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I’ve had to fire a man - he had a serious drug and alcohol problem and we worked for a company with very strong unions. He disappeared for six weeks. I fired him. He came back. He stole his supervisors credit card. He wouldn’t show up for field jobs where others were depending on him. His service truck was a sty. He left a personal vehicle with flat tires on company property for months (turned out it was leased and he hadn’t made payments so he was hiding it). He never did his expense reports. We sent him to rehab. We paid for special counselling. We gave him an extended paid sick leave to help him with his recovery. He relapsed before he was back at work. He disappeared again. I fired him again. He showed up drunk at his own arbitration hearing. I could go on.He was a sucking black hole of time and energy - and the worst part was the impact he had on his coworkers. He stole from them. He was unreliable. He disappeared. He was a danger on the job site. He wasted their time.I was their boss as well. My job was to make sure they had what they needed to do a great job. They were hard working, conscientious guys - so whatever sympathy I had tor the man was tempered by the sympathy I had for other staff whose lives were being made miserable by him.

Yes.Not too long ago, a major credit card issuer, Synchrony Bank, was on a splurge closing credit card accounts because the bank was going through financial issues. One of the accounts that ended up being closed belonged to a relative of mine.Now, it’s certain someone will come along and start with the “we can close your account for any reason or for no reason” drivel. This is false. Every time a bank takes adverse action against you, federal law (FCRA & ECOA) mandates they tell you the reason why. Not simply a reason, but the reason. There are absolutely no exceptions whatsoever. Failure to do so is an FCRA violation and an ECOA violation.But Synchrony did give a reason. Their FCRA / ECOA letter stated, “Your credit reports give us reason to believe you will fail to make payments as required,” or words to that effect. That reason, however, was a lie. Just by examining my cousin’s credit report, it was clear there were absolutely no red flags. He has stellar credit, multiple 25+ year old accounts with never a late payment, his credit utilization was well under 1% and he had no new accounts or inquiries. When he brought this to Synchrony’s attention, they told him there was nothing further they had to say on the issue.So, since he is a lawyer, he sued them. He was actually hoping Synchrony would demand arbitration since that is a very expensive option for the bank, but, instead, they did not demand arbitration and the case went to court. In court, Synchrony saw how foolish their adverse action reason was and suddenly changed their story to “you have excessive credit lines with our bank.” They also stated the stupid idea that they can “close any account for any reason or for no reason whenever they wanted to.”The judge was not amused. First of all, their new excuse was too little, too late. Their adverse action notice obviously did not state the real reason. Second, a creditor cannot take adverse action for any reason. The law prohibits adverse action for a number of reasons such as age, marital status, sex, race, national origin and if an applicant / account holder obtains income from, for example, child support, Social Security or public assistance.The judge awarded a judgment for $50,000. I know that $10,000 was in punitive damages as per the ECOA and much, if not most, of the rest for attorney fees. Also, Synchrony re-opened his closed accounts and gave him the apology he demanded. Shorty after the accounts were re-opened, my cousin closed them.The attorney for Synchrony told my cousin afterwards that they were relieved that my cousin did not pursue a strategy of alleging one of the prohibited factors. This would have opened a Pandora’s box that could have dragged the case out years and cost Synchrony $100,000 or more in legal fees.Synchrony is still on an account closure surge. If they close your accounts and give you the same lame reason that they give others, sue them. Even if it stays in arbitration it will cost Synchrony a lot of money.

