PORTLAND, Ore. — When Jeanne Tindall went to the bank last October with $2,500 in pandemic relief funds on behalf of a man with a disability who she helps cares for, she envisioned him someday using the money to pay for future care, or maybe for therapeutic horseback rides.

Tindall has been legal guardian to the Oregon man, named Stephen, since the late 1980s. He is 46 and lives in a group foster home near Portland because he has a cognitive disability and cannot care for himself. So Tindall helps, managing his finances and make sure he’s getting what he needs.

The aid money could be helpful down the road, so Tindall took it to her local Chase Bank branch in Albany and put it into a guardianship account on Stephen’s behalf.

In November, Tindall went back to the bank to shift the money into an ABLE account, a special category of savings designed to enable people with disabilities to set aside money without reducing their eligibility for government aid programs.

Chase refused to move the money, though, notifying Tindall that Stephen’s account had “insufficient funds.”

So Tindall spent three months seeking to pry the money back from Chase. She says the bank refused to hand it over, providing a variety or explanations ranging from fraud concerns to questions about who was authorized to access the account.

Recently, Chase relented and restored Tindall’s access to Stephen’s account. The bank’s reversal came one day after The Oregonian/OregonLive inquired about the situation.

In a statement, Chase said it couldn’t restore Tindall’s access to the money without additional documentation about her guardianship. But Tindall said she provided all that information when she opened the account.

To Tindall, the three-month struggle for access to the funds points to how difficult it is to resolve problems with large corporations — especially for people with disabilities, and for their advocates.

“They’ve put me in a mama-bear mode,” Tindall said. “All I did was try to open a bank account. I’m not a fraudulent criminal element. I’m just a guardian, serving the needs of her person.”

Tindall and Stephen have been connected since the 1988, when he was 13. Tindall, 66, said she was his foster parent for 27 years, and remained his legal guardian after he moved to a group foster home. Tindall asked that Stephen’s last name and city of residence not be published to protect his privacy.

Stephen thinks and acts much like a young child, according to Tindall. But while he cannot look after himself, she said Stephen is able to enjoy many activities and perform tasks, like helping her locate a misplaced phone.

“He’s a pretty happy person, and I always found him easy to take care of,” Tindall said.

The $2,500 she sought to deposit on his behalf came from Stephen’s share of COVID-19 relief funds paid to every American during the pandemic. By placing the money in an ABLE account, Tindall anticipated the funds would be available to pay for outings or medical equipment or treatments he might need in the future.

In November, though, when she sought to shift Stephen’s money to the ABLE account, she said Chase refused to allow it. The bank said the account lacked funds and then claimed Tindall’s documentation was insufficient. She said she believed the bank had everything it needed when she initially opened the account, but said she resubmitted the information anyway — to no avail.

At times, Tindall said she would spend well over two hours on hold trying to get answers from Chase. Once, when she went to check Stephen’s account online, it listed a negative balance totaling $1 billion. Tindall took a screenshot to document that absurdity.

Personnel at her branch in Albany were sympathetic, according to Tindall, but said the issue would ultimately have to be resolved by Chase’s corporate offices.

Emily Cooper, legal director for Disability Rights Oregon, said problems like the one Tindall encountered with Stephen’s ABLE account aren’t uncommon. She said financial institutions sometimes create “attitudinal barriers” because of their flawed preconceptions of people with disabilities.

“These institutions may put things in place to ‘protect the person with the disability’ but what that does is often make negative assumptions about their capabilities or who they choose to have in their lives,” Cooper said.

While it’s important to protect people with disabilities against exploitation, Cooper said it’s also important to distinguish between measures that help and those that just create obstacles. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires public institutions provide “equal access” to people with disabilities, and that includes that ability to establish bank accounts.

“It shouldn’t rely on you having a guardian who has three hours to spend on the phone to set one up,” Cooper said.

When people encounter problems with banks or other large organizations, Cooper said documenting the issue is a good first step.

“If you feel like your rights are being violated, put it in a letter,” she advises. Cite the Americans with Disabilities Act and ask the institution to provide a legal rationale for its actions.

“If they don’t provide that basis, then there’s only room for doubt,” Cooper said.

As the months ticked away for Tindall, she said she feared that leaving Stephen’s money in limbo might compromise his eligibility for Supplemental Security Income, monthly federal payments for those with disabilities. Money saved in ABLE accounts doesn’t count against the asset limits that govern aid eligibility.

So Tindall sought help from various advocacy organizations for people with disabilities and the federal Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. On Feb. 16, Tindall said, Chase told her its “back office” now had the documentation it needed. But it still wouldn’t release the money.

That finally changed Feb. 25, the day after The Oregonian/OregonLive wrote to Chase seeking an explanation for the issues. Tindall said she received a call from Chase’s executive offices notifying her it had unlocked the account.

“Once we received the missing documentation from the customer, we acted swiftly and removed the account hold. The issue has been resolved,” Chase spokesperson Darcy Donahoe-Wilmot said in a statement.

Chase didn’t respond to questions about what documentation, specifically, it sought, or why it allowed Tindall to open the guardianship account for Stephen if it considered her guardianship documentation to be insufficient.

Tindall doesn’t think the bank’s explanation adds up. She said she hadn’t provided any more documentation than what she provided when she first opened the account, including the court order establishing her guardianship for Stephen.

“They proceeded as though I had no power or position, or worse, that I was fraudulently posing as if I did,” Tindall said. “For me and many people, that one piece of paper … is the one bit of power and control available to protect the person we care about — and we are talking about some of the most vulnerable people in our society.”

And if documenting her guardianship was an issue, Tindall said she cannot understand why Chase would have allowed her to open the account in the first place.

“Everything they asked for was just printed right there on the original document I gave them, way back in October,” Tindall said.

While Tindall said she’s relieved that the bank is no longer blocking access to the money, she said the issue points to larger problems when it comes to managing money for people with disabilities and dealing with large corporations on their behalf. In an email, she wrote that she is offended that Chase blamed her for the issues with Stephen’s account.

“If corporations like Chase can pressure and mistreat guardians (and by default, the wards) and then turn around and say it was the guardian’s fault for not giving them, ‘the paperwork they needed,’ then the bully wins,” Tindall said.

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