Where are the CDs? Flint Township couple's 1986 investments are missing
The couple opened certificates of deposit at the former Citizens Bank in 1986 for $2,000 each.
FLINT TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WJRT) – A Flint Township couple discovered their retirement savings had vanished when they checked on their decades-old certificates of deposit.
James and Barbara Hollins said they opened two CDs in 1986, but the bank now has no record of them.
“The bank said we don’t know what happened to these certificate of deposits and we have no record of them,” Hollins said.
The couple, now retired, planned ahead for their retirement years. James worked for the city of Detroit, and Barbara was with Flint Schools for 33 years.
“We went to Citizens bank and we were thinking of years when we retire, so we both set up CDs and put in $2,000 for each of us, I think the interest rate was 7.5 percent,” James Hollins said.
If the interest rate was indeed 7.5%, an online CD calculator suggests the initial investment could be worth more than $33,000 today. After retrieving the paperwork from a safe deposit box, they approached the bank for their money.
“We went to Huntington Bank, one of the local branches, they looked it up, and they couldn’t find it,” Hollins said.
The CDs were initially with Citizens Bank, which became FirstMerit Bank in 2013, and later Huntington Bank in 2016. It’s unclear if these transitions contributed to the disappearance of the CDs.
“We said when we retire we will be set and after we got them out, after we retired, it’s just like it disappeared, nobody knew anything about it, or where the documentation was,” James Hollins said.
Huntington Bank released a statement saying, “While we cannot discuss the details of individual customer accounts, we are conducting a thorough review based on the information provided.”
“We were just flabbergasted as to what could have happened to our money,” Hollins said.
James Hollins was advised to contact the state of Michigan’s unclaimed property division, where old bank account funds sometimes end up. However, the state reported it does not have the couple’s money.