit, just that the caller has the right to a response of some sort (even if that's only a referral to call another number and log a telephoned report). Imagine the chaos in our society were anyone to call for a law enforcement presence responded to with the reported party being arrested, no questions asked!
“We received a call, assume the position; you’re going down”!
Hardly American! Hardly the treatment of the suspect in this case either.
In this case, the response merited was the arrival of SBPD, in person, 2 hours after the call. It was clearly not the response time for an armed robbery in progress. It was not a "guns drawn & SWAT at the doors" kind of response. Are we on the same page, so far?
What's the first thing officers do when arriving on-scene? Assess the situation. Right?
When SBPD assessed the situation at ACU, our city’s best-trained LE professionals were presented sufficient evidence of a crime and proceeded accordingly. They took the suspect into custody.
Were their assessment in response to a call reporting a maniac threatening to shoot everyone at the in-store ACU, SBPD would have responded sooner; realized the call was without merit; had SWAT stand down and that would have been that ~ with nobody going to jail.
Instead, SBPD arrived in response to the call, assessed the situation, and determined, yes indeed, there was enough evidence to indicate what was reported in the call for officer support to the ACU was, indeed, factual. The suspect was taken into custody and later released.
SBPD doesn't go around willy-nilly, taking residents into custody without factual basis of cause.
SBPD had sufficient cause to take the suspect into custody at ACU.
Now, follow me here:
Court proceedings of this type are open to the public. Anyone interested can ask for time off and go observe the trial, if this ever makes it to trial. Or, a copy of the transcript may be obtained and read at leisure.
Here’s the real “scoop” for all the aliases adding their 2 cents regarding this matter:
You need to chip in 15 cents, not 2 cents - per page, that is!
You don't even need to wait for the trial to "get the facts", albeit preliminary.
Here's what I did:
1. Call SBPD's ROXANNE VELAZCO at 909-384-5727
2. Explain that you wish to purchase the CAD on SBPD REPORT #P-0735-4043-5
3. Visit the window at SBPD and pay the 15 cents per page for your own copy, with identifying information concealed, for obvious reasons. But who are we kidding here? We all know who the participants in this report are! You will need to present ID when making your purchase, too. A driver’s license will suffice.
4. If so inclined, write your opinions, after knowing the official SBPD CAD Report’s contents, here.
My schedule doesn’t permit me the time so many seem willing to devote here, posting volleys back and forth under a series of aliases like “Me”, “Me2”, “Resident”, “Concerned Resident” and so forth. I counted the number of people posting here under their own names on the 2 pages I visited on one hand, with fingers left over. I think it was only the suspect and another person active in our community - I never determined if "Ty" was an alias or real name.
What’s to be said for people who write spitefully and select “Me” as their alias. Is that their real “Me”? Is the name we’d more readily recognize them by a source of shame because they know what they write here is shameful - that the real "Me" behind the public facade is shameful?
Anonymity dilutes the credibility of bloggers and the blogs they populate. Who can say if all these aliases are the ramblings of one, or one dozen, individuals? Wouldn’t a true, rather than an anonymous and virtual, debate be more worthy of your time? I know it is of mine!
For any seeing this as hypocritical of someone writing under as alias, frankly, I don't care to know everyone here, nor do I care to have everyone here know me. Were it not for the low-brow posts of the anonymous writer(s?) here apparently using this as an outlet for pent-up venom (I think one alias is "No Venom", or something like that.), I would gladly sign my name here, like I do everywhere else on Internet.
Enough pondering!
I’ve completed my goal of raising awareness for the path to accessing a copy of the SBPD CAD Report on this call, for those interested in replacing anonymous hyperbole with official reports from the responding agency.
Think about how you invest your life’s time. Are you really doing the best you can here?
I’ll add one last point to ponder before I close.
What if you had an elderly family member transitioning from independent life to the final chapters? What if that family member were inclined to believe "celestial authority figures", as learned in their youth? What if that family member were manipulated into believing the eternal welfare of their immortal soul hinged upon writing a check every time a person in “celestial authority” sought one from them, especially considering “tis The Season” and advanced age increasing the potential for this being “Perhaps your last opportunity to show Jesus how much you love Him on His birthday”?
What if you noticed yet another large check written to the same payee in the register during a visit and determined to call the check in as “lost or stolen”, to avoid further financial exploitation of your loved one’s final assets to the tune of $6,700.00?
What if you then concluded the remainder of your visit and went home believing all was, again, well with the world?
What if that check was subsequently deposited by the payee? What if that payee was someone you may, or may not, have attempted to convince to stop bleeding your loved one’s finances, in addition to your direct interventions with your loved one?
