Sunflower Bank, N.A. - problem with letter of credit payment to Bank of America

December 26, 2001:

From:

RE: Sunflower Bank, N.A. - problem with letter of credit payment to Bank of America

I am a former client of Sunflower Bank (formerly Bank of the Southwest) since 1975. In 1999, I had a Letter of Credit on file that I requested be paid in the amount of $250,000.00 to Bank of America on September 17th, 1999.

The payment arrangements were bungled by Sunflower Bank. Bank of America never received the payment. I am damaged to the amount of $4981.95. In the following narrative you will learn the details of this situation and with whom the culpability lays. Bank of America was in contact concerning this missing letter throughout the time it was missing. I told them that I was in contact with Sunflower Bank but Sunflower had no record of the payment's Certified Mail receipt. They had either misplaced it or lost it. Thus my financial situation remained in limbo. The letter was never received by Bank of America and so it was returned to Sunflower Bank on or around October 15th, 1999. This is nearly a month! During this time I had been asking Sunflower Bank to trace this payment but they could not, or would not, due to their being aware that they had sent the letter without having done the proper paperwork. So we all ended up waiting for the Post Office to mail it back. Frankly, I did not believe at the time that the payment had ever been sent, but I was wrong when Sunflower Bank got the check back and a representative showed it to me. I asked them at this time to not charge me any interest for this incident, but my request was denied. I was informed that while the money had not been delivered it had been moved on the Bank's ledgers, not my concern, so the interest was due. The problem that I have is this: Both Bank of America and Sunflower Bank charged me interest during this period of time, when it was obvious that the error was clearly that of Sunflower Bank. I do not begrudge anyone charging interest for fairly loaned money, but it appears that I had to pay two sets of interest calculations because of the bank’s mistake. Bank of America was charging me interest for not receiving the payment and Sunflower was charging me interest from the day that they issued the check that they fumbled the delivery of. I can understand Bank of America's charging me interest on money that they did not receive from the Sunflower Bank. What I can't understand is Sunflower Bank charging me interest on a payment that was never received due to their negligence (poor record keeping) on the entire matter. In total Sunflower Bank charged me 33 days of interest for a check never received at $69.15 a day. That is a total of $2,281.95. I was also charged over $2,700.00 by Bank of America for the same period of time. I have waited till this date and time to pursue this matter because of the amounts of money that I owed Sunflower Bank. Frankly, I did not see how I could make an issue of this while in debt to them without putting in jeopardy the other notes that I owed Sunflower Bank. That has changed. All monies owned to Sunflower Bank have been paid (last one in July 2001). I can now do something about this injustice. My questions to you are: Did Sunflower Bank break any laws in the way that they handled this matter? Is it legal for two banks to charge me interest on the same money for the same period of time? Can I seek redress through your office(s)? I kept a daily ledger of these events and I have all the necessary documentation and witnesses located so that your case would be easily developed. I eagerly await your correspondence on this matter. Sincerely, Lowell A. Brakey (sole proprietorship) Brak Hard Concrete Construction Co. P.S. I have approached Sunflower Bank seeking to resolve this situation. I supplied them a copy of this letter and I am gave them 10 days to respond. They asked for an additional 7 days. I gave it to them. They have not responded to my satisfaction. In their response, they prance completely over the matter of the Certified Mail receipt. This was the one item that they had control of and that they lost and/or misplaced. Because of this, this check was untraceable. Believe me when I say I tried. It was always the same question, “Do you have the Certified Mail Receipt Article Number?” Both the Dodge City USPO, the Salina USPO and the Atlanta USPO asked me this question. The answer was no. Sunflower did not have it and should have had it. It should have been in a safe place and it was not. While all they say may be true in the enclosed Sunflower letter on this matter, please note the fact that they do not address the matter of the Certified Mail receipt.

The reason is because they did loose it exactly as stated in this letter. To this day, I can still hear the disbelieve in Bank of America’s silence when they asked me for the Certified Mail Article number and I had to tell them that I did not have it and neither did Sunflower.

They did not believe it and frankly, I would not have believed it either. I am still embarrassed to think that I even told them that it was mailed by Certified Mail and yet the Bank had no proof of mailing and no Article number for tracing. When I go the Post Office and send a certified letter on a legal matter, I had best have that receipt for proof before a court of law. It may be that the Post Office misdirected the letter, it may have been misaddressed. Whatever was the problem, we could do nothing because the Certified Mail Receipt article number was missing. It was a needle in a haystack and Sunflower had lost the only magnet that would find it.