George Berger is a paralegal trying to figure out if other TD clients are missing valuable items after thousands of safety deposit boxes were drilled open in 2012. He said, 'Yeah, it was here it was drilled in 2012,'" said Levy-Bencheton. "And within five minutes, he got back in the line. So, on a whim, a family member called TD customer service about a week later and asked again. Levy-Bencheton fought for more than a year to get any compensation.Īt first, a bank manager told her the box never existed, but she says that "didn't feel right" since the family had two sets of keys and her dad had told her all about it. The bank says it has one million boxes across the country and the need to drill them open is rare. TD tells Go Public the family's box was opened by accident, as part of a "network wide reconciliation process" - one of the 16,000 boxes it drilled open in 2012 for reasons including overdue rent, lost keys or where "required by law." "It made me suspicious," Levy-Bencheton said. Levy-Bencheton holds up the few silver coins from her father's safety deposit box: the only things of value that were inside, according to TD Canada Trust. She asked for the bank's records showing who had accessed the box before it was drilled open, and for a copy of the registered letter the bank said it sent her father before opening it. Levy-Bencheton says TD's rules mean it didn't need to prove anything. "It's called the safety deposit box, but really it's just a contract that has all sorts of provisions in it to protect the banks from liability," said Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, an advocacy group for corporate responsibility and law reform. (Susan Goodspeed/CBC)īut instead of getting cash and jewelry, the bank handed Levy-Bencheton a pile of paperwork and receipts, a few silver dollar coins and an empty ring box, saying that's all that was in there.Įxperts say banks operate safety deposit boxes as a side business, with few rules except those they set for themselves. His wife Cera Katz, right, is seen here wearing the gold watch the family says was missing from the safety deposit box. When Levy-Bencheton's father Harry Katz, left, died at 103, his family says he was still lucid and shared everything about his finances with them. ![]() ![]() "That's the kind of mentality they lived with," she said. She's not sure exactly how much cash, but says her father kept it there because her parents were Holocaust survivors, so were always anxious about having easy access to money and valuables in case they needed to run. Those are the items her father - still lucid in his older age - told her he'd stashed at the bank for safe keeping. Missing, she says, is her mother's diamond ring, an 18 -karat gold watch bought in 1947, gold and silver coins and thousands of dollars in cash. ![]() This was clearly tampered with," Levy-Bencheton said. "The reason you have a safety deposit box is to specifically put things in a very safe place and not to be tampered with. Been wronged? Contact the Go Public teamīoth he and Levy-Bencheton say they can't believe the bank would open the boxes and remove their possessions."Once it is gone, it's gone," said Suraj Khatiwada. Go Public also spoke to an Edmonton man who lost thousands of dollars' worth of irreplaceable 22-karat gold jewelry, who says the bank did the same thing to him. It says its policies require the contents to be set aside for safe keeping.īut Levy-Bencheton says she's still missing her family's most valued possessions and fighting for compensation.Īnd she's not the only one. ![]() The bank drilled open and emptied thousands of safety deposit boxes across the country in 2012 in an effort to get rid of those no longer being used or paid for. The Toronto woman went to TD Canada Trust to empty the box a few months later, and discovered the bank had already done it years ago - forcing it open by drilling the lock then emptying the contents. That's until her dad passed away in 2017 at age 103. If there's one thing Sheila Levy-Bencheton took for granted, it's that the safety deposit box her father rented from a big bank was secure.
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