Bettina Network Foundation, inc. is calling on everyone to join in and actively participate in this boycott of Wells Fargo Bank.
For a very long time banks have been fundamental in making sure there is none to very little change in this society. Racism, sexism, homophobia, class discrimination, who owns and keeps the wealth in this country and so much more are determined by your local bank – which is probably no longer local but is the branch or unattended outlet of a major, international banking plus other businesses institution. And most notably they are majorly responsible for homelessness. Not entirely, to be sure, but they do maintain the structure – in tact – no matter how loud or long they protest their innocence.
What do they gain? One thing is keeping us divided against each other so communication as to what they are doing is knowledge kept and known only to a few.
How is wealth created in these United States? Through either real estate or stock. Either through ownership of land – real property – as it increases in value, or through ownership in corporations as they increase in value.
Many people have tried to increase their wealth and have been stymied. Mostly by the banks – even though we are not ignoring the role of other institutions. Unfortunately, in spite of our great educations, most of us are ignorant of how this happens and therefore it continues.
How has this happened? Little by little we hope to unfold for you all of it so you can function with a knowledge that makes your actions and your life more productive.
Banks have in the past and still do today majorly maintain segregated neighborhoods through “red lining”. They are helped in this endeavor by some realtors, but brokers, dealers, realtors can’t take all the credit. Most of it goes to the banks.
Red lining is an old way of maintaining separation of peoples based on things like color, economic and financial status, etc. which has not gone out of existence. It has just gone underground and periodically takes on new forms. Banks do not maintain that separation of peoples only through red lining, they do it through the intentional destruction of neighborhoods targeted for “urban renewal” or for a change of a neighborhoods racial make-up or etc. There are billions of dollars involved and to be made by those who are a part of such transactions along with the loss of lives, livelihoods and more.
Which bank is the most egregious bank of them all? WELLS FARGO!
In spite of tens of thousands of dollars having gone into the legal process to get them to change and many other ways which have been tried to approach this problem, Wells Fargo is still ripping off the American public – and probably many overseas as well. As a result of the legal processes, which they lost, the only change we can see is a new and improved marketing and advertising program which the bank has rolled out instead of making restitution in real ways to those they have hurt. That marketing and advertising program is nothing more than smoke and mirrors to get you to continue doing business with them so they can continue doing that business as usual. And lets not talk about fines, etc. imposed on Wells Fargo. To you and me that is like money to go to the store to buy ice cream or a pizza given their overall finances.
The ugliness, which has hurt so many, is still enshrined within the bank along with its structures and the people who carry them out. Most are people who carry out these policies to put food on their tables and to keep a roof over their heads. Many are people competing to have better food and a more expensive roof over their heads. It is time to take another look at what you can do and how you – Wells Fargo employees – can contribute to bringing about basic change, accepting your responsibility for being one of those making the lives of others extremely difficult so you and yours can benefit. There are ways you can help bring about basic change and maintain your job and your increasingly lucrative and going up the ladder of success lifestyle. You don’t have to concentrate on or be involved in only the one – because you are likely to be one of those against whom you moved to make their lives difficult to impossible. History shows that is probably going to be the result of your efforts, if you continue on the path you are now taking.
Exposure is one way! Open the windows, throw open the doors and let fresh air flow through. Let the general public know what is going on and what we can do to make basic change so we all benefit.
Bettina Network Foundation, inc. is calling one way we can all move towards changing this society for the better:
- If you have a savings account with Wells Fargo – close it. You can open it with another bank. And yes, all banks are complicit, but you have to start someplace. One bank has to make change and one very large bank with lots of influence and which has been shown to be a bank which destroys lives, property, the quality of lots of peoples way of life and keeps on keeping on going down the wrong street ripping peoples lives apart is a good place to start.
2. Once you have closed your savings account, let us know and let Wells Fargo know you closed your account and why!
3. If you have a checking account with Wells Fargo – close it.
4. And once again, let us know and let Wells Fargo know you closed your checking account and why!
5. If you own stock in Wells Fargo – sell it. And let Wells Fargo know you sold your stock in their bank and any subsidiaries you can find – let us know about the subsidiaries and let us and Wells Fargo know you sold your stock and why!
6. And this is a biggy! Do you own stock in other publicly traded corporations? Check out who is the transfer agent responsible for keeping the records for that publicly traded corporation. If it is Wells Fargo Shareowner Services or EG by Equiniti – demand that the corporation change its transfer agent and hire another totally unconnected to Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo Shareowner Services, from our experience, did lots to hurt John and Jane Q. Public. Instead of responding to what they did they simply changed their name, ignored the problems they created and kept on moving ahead. This is common for many corporations. It is time for this to stop and you have the power to stop these under handed activities.
