There is a scandal breaking involving one of the nation’s largest banks, Wachovia. Wachovia is a well-respected bank, based in North Carolina, and a huge presence nationally. They may be the fourth or fifth largest bank in the United States. They have been involved in a criminal enterprise that little inklings of it came up last year when I first mentioned it then, and now there are smoking gun documents showing that Wachovia was involved aiding and embedding criminal activity, stealing from people’s checking accounts, especially senior citizens. The New York Times has done more work on this than any other newspaper in the country and has great detail in a series of stories about the criminal activity at Wachovia involving the company aiding and embedding criminal activity.

Let me tell you what they have been doing, Wachovia has been assisting criminal rings that have been stealing money from peoples checking accounts by presenting drafts against people’s accounts. A number of Wachovia’s internal documents have come to light, showing that Wachovia employees knew they were dealing with criminal enterprises, but were participating because the fee income to Wachovia was so large from helping the criminals steal that Wachovia jumped in with both feet.

Now, I’ve got to share something with you, I am bashing myself at the same time as I’m telling you this because I own stock in Wachovia. There are a small number of companies that I own stock in, most everything I do is through various Index funds and mutual funds, just a very small handful stocks and so I am one of the guilty parties, I guess. Well actually, as a stockholder I call myself the guilty party, but I just want full disclosure to you so you know that as a stockholder I am embarrassed and outraged that a company that I would own stock in is involved now in this criminal activity.

Full Article Here

Apparently nine banks are guilty of doing this but so far only Wachovia has been named but I am sure the rest will come in the future. I hope all of you that this has happened to can recoup your money. know Clark Howard is the best place to go to keep abreast these changes. You can listen to him live from WSB Radio on pod-casts, read his newsletter, visit the site archives and he also has a cable television show though it may only be local thus far (but that needs to change he is a priceless commodity).

His motto is: Save more, spend less and avoid rip-offs. I honestly think he is invaluable to any person, no matter what fiscal level for anything that involves money or consumer issues. Learn from Clark!