It has become extremely important for me to write a preface and disclaimer to our 21-page document/ consumer complaint for a few reasons, which I will list below. It will do you, the reader / consumer, a great injustice in my opinion, if you skip this section and then proceed to read the entire 21-page story. If you plan on reading the entire story, you may as well read this entire preface and disclaimer as well, because I’ve recently come across brand new information which I personally feel is urgent for me to communicate to you and I wanted to get this information out as soon as possible. That being said, I would like to comment on four brief subjects prior to the story:
First, I would like to address any (potential) judge or juror who should come across this as a result of any litigation against us for simply expressing our first amendment right. Let it be known that I have taken great strides in being cautious with how I present this story to the public and I would ask the court to recognize that I am presenting this story as if I am in your courtroom, with the utmost respect. I want it to be abundantly clear that the intent of this story is to simply tell what happened, present the truth and get it out to the public. Our intent is not retaliatory in any way but I want to relay something which has happened to us and the public has a right to know this information. Therefore, I address you foremost, your Honor and/or Jury, because I am fairly confident that the company I am writing about, which is Pacific Continental Bank, could very well file a so-called defamatory suit against us for simply telling our story and publishing it.
So, it is with great care that I divulge my intent which is to present our story and that you would consider this Preface and Disclaimer, should you come across it through your public service. We should not be fearful of consequences in putting the truth out there, even if it means being sued and this is why we are willing to be sued because we want the truth out there. Please understand that our intent is not to provoke the bank with that statement; we aren’t sending them an invitation, and in fact, we don’t want to be sued but again, the public should at least know about this story. More evidence of great care in preparing this story is the fact that I have contacted two different law firms and received paid legal advice with regard to publishing this story, once on August 23rd 2016 and also on February 23rd 2017. We would ask the court to please consider the legal advice we received in advance of publishing this story, to additionally be considered as exercise of great care upon the court’s review of our intent. As you will see in the story, we essentially have no fruit to show for our efforts –nothing tangible.
The only thing we have left to show for our time is truth itself or the intangible spirit of truth really, and we refuse the spirit of truth to be taken away from us by Pacific ContinentalBank.
The second thing I need to address is that part of this story involves an eventual bankruptcy which was discharged on March 1st 2016. I owe the reader/consumer an explanation as to why we waited a little over one year to publish this story. It is very simple but you need to know…The reason we waited a one-year minimum is because in a chapter 13 bankruptcy discharge, if fraud has been discovered or even suspected (from my understanding) within one year of discharge, a creditor can try and reverse the discharge through the courts…Now, please understand we haven’t committed any fraud, but we don’t trust that the bank wouldn’t try a retaliatory tactic to this publication and make our lives miserable by filing something with the bankruptcy court and potentially forcing us (I suppose) to fill out mountains of paperwork and/or force us to produce documents that are years old.
This would be extremely trying in addition to what we’ve already been through and we frankly don’t trust that they wouldn’t pull something like that in retaliation. We simply did not need the added stress of proving a false accusation wrong. Therefore it has just been easier to wait the one year than to have to prove any potential false accusations. We don’t know whether or not they would have retaliated in that manner, but we simply couldn’t take any risk of that whatsoever and, quite frankly, that’s how much we distrust them. This is why our story is posted after March 1st 2017.
Third, we have a couple pieces of information which we recently found out about. The first piece is that Pacific Continental Bank is potentially merging with Columbia Bank out of Tacoma, Washington, under a merger according to a letter I received from Pacific Continental Bank dated January 9th 2017. On Columbia Bank’s website at www.columbiabank.com it shows or did show the merger as an “Acquisition of Pacific Continental Corporation” which is the parent company of Pacific Continental Bank. It also states on Pacific Continental Bank’s website under “Media Kit” that Pacific Continental Bank is the operating subsidiary of Pacific Continental Corporation.” With this recent information of a potential merger, I would like to state publicly that as a shareholder, if I personally have the chance to vote against the merger I will do so because of what they did to us as a customer of theirs.