A statement taken from Equinity’s marketing materials – “Even though Wells Fargo has sold its transfer agency business, our relationship with Wells Fargo remains strong. We will continue to use banking and brokerage services provided by Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo will continue to use us as its transfer agent.”
Today’s Story is only one, but it begins to unfold why we are promoting and managing this boycott and what we want changed? Bettina Network Foundation, inc’s goal is to eliminate homelessness. That is a growth area in this society and the ways it has been attacked have not worked. It is time to look at the base reasons and eliminate and change them so everyone has food, shelter and work in this very wealthy society. We do not need to continue on this path of the rich getting richer and the middle class becoming homeless.
TODAY’S STORY!
“We owned Dayton-Hudson stock and we owned Target Corp stock for decades. When
Dayton-Hudson became Target Corp. all of our stock became Target Corp. stock. We kept that stock for decades. When we needed to sell the stock because we needed the money
for business purposes and needed that asset changed to cash quickly – as promised it would be by Target Corporation and the Securities and Exchange Commissio – we had to go through Wells Fargo Shareowner Services.
When we contacted Wells Fargo Shareowner Services to ask that they sell the stock – it became a several years consumption of money, time, emotional energy and more.
A transaction that should have taken a few minutes to send a letter with the appropriate form – accurately filled out – and then the next step taken by Wells Fargo Shoreowner Services should have been just four days for the stock to be sold and just a very short time after that for the money to be deposited into my account. That process actually took almost three years. Why? We have many theories, but why is irrelevant. What is relevant is
that our money was kept and our access to an asset which the Securities and Exchange Commission supposedly is the watch dog agency to make sure things like this does not happen all were useless in the face of Wells Fargo. Whatever they did was accepted and acceptable and I was put in the position of first a supplicant – please get this done, I need my money; through to a very angry woman demanding her assets be treated and acted upon per her request.
WHY did I have to go through this? Because the Direct Purchase Plan with Target Corporation gave Wells Fargo Shareowner Services – the transfer agent for Target Corporation – the right to keep the stock certificates of the stock we owned. I was told many stories as to why that was the best thing to do – “when you are ready to sell there is no issue with the stock certificates, they are in the possession of Wells Fargo Shareowner Services or whichever transfer agent Target Corporation was using and the sale of the stock will be stress free for everyone and able to be executed in minutes.”
That was a lie! If, for any reason one of those corporations wants to move against you without showing their hand because you are a political or other kind of nuisance, you have given them the ability to do just that and they will use it – to harass you and make your financial life a shambles at their discretion and Wells Fargo Shareowner Services was the champion at doing that. Leave your stock certificates for safe keeping with their services and they control your asset and no one is going to come to your rescue. Attorneys will, costing more than the stock is worth, but no one else moves to help no matter their job description or their mandate.
Target Corporation, in spite of going all the way up the ladder from Customer Service to the “investment” area to the CEO of Target Corporation refused any kind of help. To them, the responsibility was with Wells Fargo Shareowner Services and they closed off communications of all kind. Letters went unanswered, pleas went unheeded, the door to the Executive Suite slammed shut. This was not their problem. But – said I – this is your stock not Wells Fargo’s stock. Mean silence prevailed.
It took almost three years of going back and forth with Wells Fargo Shareowner Services, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Attorney Generals Office and more such institutions. When a lawyer became involved – only then were our wishes heeded. At that point the asset was gone – attorneys don’t come cheap. So while their goal was not fulfilled one way, it was indeed fulfilled in another way even more effective because it took my time, the asset and emotional energy to get to that solution.
When we started the process of asking that the Target Stock be sold, Wells Fargo Shareowner Services had just taken over as Target Corporations transfer agent. Today just three plus years later ownership of that Wells Fargo Shareowner Services has been transferred to Equinity. The same people are at the top and all through the ranks so what happened? Did their problems multiply because of the way they did business and the number of people they hurt that the easiest thing for them to do was not to make amends for their sins, but to transfer ownership so they did not have to take responsibility and did not have to correct their wrongs? Talk to Equiniti and you will be told – sorry that is not our problem, we are not the company with whom you had problems. Clean – swift – vicious!”
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That is a common way for such corporations to act and it is time for that to stop. If you hurt someone you need to make amends and make those people whole again at the same time changing the processes which caused the problem in the first place.
So we will go back to asking you to check your stock certificates on any stock you own – if the transfer agent is Wells Fargo Shareowner Services or if it is Equiniti, demand that the corporation whose stock you own change their transfer agent or you sell the stock and buy into another corporation which uses another transfer agent and let us and them know what you have done.
We will publish your story with or without your name depending upon your request to us. Why without the name of the person involved? Because retaliation by corporations is common and many have experienced unnecessary hassle and harassment and loss because of corporations trying to silence the public so they can be allowed to continue doing ugly, vile things without taking responsibility and without making those people whole.
