attempts to retrieve missing shares

today i made a trip to cpf building at jurong east to find out what happened to one lot of share which i had bought with my cpf money in the 90s. since i started getting statements from ocbc, this share has never been reflected. i had gone to ocbc to check and it was they who advised me to check with cpf.

had to wait for nearly two hours before i got the chance to talk to one of the officers. she was very pleasant and she tried to trace the lost lot. she checked the record and told me that as from 2004, there was no record of it and i was told to check once more with ocbc. this time she gave me the account number.

a few days later, armed with this information, i went down to the ocbc bank at upper bukit timah to seek assistance. the bank officer asked if i had sold the shares. she then explained to me that since this record went back some many years, it would take them a bit longer to retrieve the information. i was asked for my contact number and she said she would contact me the moment she got the result of the search.

on the same day, just before 5 p.m., she called to let me know that i had been given a cash rebate of $1500 for those shares and that the amount had been credited to my cpf in 2001.

i wondered how they could have done that without consulting me. then it dawned on me. when i moved to bukit panjang, i had not updated my change of address with ocbc. letters regarding this matter must have been sent to my old address and because i did not respond (because i never got to see the letters), they must have gone ahead with the payment.

at least, now i feel a sense of relief as i know that my shares were not stolen or sold without my knowledge.