Canopy Financial Shawnee HSA They Stole my HSA Chicago, Illinois

Did you ever get your money back? Please give us an update. Thanks.

Please give us an update to your Ripoff Report when you have time. Thank You.

I, too, am a victim of the Canopy bankruptcy having invested my HSA funds with Shawnee Administrative Services.  I have found two sites for help.  One is the facebook page previously mentioned, Canopy Financial HSA Fraud Discussion, and the other is a yahoo groups forum for ShawneeInvestors.  There is good information on both sites and action is being considered outside the bankruptcy for those who invested with Shawnee.  Contact with the trustee is encouraging for HSA holders, but nothing is definite at this point.  Information is being gathered for potential joint action.  Join facebook or groups.yahoo.com to get brought up to date.

is available at this site!

*Just type in 646259 and it appears as 'Consumer Comment #73' at Ripoff Report #646259.

Thank You

is available at the BANK OF AMERICA page of this site. It appears in the Updates section.

I have multiple suggestions:

1) The author mentions that Coventry is also a major creditor.  I believe that Coventry will make their health insurance customers whole. This may not apply to the author of the original report, but my suggestion to anyone that had their HDHP through Coventry is to escalate the issue within Coventry.  Generally speaking large insurance carriers are particularly sensitive to threats by employers to pull the insurance and give it to another carrier and I believe this is why Coventry has adopted a policy.

2) The original poster mentioned that they had a Shawnee HSA, but will apply to others that had HSA money at banks that used Canopy. Generally speaking if your account was at an FDIC insured institution (which Shawnee is) your funds SHOULD HAVE been FDIC insured - even if the funds were associated w/ Canopy and get stolen by Canopy.  It gets a bit complicated, but the legal stuff follows below - and BTW the obscurity of it is one of the reasons this occured in the first place, but I think you should be able to use the information to pressure your bank to make you whole.

3) Legally speaking if an FDIC insured institution offered an HSA using Canopy OR if an FDIC institution was holding your funds on Canopy's behalf the institution had a legal obligation to structure the agreement such that Canopy was a 3rd party "record keeper".  Barring that, the funds would not/could not have been FDIC insured in the first place. From what I understand many of Canopy's agreements with depository institutions were not in fact structured that way - but the point is that the depository institution - NOT CANOPY - had a legal obligation to ensure that they were structured that way.  This arises because the only way the funds get FDIC insured is for the depository institution to subcontract the record keeping function to Canopy - not vice versa.  Also the FDIC regs require - and it was a major regulatory focus a few years ago - insured institutions to do appropriate due diligence on all their technology contractors (which is what a record keeper is).  Again, this was the depository institutions obligation, NOT CANOPY's obligation.   

4) Given that, you should go back to your account statements and account opening materials and account disclosures and annual privacy notices and look for references to 'FDIC insured'.  If the name of the depository institution where your funds were located accompanies the depository institutions name OR the depository institutions logo on those documents then the institution has liability and you have recourse.  In fact unless the account statements, disclosures, etc. said "NOT FDIC INSURED", i.e. like a brokerage account, you very likely have recourse anyways. 

5) The only way I can see an institution squirming out of making you whole is if they take the position that Canopy was a commercial banking client and had your funds in a commercial bank account and embezzlement occured by an employee at Canopy - therefore talk to Canopy.  They will of course take this position, but....if they had any contract at all with Canopy to handle HSA funds...and believe me they did....then we're back to point #3 and the fact that they screwed up when they structured the agreement with Canopy.  Since they screwed up they have liability.  If they had a contract with Canopy and Canopy put FDIC insured w/ their logo and/or their name on a statement to an account holder the FDIC regs require them to know about it.  A claim of ignorance is not a valid defense because the regs require them to be aware of the actions of their subcontractors.

6) My advice to get the funds back are not to argue with anyone in customer service, but to determine who the general counsel from the bank is and who the chief compliance officer are and to send them a nice letter.  Citing the legal obligations that they had as outlined above.  You don't need to cite the chapter and verse, if you state your understanding of what the FDIC regs require as outlined above they know the rules well enough to go find the chapter and verse and boy will they be surprised! Include as attachments any documents from them or canopy that have the words FDIC insured, the institution name and ANY reference to your HSA.  Notify them that you 've sent a copy of the letter and your understanding to the local FDIC branch - and be sure to do that as the FDIC follows up with the compliance department directly when you do so.

7) At this point they'll be forced to decide whether it is cheaper to refund you or to litigate and Oh, BTW admit to the FDIC examiners that they didn't follow the rules and regs as they established the Canopy relationship.  Trust me, the scrutiny that would come from such admission is NOT something they want.

I hope this helps!

in this Ripoff Report were friends with any of our POLITICIANS in the USA, wouldn't it? Imagine if these people entertained any of our so called 'leaders' in the USA?