However, since this story has nothing to do with the merger and the merger was just recently announced, it would be unethical of me to try and dissuade other shareholders of either bank from not approving the merger and it should be left up to each individual shareholder to decide for themselves whether or not they want to approve the merger regardless of whether or not they read our story. I would also like to point out that Columbia Bank has not wronged us in any way so even thoughthey are mentioned because of the potential merger with Pacific Continental Bank, they have no wrongdoing of any kind in this story and we have no issues with Columbia Bank. It’s unfortunate that I have to bring them up at all, but because of the merger I must make mention of them.
The reason I even address the merger in this preface is because the timing is so unfortunate with regard to this publication and it indirectly adds insult to injury to us, because they got away with what they did to us and then just get to change their name and move on, away from scrutiny of the public eye. The merger gives me this feeling of everything they’ve done to us being swept under the rug and moving on under another bank name and not being held accountable in the public eye. I wanted the public to understand why I personally felt it was important to bring it up. Besides the merger announcement on January 9th 2017, the second recent piece of information I have is that Pacific Continental Bank has also recently agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit where they were named as one of two banks along with an accounting firm, who were accused of contributing to a Ponzi scheme.
According to OregonLive.com which is run by The Oregonian newspaper, Pacific Continental Bank agreed to pay $4.9 million dollars as their portion of a larger settlement which appears to be somewhere between $17 million and $18 million dollars combined. Oregonlive.com stated in the article which is dated January 26th 2017 (less than three weeks after the merger announcement) that … [The tentative deal calls for Umpqua Bank to pay $11 million, Pacific Continental Bank to pay $4.9 million and Eugene accounting firm Jones & Roth to pay $1.25 million. Summit Bank has agreed to pay $90,000. Thomas Huntsberger, the Eugene trustee appointed to oversee the Berjac estate, said the banks’ financingof Berjac was “an essential component to the continuation of the Ponzi scheme.”] Again, for me the timing of this merger is so unfortunate with regards to our story so I had to address the merger.
Whether the merger has anything to do with getting the focus off the Ponzi scheme and reported settlement is anyone’s guess but I think once you read our story you will understand the position I’m taking on the merger issue, and that’s why I brought up news of the Ponzi scheme settlement as well.
Fourth, I’ve been in touch with Consumer Reports for the last year and a half regarding our story and they’ve told us they feel our story is “very compelling” and they gave me specific permission to relay that information to the public for this story. However, they said they are unable to publish our story at this time. I happen to know the reason why they can’t publish it at this point in time and they’ve stated to me that if anyone wants to speak with them about our story they would be happy to speak to you about it. If anyone wishes to contact Consumer Reports about this, please contact me, I will relay to my contact at Consumer Reports your name, company or organization and contact information and then they will contact you. If anyone wishes to contact me with regards to this story or wants me to get a hold of my contact at Consumer Reports, please feel free to do so by e-mail at: [email protected] . I will likely only respond to inquiries regarding this story for a limited time. I haven’t determined exactly how long I will respond but I am committed to at least 90 days from date of this publication.
Before we get to the story, let me just say that If you are considering filing bankruptcy in Oregon, we highly, highly recommend Matthew Casper of Olsen Daines at (541) 770-5731. (We were not paid to say this, this is how we really feel)
Legal Disclaimer:
The author herein is expressing opinions based on personal experiences; however the author does believe everything in the story to be 100% truthful and as accurate as possible; that is not to say the author believes with supposition, but believes with genuine sincerity, feeling sure of the truth. Some numbers were rounded for easier conveying of mathematical equations and some ball-park figures were used as well. The author makes no representations as to the effect of these opinions and expressly disclaims any responsibility for the interpretations of these opinions or experiences by private individuals, representatives of organizations or of companies who may read the following story.