Small steps in the right direction have been taken, in the past, by expensive and long lasting law suits from which almost no one benefits. It is time for that to change!
Your basic responsibility is to the human beings with whom you inhabit this earth, to make it a better – more viable – kinder – gentler – more caring place to live without the ugliness we have all had to endure because of greed, power hunger and other such emotions and character flaws which have pervaded the institutions which are supposed to be there to help us navigate this world in a more flawless manner.
Please pass this along to as many people as you can possibly reach who you think need to read this message and to keep up with this boycott.
What do we need to continue, promote and make this a successful boycott?
Your ideas
Your time and energy to do the work of carrying this forward
Your money to help us meet the costs of such an action
______Ways to Contact Wells Fargo Bank to let them know you will not do business with them
Corporate Headquarters*
420 Montgomery Street
San Francisco, California 94163
United States
Phone: 866-878-5865
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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
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WHAT IS BED & BREAKFAST?
Thursday, October 15th, 2015The term “bed & breakfast” has been garnering more and more excitement over the years. Every corporation, small business, mom and pop shop, wants to gain in their marketing and advertisement so they add things that are totally irrelevant to their businesses in the hope that you will be fooled into thinking they are “bed & breakfast” and will patronize them. You can then be acculturated into a definition of bed & breakfast which has nothing to do with the actual concept.
Let’s take a look:
There are VACATION RENTAL HOMES.
These have nothing to do with “bed & breakfast”, but some unscrupulous, or ignorant merchants, PR people, media, etc. will put them under “bed & breakfast” because they have something to gain – if nothing more than to not have to think and write at the same time.
A Vacation Rental Home is a house which is put up for rent – furnished, with everything you need to move in and set up housekeeping for one week, two weeks, a month, sometimes an entire season. No one else shares the house with you. They are put together for the purpose of renting to those who want a time away from home, but in another house near the beach, near the mountains, in a historic location, etc.
There are ROOMING HOUSES
These are still popular and much used, but they are never advertised as such. The term, which once referred to a temporary community of people, living together in their own rooms with – usually – the local widow providing breakfast and dinner fell into disrepute. As generations passed, the breakfast and dinner fell by the wayside, the community disintegrated into a collection of disparate people who were temporarily down on their luck and rooming houses became what are sometimes known as “flop houses” and so the entire industry fell on hard times until some enterprising “Rooming House” owner discovered he or she could rent their “Rooming House” easier if they called it a “bed & breakfast.”
There are HOTELS
The hotel corporation has been pretty vicious about getting rid of the competition. So, when it became clear – as more and more people travelled, particularly to Europe and especially England – “bed & breakfast” was discovered in the United States and a growing number of people wanted to travel “bed & breakfast”.
Seeing this growing number of people and losing many paying guests, hotels added “bed & breakfast” to their name. Sometimes to a part of the services they offered – Smith Hotel and Bed & Breakfast. Grand Dame Hotel, also offering bed & breakfast. And more such appellations appeared – more and more frequently, until today we think nothing about the conflict of a Hotel and a “bed & breakfast” being conflated into one place. We see “bed & breakfast” advertised by a hotel and do exactly what the marketing and public relations people expected us to do – go for it bringing the romance and reputation of the “bed & breakfast” into the hotels circle.
There are INNS
Once the “Southern Lady” of the accommodations industry, INNS had a romance around them that began to be moved into the sphere of “bed & breakfast” so INNS started calling themselves Smith Bed & Breakfast Inn. Or sometimes, the Smith INN bed & breakfast. Trying to get back the romantic and historical reputation it once had until they got knocked off their pedestal by actual bed & breakfasts.
There are GUEST HOUSES
This category never quite got itself together since the marketing and advertisements were and are usually done by the owners rather than the professionals so they went all over the map.
These are usually private homes which have gone commercial. The owners would normally live in the house, but they live in it the way a funeral home owner lives in a funeral home. There are places in the house which are ready for their close-up and other places where the owners and the help reside and/or work. They can have a restaurant, rent parts of the house out for parties, weddings, etc. and just generally pretend to be a private home/hotel. They vary all over the map, but most call themselves – what else – “bed & breakfast.”
There are the “AIR” people
Started normally in the living room of the apartment they rented from someone else with an air mattress on the floor of the living room which they rent to strangers, this has gotten all out of hand and Attorney Generals, cities, villages, counties, states, are getting into the picture to regulate such. Except they generally don’t know what it is they are regulating.
The “AIR” people have begun to include all of the above, plus more as they define their business and characterize themselves as “bed & breakfast” which has totally disrupted the “bed & breakfast” industry as well as all the rest.
Since some of the “AIR” people started their companies by stealing the concept from others and moving on without any acknowledgement, compensation, or permission of any kind, their ethics have not improved as they develop the concept pushing out others and acting like the mafia of the industry.
