A New Jersey widow disregarded by JPMorgan in a bitter battle over her husband’s $53,000 pension obtained a shock test for the complete sum — from a pair of strangers “touched” by her plight, The Put up has realized.
Elaine Silverberg, 73, has been embroiled in a 13-year feud to recoup the cash from the nation’s largest lender, which refused making the payout due to a clerical error by her late husband.
The Teaneck, NJ grandmother’s David-versus-Goliath battle — reported completely by The Put up in November –– caught the eye of two insurance coverage executives greater than 600 miles away in North Carolina.
Roy Messer, a 57-year-old medical health insurance dealer from Charlotte, and his enterprise associate Invoice Rice, additionally 57, stated they have been shocked by the penny-pinching from the financial institution run by Jamie Dimon and took issues into their very own arms.
“I couldn’t believe for such an amount of money that they wouldn’t want to do the right thing. There is no doubt that her husband would have wanted that money to go to her and his kids,” Rice stated.
“I imagine that for Jamie Dimon this is like a nickel falling out of his pocket. I would like to believe that he just doesn’t know (about this).”
Messer, who served within the Marine Corps between 1986 and 1989, stated he was “touched” Silverberg’s story and that wiring her the cash was “the right thing to do.”.
“I don’t know her and I could have very easily just turned the page. But when something like that reaches out and grabs you, I looked at it and thought: What if that was my mother?” he instructed The Put up.
Silverberg was left shocked by their gesture, saying it “restored my faith in mankind.”
“In this crazy world we live in, it is remarkable that such kindness also exists. I am flabbergasted at their extreme generosity,” she instructed The Put up.
JPMorgan declined to remark, however a senior supply contained in the financial institution stated the principles governing its pension fund ban any exceptions from being carved out.
JPMorgan insiders then instructed The Put up in December that the financial institution would by no means again down after Grinches on the financial institution denied Silverberg’s repeated pleas handy over her husband Mel’s $331-a-month pension pot.
Based on Silverberg, a former authorities administrator, the absolutely vested money pile is price an estimated $53,000.
However JPMorgan bean counters stated Mel, a former system analyst with Chase Manhattan Financial institution till 1979, did not fill within the crucial varieties earlier than he unexpectedly died on the age of 43 from a number of organ failure in 1988.
Chase Manhattan went on to merge with JPMorgan in 2000. The Wall Road big posted report earnings of $58.5 billion final yr, with Dimon raking in $39 million in compensation.
The Ronald Reagan administration handed the Retirement Fairness Act in 1984 so spouses like Silverberg would routinely profit if their family members died.
JPMorgan insists it wrote to Mel on three separate events asking him to elect survivor protection after he stepped down. His widow says none of that correspondence ever arrived on the household dwelling.
She stated pension managers can solely dig up documentation that they are saying proves they contacted Mel in 1990 — two years after he died.
Silverberg even as soon as enlisted New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and ex-Bronx Rep Eliot Engel to persuade the agency to vary their thoughts, to no avail.