“Our residence sits at the end of the street and coming and going, we pass by these other lots and are reminded daily of how our land was essentially taken from us without a fair shot; the homes representative of some seemingly immovable, dangling carrots placed in front of us, just out of reach.” - Jeff Blackman
Pacific Continental Bank Reviews
It has become extremely important for me to write a preface and disclaimer to our 21-page document/ consumer complaint for a few reasons, which I will list below. It will do you, the reader / consumer, a great injustice in my opinion, if you skip this section and then proceed to read the entire 21-page story. If you plan on reading the entire story, you may as well read this entire preface and disclaimer as well, because I’ve recently come across brand new information which I personally feel is urgent for me to communicate to you and I wanted to get this information out as soon as possible. That being said, I would like to comment on four brief subjects prior to the story:
First, I would like to address any (potential) judge or juror who should come across this as a result of any litigation against us for simply expressing our first amendment right. Let it be known that I have taken great strides in being cautious with how I present this story to the public and I would ask the court to recognize that I am presenting this story as if I am in your courtroom, with the utmost respect. I want it to be abundantly clear that the intent of this story is to simply tell what happened, present the truth and get it out to the public. Our intent is not retaliatory in any way but I want to relay something which has happened to us and the public has a right to know this information. Therefore, I address you foremost, your Honor and/or Jury, because I am fairly confident that the company I am writing about, which is Pacific Continental Bank, could very well file a so-called defamatory suit against us for simply telling our story and publishing it.
So, it is with great care that I divulge my intent which is to present our story and that you would consider this Preface and Disclaimer, should you come across it through your public service. We should not be fearful of consequences in putting the truth out there, even if it means being sued and this is why we are willing to be sued because we want the truth out there. Please understand that our intent is not to provoke the bank with that statement; we aren’t sending them an invitation, and in fact, we don’t want to be sued but again, the public should at least know about this story. More evidence of great care in preparing this story is the fact that I have contacted two different law firms and received paid legal advice with regard to publishing this story, once on August 23rd 2016 and also on February 23rd 2017. We would ask the court to please consider the legal advice we received in advance of publishing this story, to additionally be considered as exercise of great care upon the court’s review of our intent. As you will see in the story, we essentially have no fruit to show for our efforts –nothing tangible.
The only thing we have left to show for our time is truth itself or the intangible spirit of truth really, and we refuse the spirit of truth to be taken away from us by Pacific ContinentalBank.
The second thing I need to address is that part of this story involves an eventual bankruptcy which was discharged on March 1st 2016. I owe the reader/consumer an explanation as to why we waited a little over one year to publish this story. It is very simple but you need to know…The reason we waited a one-year minimum is because in a chapter 13 bankruptcy discharge, if fraud has been discovered or even suspected (from my understanding) within one year of discharge, a creditor can try and reverse the discharge through the courts…Now, please understand we haven’t committed any fraud, but we don’t trust that the bank wouldn’t try a retaliatory tactic to this publication and make our lives miserable by filing something with the bankruptcy court and potentially forcing us (I suppose) to fill out mountains of paperwork and/or force us to produce documents that are years old.
This would be extremely trying in addition to what we’ve already been through and we frankly don’t trust that they wouldn’t pull something like that in retaliation. We simply did not need the added stress of proving a false accusation wrong. Therefore it has just been easier to wait the one year than to have to prove any potential false accusations. We don’t know whether or not they would have retaliated in that manner, but we simply couldn’t take any risk of that whatsoever and, quite frankly, that’s how much we distrust them. This is why our story is posted after March 1st 2017.
Third, we have a couple pieces of information which we recently found out about. The first piece is that Pacific Continental Bank is potentially merging with Columbia Bank out of Tacoma, Washington, under a merger according to a letter I received from Pacific Continental Bank dated January 9th 2017. On Columbia Bank’s website at www.columbiabank.com it shows or did show the merger as an “Acquisition of Pacific Continental Corporation” which is the parent company of Pacific Continental Bank. It also states on Pacific Continental Bank’s website under “Media Kit” that Pacific Continental Bank is the operating subsidiary of Pacific Continental Corporation.” With this recent information of a potential merger, I would like to state publicly that as a shareholder, if I personally have the chance to vote against the merger I will do so because of what they did to us as a customer of theirs.