There needs to be some authority which sorts out all of these groups and has them identify themselves as what they are rather than trading on a marketing and advertising concept which fools the public and attempts to confuse everyone to their advantage.
So – let’s look at what is actually “bed & breakfast”.
It is a stay in a private home. Where people actually live on a daily basis, going about their lives as we all normally would, except those who offer bed & breakfast welcome guests along the way who are traveling from one place to another.
They do not offer a place for a wedding, party, meeting, corporate retreat, etc. They offer a place to stay for a few people. They do not have 30 or more rooms where people can stay, they have just a few rooms with just a few people staying.
Every culture has had some form of bed and breakfast. In India – those traveling on a religious pilgrimage had places to stay which welcomed those making a pilgrimage – and more. In the United States bed & breakfast comes mostly from the “Bishop’s room”. The place in a home reserved for the Bishop, when he was in town. When the Bishop was not in town, the room was used by the home owners to welcome other guests. The guests left a discrete offering on a side board, quietly, so as not to embarrass the homeowners. That offering could be a chicken for supper, etc. It was also sometimes money.
One family got to know many travelers and the travelers got to know a local person, generally one with whom they stayed in contact over the years. It was a way to reach beyond your circle of friends, your class, your race, your everything into an area you would not reach otherwise. The people who travelled and the people who welcomed them met serendipitously and there a community was formed. You had a contact in another area to whom you could write, later on as telephones came in – you could call – if you needed something or some influence that person with whom you stayed – could provide. It was and remained a personal, one-on-one arrangement.
During the time when African Americans were not welcomed in hotels, motels, inns, etc. they travelled bed & breakfast. There was a list of people in different cities who welcomed guests, who you could call and make reservations to stay for the night or for several nights during your time in a particular area. One of the reasons some African Americans grew closer with people they would never have met otherwise. A community was formed across the country as people who couldn’t get a glass of water from a restaurant found a way around a stone wall.
This has all gotten out of hand as greed pushes us to make ever more money on someone else’s back – on someone else’s concept – inconveniencing many who were perfectly willing to accept a neighbors bed & breakfast, but appalled at the streams of people now appearing, the loud music from the parties, the intrusion into their lives which has happened as the “bed & breakfast” industry is now being destroyed by those who don’t begin to understand the concept, but understand the money they can make by using the name – concept be damned.
“Bed & breakfast” was and is a way for many to use their homes to supplement their incomes and sometimes even to carry them through hard times.
We have helped people get out of mortgage foreclosures, evictions, and more by using the original “bed & breakfast” concept – which is also what it was meant to do.
We hope, that as you read this and go through your life with a better understanding of “bed & breakfast” you will help to calm down and maintain an industry which has meant a lot to many people and should not be so exploited as it is today.
If you want a corporation; a business; which makes reservations for other kind of accommodations, then have that and call it what it is, don’t trade on “bed & breakfast” to promote a fraud. Don’t have a business where people arrive expecting breakfast only to discover they are in a commercial setting and there is no breakfast nor really, no bed & breakfast, but something else they didn’t expect. Don’t have a business which someone who just wants money and has figured out a way to use this concept with your help to rent apartments which they then re-rent to others for “bed & breakfast” reducing the housing – especially affordable housing available in a very tight area. Don’t facilitate the destruction of a wonderful industry because of your out of control greed and empire building. Don’t rent your living room to someone with an air mattress on the floor because you want to do this rip off thing instead of living comfortably and honestly with your neighbors.
It is time for all of this to stop and for the world to come to its senses. Chasing after – greedy for – hurting others – it is enough. It has led to people’s homes burning down because of guests who were ill prepared for where they were staying and got the idea they could use the accommodation anyway they saw fit and consequently didn’t respect the homeowner or the neighbors; muggings because people arrive at these accommodations knowing there would be no one home and instructions given when they rented the place to look under the porch for the key – only to find someone else knew about the emptiness of the house and was inside waiting for them and relieved them of their belongings, money, dignity. It is time to take care with whatever business you call yourself and stop pushing to the point where people using your services feel free enough to rent a house for one thing and instead have a party bus pull up and destroy the house using it as a cheap place to have a loud, destructive party which winds up tearing the house apart and destroying someone’s home which was onlyrented for the night to a couple.
IT IS ENOUGH and time to deal honestly with who you are; what you are doing; and to show respect for the rest of the world by naming yourself correctly and not trading on a concept which has nothing to do with your business.
For the above reasons and others we are putting AirB&B in Bettina’s Hall of Shame.
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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Guest Comments
Posted in An editorial just because, Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina's Box of Shame, Bettina's Hall of Shame, Breakfast Table Talk, Empathy, Press Release, Press Release from Bettina Network | No Comments »