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April 21, 2013
Never Trust Sun Trust!
By Eugene Elander
A case study of how Sun Trust Bank of Georgia abused the trust of two innocent customers, repeatedly and profoundly. The time for real bank regulation is long overdue, and desperately needed. Woody Guthrie said he did not know which was worse: to rob a bank, or to own one! Today, that is still a very good question.
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We should have learned to Never Trust Sun Trust Bank long ago, after our bank accounts at our neighborhood Mountain State Bank in North Georgia became Sun Trust accounts when our local bank was bought out by the banking giant. We went to Europe as usual that Summer, but before leaving were assured by those "good Sun Trust bankers" that our debit cards and all other Mountain State Bank account numbers would continue to work indefinitely. It wasn't until reaching Europe that we discovered that nothing left over from Mountain State still worked, and we were left without access to our funds. Sun Trust did a pretty good job of spoiling our Summer finances by lying to us -- on top of which, our new checks which we had arranged to be sent to our local bank, to be held for our return, were instead returned and then destroyed. It seems there was a "communications breakdown" within our former local bank, once it became a Sun Trust branch. Shame!Author's Biography
Eugene Elander has been a progressive social and political activist for decades. As an author, he won the Young Poets Award at 16 from the Dayton Poets Guild for his poem, The Vision. He was chosen Poet Laureate of Pownal, Vermont for his poem Pownal People. His three new verses for America the Beautiful:September 11, 2001 were widely acclaimed and read into the Congressional Record by U.S. Senator Chris Dodd.
Dr. Elander has authored four volumes of poetry: The Right Click, The World Click, Journeyings, and Philosophy over Fika, all written from 2004 to now, in the U.S. and Sweden -- as well as two published novels: The Goat of God, and Turning the Tides, both available via Signalman Publishing on Amazon.com in Kindle and electronic pdf editions. A self-help book titled Empowerment:Taking Charge of your Life was recently completed and is available via Amazon.com KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing.
Dr. Elander is a freelance columnist who published a newspaper for ten years in New London, CT. He is an economist and college lecturer, and has been an agency executive director, emergency management consultant, investigator; and former animal control officer, deputy code enforcement and health officer for Farmington, New Hampshire. He and his wife Birgit, who co-authored The World Click, divide their time between Georgia and her homeland, Gotland, Sweden.
Several other books are underway, including a sequel to The Goat of God, and a public version of his doctoral dissertation on Cooperatism, a new economic system he developed which includes all stakeholders (workers, consumers, and the public as well as stockholders) in crucial decision making. Dr. Elander has been a member of the Stonepile Writers group in Georgia and the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. He is president of his own Elander Press.