1 /5 Pat Beeman: Our family had an extremely negative experience with Solutions Federal Credit Union at our most vulnerable time; when we were dealing with the passing of my mother. On the day after her passing, without any official paperwork or notification, their first action was to completely empty her account to pay themselves back on a line of credit she had taken out with them. This was an issue due to the fact that a few days prior to her death, we had written a check to the funeral home for final expenses, which had yet to be cashed.
That same day, we met with the bank president, Tom Wood, and were bluntly informed that the bank was well within their rights to ensure they were paid back and to keep my mother’s account balance, and if needed, "we could let our lawyers settle it."
This was done, even though they would have been paid just like all other creditors upon the settling of her estate.
I would like to restate, the bank had not received any type of formal notice that my mother had died, just a word of mouth notification that they did not verify prior to emptying her account.
My mother and others in our family have banked with Solutions for many years. I believe it would have been common courtesy for them to not immediately empty my mother’s account, or at the very least, they could have notified us they planned to do so.
Instead we found out that a check we’d written for funeral expenses could not be processed while we were at the funeral home finalizing her arrangements.
To add insult to injury, one week after my mothers death and one day after her funeral, we received a letter from Solutions offering us an interim loan "at a very low rate of 4% to allow the funds needed for the funeral." (see attached photo)
I fully understand the “business” side of things, however I feel that Solutions needs to better understand the humanity of the situation we were in and show some empathy. They failed our family in this respect, and we have moved our accounts elsewhere.
-Robert "Pat" Beeman
