Racism in America just keeps trucking on in ways big and small. A Black woman who is the president and founder of the Connecticut Parents ...
Racism in America just keeps trucking on in ways big and small.
A Black woman who is the president and founder of the Connecticut Parents Union says she was recently denied a withdrawal of just over $1,000 from a business account she holds at TD Bank because a teller at a branch of the bank in Southington, Conn., simply decided she wasn’t going to give it to her.
Gwen Samuel spoke to FOX 61 News about the experience that happened earlier this week, which she understandably describes as being humiliating—especially since she’s been a customer of the bank for 16 years.
From Fox 61:
“I go inside, I had my TD bank card and my license,” Samuel said. “They were cordial. I’m not even gonna say they were rude.”
But then she had to wait for several minutes.
“And I see her over there and I was like ‘oh she looks like she’s going through my account.’ OK. Maybe that’s just the policy,” she said outside of the bank on Monday morning
The teller came back and shocked her.
“She hands me my license and she says, ‘I don’t feel comfortable giving you the money.’”
Samuel said she was attempting to withdraw just over $1,000 to pay a vendor of CPU.
A little over $1,000 is less than the damn stimmy. But apparently, that was enough money for the teller to find hard to hand over to the Black woman who deposited it in the bank in the first place. Ain’t that some shit?
Samuel ended up having to leave the bank and withdraw some of the money from the ATM outside—which she was able to do. She then went to another branch of the bank, where she said the employees there helped her withdraw the money she needed.
Somehow though, in TD Bank’s attempt to cover its ass despite the indefensible behavior of the frontline employee who embarrassed Samuel for no discernible reason except the obvious (racism), the company issued a statement to HuffPost suggesting that “security” concerns are why the first bank teller refused the Black customer the withdrawal with no explanation other than she wasn’t comfortable doing so.
Samuel says CPU may move all their funds from TD Bank if there aren’t changes made to prevent a similar situation from happening to others in the future. She has also filed a complaint with the federal reserve and the banking committee of the Connecticut state legislature and said she told representatives of the bank that they should carry out diversity training.
In another statement, TD Bank said it had a constructive conversation with Samuel during which they apologized for her experience, saying that it did not meet their expectations or hers.
“We listened, learned and assured her that we will do a better job in the future at the store, where we will be working with the staff to ensure consistent procedures and clearer communication when customers visit our store for bank transactions.”
And we just keep trucking on.
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