Would you want the financial institution to flag the check as “lost or stolen”, or just rubber stamp it and every other instrument presented to them for payment, no questions asked?
Instead, what if the financial institution flagged the check, per your request, and respected the flag?
What if they alerted local law enforcement, according to protocols standard in the industry?
What if law enforcement arrived on-scene, assessed the situation and responded according to protocol:
Check flagged as “lost or stolen” + Suspect on-site + Officers called to the scene = Suspect taken into custody.
What if this took place Thursday, December 20th and you were at work, unaware of any of it?
What if the telephone number on the check, ringing at your loved one’s residence, were called during the course of the preliminary investigation?
What if your Alzheimer-plagued loved one responded by rote, as always, “Anything for the church”, when the call came to verify or deny the “lost or stolen” status of the $6,700.00 check?
What if you later learn of all this and discover your loved one has the right to dispose of funds as they see fit, unless a guardian is appointed to oversee the affairs - after the ineptitude is proven in a court of law?
What if the guardianship isn’t retroactive, but enforced as of the date ordered by the commissioner, or judge?
What if that date is after the date all this takes place?
What if your loved one were asked and responded they don’t know the payee of the check?
What if your loved one were then asked and responded they weren’t missing any funds because all the checks they’ve written have cleared and the check register is tidily reconciled with the last bank statement?
What if that bank statement included the $6,700.00 check you tried to stop with the “lost or stolen” report, later nixed during the phone call while you were at work, with the words, “Anything for the church”?
What if a financially-motivated opportunistic person then received not only an apology, in writing no less, but a check from the bank’s own account for $3,000.00 as conciliatory compensation for unpleasant experiences related to your attempt at protecting the final assets of your loved one?
Would you be upset and frustrated at your experiences with The System?
What if you later learned insult was added to injury and the person bilking your loved one successfully against your wishes and their best interests was now suing the very financial institution coming closest to actually protecting your loved one’s interests and your financial wishes to conserve limited end-of-life monies for final expenses, be they what they may?
Would you be too fed up to “get involved”?
Would you be thankful your loved one’s finances were no longer being bilked and leave the rest to be worked out by others?
Would you respect your loved elder’s wishes that you “let it be” and “not make more trouble for the church”, knowing the stress is bad for health?
Would you contact the financial institution, again, offering to testify as to the events relevant to the litigation, hoping to help thwart what you know to be a prevalent bilking of people like your loved one?
What would you do?
Who would you blame?
Where would you turn for guidance?
When would you feel the situation was remedied? How would you feel justice would be best served in this case?
Happy Pondering People! I’m out of here!
This blog is too toxic to squander my life’s time on.
The questions I posed here are rhetorical. That means I don't expect a written response to any of them.
To be clear, I will not be returning to read what anyone here has to say about this or anything else. ~ H.Piorot2U
Well for someone so pressed for time, you certainly wasted a considerable amount of it on this post. Not to mention the fact that you would have the audacity to criticize some of those who chose to post under an alias while then doing so yourself. If I may add a disclaimer here that I didn't take the time to investigate the authenticity of H.Pirot2U, I seriously doubt that this is a legal birth name.
While I may not agree with the positions of some I certainly recognize and respect their right to express their opinion and due so under the protection of an alias. The name their thoughts are expressed under is not nearly as important as the thoughts themselves. However you from your pompous perch fail to acknowledge that not everyone is so bold or comfortable as to put their names behind their words and thoughts as I choose to do. So there, now you can stop your pondering and rest your weary mind that indeed I may be telling the truth that Ty is my real name. Oh, I guess I didn't really clear that one up very well did I. So you'll just have to go on wonder-licking the ponder-lilliies. Bummer.
Being that you are "short on time," I suppose we can excuse you for demonstrating a lack of manners and general civility which most people of class and upbringing demonstrate when participating in a public discussion. Nonetheless, I am sure we all appreciate your sharing with us the methods of inquiry you employed which allowed you to bring the facts of said investigation to this venue. It is with great regret that you won't be returning to the blog (unlikely) to see if indeed anyone would reply to your most arrogant treatise. So there you are, you've received your response in kind and now we'll all be left to wonder if indeed you will be so kind as to grace us with your presence in the future and gift us with your scientific methods of investigation.
In truth I appreciate the information you shared but found the method of delivery a tad bit distasteful. Oh well to each his own. I am certain there are some who find my method of expression irritating but it is my choice and God given right as it is yours to do so. I would like to say thanks again for the positive contribution to the discussion.
Sincerely Ty. "allegedly"