I was a Senior VP at the largest U.S. brokerage. My supervisor breached the confidentiality of my best client causing irreparable damage to my client and me as well. Not knowing exactly who it was that breached, my client sued.I was not allowed to speak to my client, much less defend myself. This client and his firm was responsible for referring to me the majority of my book of business. Moreover, I had referred to him many clients. Needless to say, this client had the ear of a large portion of my book. I quickly learned how fast he could refer those clients away from me.It wasn’t until the depositions that my client learned that I was innocent of any wrong doing. To the point that he mouthed the words “I’m sorry” towards the conclusion of my deposition. Regardless, the damage was done.I switched firms specifically to recover my book (and a sizable signing bonus). With the assistance of this client I was mostly successful in returning to the pace of my business, prior to my managers breach.My losses for the entire ordeal were quite substantial. Not only financial. At the hands of my manager my character was defamed if only by attrition of the whole case. So, I sued as well.Every attorney that I had hoped to have hired wasn’t much interested in challenging a big Wall St. firm’s “Legal Team”, over a possibly expensive, and complex case, without definitive measurable damages. Moreover, a former employee/ former employer arbitration case, might have too many possible surprises. For reasons, soon to be made clear, I was comfortable going into the arbitration pro se.As the arbitration got underway, the panel advised me of the importance of employing proper legal representation. I responded, “I’m quite fine in that area”. Cathy, the, (big, scary, Wall St.) attorney started asking me some very cutting, poignant, straight for the jugular, questions. My, initial response was, “I don’t want to answer that”. Cathy, the attorney asked, “why not?“. I said, “I may not be an attorney, but I know that my answer will not help my case, and will help theirs”. Cathy laughed.Then the head of the arbitration panel ask me to answer the questions. My response was the same, “My answers won’t help my case. I don’t want to answer those questions!” Then I said to the attorney, “why are you being so mean, and embarrassing me with all these bad questions?“ She quipped, they’re not meant to be nice.The lead arbitrator stopped our banter, and echoed her response, saying, “Sir, Her questions are not meant to be nice. They’re probably going to get worse, and more, as you say, “embarrassing“ as we proceed further”. then I responded, “I don’t want my attorney to be that mean”.After a few more repetitions of, “Who’s on first” moments of confusion, I brought it all to a head, by saying to the attorney, Cathy, “You are MY attorney! Why are you trying to help them? (I.e. my former employer). Cathy quipped, “I am not your attorney, I am their attorney!“ The lead arbitrator asked me, “what are you talking about?“I then proceeded to pass out numerous copies to everyone of the depositions from the previous case, involving my former client, where Cathy had represented me. she adamantly assured the panel that she did not represent me, but instead, my previous employer.I then called everyone’s attention to the numerous notations in the previous depositions where she repeatedly referred to me as, “my client“ as in statements such as, “I am going to advise MY CLIENT, not to answer that”. and other great lines such as, “you are badgering my client” etc. etc. etc. She continued to affirmed that she was representing my previous employer and NOT me. The arbitration panel tried to echo her objections, citing that they paid her fees.So I asked, “and where did they get their money? It was from MY commissions, trade spreads, fees, and their cut of the commissions generated from my activities, more than 70% of what I did went to pay her salary. Meaning, I paid her salary.I went on to explain to the panel how I had had a number of closed door meeting with her to prepare for the suit between my client and the firm, and in those meetings, I had poured my heart out to her. I had revealed every hurt, every emotion, and all the damages that I had been experiencing as a result of my manager breaching confidentiality. I confided in her my deepest fears, concerns, and insecurities, and now she was going to use them against me in this arbitration hearing?When she began to react, the arbitration panel said to her, “Cathy, SHUT UP! For the good of your career, we strongly advise that you do not say another word!“ They then asked for everyone to clear the room. Cathy, the lawyers who had accompanied her, my manager, the court reporter, and everyone not part of the arbitration panel were all left standing in the hall while they met. 30 minutes later, they called Cathy in, five minutes after that a representative from the firm. 20 minutes after that, I was called in and presented a settlement document for exactly what I had asked for.I never heard another word about the case, other than, I think Cathy got in a little bit of trouble over it. At times, I would have bouts of guilt over the matter. The idea that a lawyer‘s career might have been ruined over what amounted to be about 2 years income was daunting. Yet, I think of how many good financial advisors careers were ruined over much less. Moreover, the fact that she was going to use all of those secret conversations I had with her against me, had me feeling much better about the decision to use my nuclear tactic. Lastly, I had stood alone against a team of big Wall Street lawyers, and I won! Perry Mason would have been proud!Addendum: I posted this ”Anonymously” for fear of too many negative responses. The few times I had told the story in the past to Attorney, acquaintances, their responses were less than favorable. They made me feel like a vindictive heel. However, after seeing so many positive, “Up arrows“, and positive comments, I guess I've come to the realization that the negative reactions from those few attorneys was more telling of their own character than anything else. Thank you 👍🏻