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While unemployed in the summer of 2002, I sent my resume to Jewell Hobbs, a realtor looking for an office manager. She called, interested, but as I do not have a car, the first thing I asked her was where her office was.Learning that it was twelve miles from my home and not on a bus line, I thanked her for her interest and told her that I must decline for logistical reasons. She persisted and said she wanted to meet me, and we met at a downtown restaurant for tea. She then drove us to her office, where I put her computer through a few hoops, and she suggested that she had a spare vehicle that could become a company car for me.
To obtain a North Carolina driver's license in Nortth Carolina, one must possess valid auto insurance even if one has no car. As said insurance cost approximately $400 per year, I have no driver's license. The obstacles to having one are 1) No car in which to take the test, 2) No current knowledge of driving regulations, 3) no practice driving in a dozen years, and 4) no $400. She promised to provide the car and the $400, and we stopped by a Division of Motor Vehicles office on my first day of work with her to pick up the regulations manual for my study. We then stopped by First Family Mortgage, which, in return for a lot of business from realtor Hobbs, was glad to provide her with some amenities including payroll processing and office supplies. In order to make my payroll processing possible, I was told that I must fill out First Family Mortgage employment forms, and so I did so. Ms. Hobbs and I then turned my completed forms and her personal check covering my first week's salary to Gilbert Thompson, chief of that office, and went to Ms. Hobbs' office, where I worked on her real estate and personal matters for the rest of the day.
The next morning, at a meeting of several dozen ReMax Coastal Properties agents and staffers, ReMax office head Harold Chappell introduced me from the podium as Ms. Hobbs' new office manager at ReMax. Work continued, with Ms. Hobbs picking me up at home in the morning and dictating real estate tasks to me on the way to ReMax. The transmission failed in her primary vehicle that day, leaving her reliant on the old Volvo she'd planned to let me use as a company vehicle and effectively torpedoing our initial plans. I figured that we'd get back on track as soon as her Acura was out of the shop and went on about my tasks as her ReMax office manager.
Little did I know that she was going to try to weasel a new car out of Stevenson Acura in return for the car that had failed, which was 40,000 miles past the dealer's 50,000 mile transmission warranty and was thus ineligible for any such arrangement. She had me spend a huge part of each day trying to help her with this project, at one point having me impersonate an attorney in a conversation with Stevenson Acura dealership manager Pat Koballa ... hey, I needed a job. Her strategy for replacing her primary vehicle and making the Volvo available for my use did not work. I studied the driving manual and somehow coerced a friend into letting me drive her car a couple of times to prepare for the driving test, but neither the promised vehicle nor the $400 insurance fee was ever forthcoming from Ms. Hobbs, though she was prompt about writing a check to First Family Mortgage each week to cover my payroll.
After a month in her employ, making it to and from work every day on time with decreasing assistance from her, she told me that she'd decided she needed an office manager with a real estate license and needed to replace me for that reason. I was sorry to get that news, of course, but it made sense, and I had no qualms about spending a couple of days in the ReMax office training my replacement, Betty Dunlap, before finding myself unemployed again. I was, therefore, surprised and dismayed to receive a letter from the Employment Security Commission telling me that I'd been let go from a loan processor position with First Family Mortgage because of a lack of transportation and that my unemployment compensation was in danger. Because that firm could home office had no record of me being a First Family Mortgage employee and because Employment Security ruled that a lack of transportation did not constitute "gross negligence leading to dismissal" on my part, I was able to continue receiving the unemployment compensation I'd earned during several years with the employer who'd preceded Ms. Hobbs.
Well, I'll be a ringtailed sonofabitch if those assholes didn't appeal ESC's decision, lying in partnership with Ms. Hobbs and claiming, after they finally got their story together, that I had worked for her, but that she was a First Family Mortgage employee and that I'd reported to work at their office rather than at ReMax each day and worked on mortgage issuances. They did so to protect Ms. Hobbs, who, as stated earlier, provided them with a lot of mortgage business, and to hell with honesty, decency, the minimal food and shelter unemployment compensation brought me, or anything to do with "Family" any goddam thing, and because they were now worried that their payroll processing for me might make them liable for my unemployment.
Call Betty Dunlap. Go to www.jewellhobbs.com and see if she's a realtor or a mortgage loan processor. Call Harold Chappell or any of the realtors or staffers at ReMax Coastal Properties. Call Pat Koballa at Stevenson Acura. Call Jeff Porter, Scott Boyles or J.C. Hearne, real estate attorneys with whom I interacted on Ms. Hobbs' behalf. I worked for Jewell Hobbs in her capacity as a ReMax Coastal Properties realtor and the only time I sat at a Family First Mortgage desk was when I filled out their employment forms so that they could process my payroll, which processing constituted my only business interaction with them. As they continued to protest, appeal and lie, this matter was a source of stress to me for several months before a final ESC ruling stated once again that lack of transportation did not constitute gross negligence and, thus, did not deny my right to unemployment compensation.
What utterly reprehensible, low characters Jewell Hobbs and Gilbert Thompson are. There are plenty of realtors and lenders out there, and here's one person telling you that these two are not to be trusted.