January 2021 by Mary Millikin
First Community Bank made errors in naming the beneficiaries of a large CD in my mother’s trust in 2016 and again in 2018. In 2016 the bank left off the name of one sibling, and Mom was successful in getting the bank to correct this error. However, two siblings were left off in 2018 when the CD again matured, and Mom was unsuccessful in getting the bank to correct its error.We lost Mom in 2020. The bank did not correct it latest error. The incompetence of the bank’s employees necessitated that the funds from this CD be interpleaded in McDonald County Probate Court to correct the bank’s multiple and repetitive acts of gross negligence. In spite of this, rather than rightly accepting responsibility, a bank attorney, Laura Brissey, had the temerity to request from the court that the injured parties bear the cost of rectifying the bank’s ineptitude. The court granted this.The award of attorney’s fees that Laura Brissey strategically requested from the court (and was granted) was $750, which is less that the costs of appeal. (Laura had suggested to me over the phone that rather than the bank making multiple errors, my mother may have intended to leave off various names of her children as beneficiaries.)I find the bank employees to have behaved incompetently, and the bank’s general counsel clearly lacks integrity—and possibly work ethic. I caution any of my fellow citizens against trusting their money with this bank.
