I guess you shouldn't mess with 80 year olds

They damn well won't put up with any shit:

PORT ORCHARD, Wash. -- Bette Miller may move slowly, but at 80 years old her mind is still sharp as ever.

And when it comes to getting her money, this sweet, soft-spoken woman is not about to back down.

"A $5,000 bond, you don't throw over your shoulder and forget about it," Miller said. "They seem to think they've got the upper hand, and I've got a story that beats theirs all to heck."

Bette's story starts back in 1984, when she and her husband Laurence purchased a $5,000 bond from Rainier National Bank.

They put the bond in a safe deposit box, where it stayed until 2005 when Bette moved out of her home and into an assisted living center in Port Orchard.

Rainier Bank is long gone -- sold to Security Pacific Bank in 1987, which was purchased by Bank of America in 1992.

Two years ago, Bette and her son Greg took the bond to a Bank of America branch, but the bank refused to cash it.

"I'm pretty hot about them trying to take advantage of my Mom; trying to rip her off," Greg Miller said.

Greg and his sister, Pam, have been fighting the bank ever since.
[snip]
Bette says she never cashed the bond, and never received a notice from the bank saying it had been turned over to unclaimed funds.

Bank of America spokeswoman Colleen Haggerty said the bank can't say exactly what happened to Bette's money because the bank's records only go back seven years.

"This situation may serve as a reminder to your viewers to keep close track of all their investments, especially older accounts," Haggerty said in a written statement.

Bette, however, is not giving up. Her lawyer has prepared a lawsuit, so a jury may get to decide this one.

"I'm not going away," Bette said. "I want my money."

And here:

An attempted home invasion in Sterling Heights, Mich., went awry when an 80-year-old homeowner decided to take action against intruders.

The unidentified homeowner said she had been heading to her front door this week when she heard someone crawling through her kitchen window, Detroit's WDIV-TV reported Wednesday.

"His foot was in my sink. He knocked all my little figurines off my window sill," the woman. "I picked up that foot and I shoved the whole body out of the window. He fell right out of my window."

The would-be robber and an accomplice immediately fled, but the alert senior citizen had already called 911 -- and police arrested two suspects, who have since been linked to a series of burglaries in the area, the TV station reported.

Go Grandmas!

Update 9/28: Go Grandpas, too! Bank of America's screw the elderly policy isn't working out too well:

77-year old Peter Gossels won his 8-year lawsuit against Bank Of America for $10,000 in undisclosed fees the bank assessed when he deposited a large check drawn on a German bank. The elderly lawyer argued that the bank failed to disclose the exchange rate when he conducted the transaction. He might not have won had the bank not accidentally stapled to a deposition a "secret rate sheet" that was handed out to tellers daily and told not to show to customers.

The case cost Gossels well over the disputed value, but he said, "This is the only way banks will learn not to cheat its customers."