However, since this story has nothing to do with the merger and the merger was just recently announced, it would be unethical of me to try and dissuade other shareholders of either bank from not approving the merger and it should be left up to each individual shareholder to decide for themselves whether or not they want to approve the merger regardless of whether or not they read our story. I would also like to point out that Columbia Bank has not wronged us in any way so even thoughthey are mentioned because of the potential merger with Pacific Continental Bank, they have no wrongdoing of any kind in this story and we have no issues with Columbia Bank. It’s unfortunate that I have to bring them up at all, but because of the merger I must make mention of them.
The reason I even address the merger in this preface is because the timing is so unfortunate with regard to this publication and it indirectly adds insult to injury to us, because they got away with what they did to us and then just get to change their name and move on, away from scrutiny of the public eye. The merger gives me this feeling of everything they’ve done to us being swept under the rug and moving on under another bank name and not being held accountable in the public eye. I wanted the public to understand why I personally felt it was important to bring it up. Besides the merger announcement on January 9th 2017, the second recent piece of information I have is that Pacific Continental Bank has also recently agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit where they were named as one of two banks along with an accounting firm, who were accused of contributing to a Ponzi scheme.
According to OregonLive.com which is run by The Oregonian newspaper, Pacific Continental Bank agreed to pay $4.9 million dollars as their portion of a larger settlement which appears to be somewhere between $17 million and $18 million dollars combined. Oregonlive.com stated in the article which is dated January 26th 2017 (less than three weeks after the merger announcement) that … [The tentative deal calls for Umpqua Bank to pay $11 million, Pacific Continental Bank to pay $4.9 million and Eugene accounting firm Jones & Roth to pay $1.25 million. Summit Bank has agreed to pay $90,000. Thomas Huntsberger, the Eugene trustee appointed to oversee the Berjac estate, said the banks’ financingof Berjac was “an essential component to the continuation of the Ponzi scheme.”] Again, for me the timing of this merger is so unfortunate with regards to our story so I had to address the merger.
Whether the merger has anything to do with getting the focus off the Ponzi scheme and reported settlement is anyone’s guess but I think once you read our story you will understand the position I’m taking on the merger issue, and that’s why I brought up news of the Ponzi scheme settlement as well.
Fourth, I’ve been in touch with Consumer Reports for the last year and a half regarding our story and they’ve told us they feel our story is “very compelling” and they gave me specific permission to relay that information to the public for this story. However, they said they are unable to publish our story at this time. I happen to know the reason why they can’t publish it at this point in time and they’ve stated to me that if anyone wants to speak with them about our story they would be happy to speak to you about it. If anyone wishes to contact Consumer Reports about this, please contact me, I will relay to my contact at Consumer Reports your name, company or organization and contact information and then they will contact you. If anyone wishes to contact me with regards to this story or wants me to get a hold of my contact at Consumer Reports, please feel free to do so by e-mail at: [email protected] . I will likely only respond to inquiries regarding this story for a limited time. I haven’t determined exactly how long I will respond but I am committed to at least 90 days from date of this publication.
Before we get to the story, let me just say that If you are considering filing bankruptcy in Oregon, we highly, highly recommend Matthew Casper of Olsen Daines at (541) 770-5731. (We were not paid to say this, this is how we really feel)
Legal Disclaimer:
The author herein is expressing opinions based on personal experiences; however the author does believe everything in the story to be 100% truthful and as accurate as possible; that is not to say the author believes with supposition, but believes with genuine sincerity, feeling sure of the truth. Some numbers were rounded for easier conveying of mathematical equations and some ball-park figures were used as well. The author makes no representations as to the effect of these opinions and expressly disclaims any responsibility for the interpretations of these opinions or experiences by private individuals, representatives of organizations or of companies who may read the following story.
“Our residence sits at the end of the street and coming and going, we pass by these other lots and are reminded daily of how our land was essentially taken from us without a fair shot; the homes representative of some seemingly immovable, dangling carrots placed in front of us, just out of reach.” - Jeff Blackman