Thursday, February 23, 2006
Yet another reason for internal controls.
Beth A. VanOsdol was the loan review administrator and credit compliance officer at MarkleBank in Markle, Ind. She currently faces felony fraud charges for $94,000 in loans made between 2001 and 2001. She had loans at the bank and used vehicles as collateral, a 1999 BMW, a 2002 LandRover and a 1997 Honda. The bank never had the documents to perfect their liens and some loans had the collateral lined out.
An internal discovery of the problem lead to VanOsdol's firing last year. AN outside firm has reviewed the loans and discovered no other losses. And the bank has changed their procedures on internal controls to better prevent a recurrence and to discover any similar problems faster.
VanOsdol is currently on a $20,000 bond and faces between two and eight years in prison.
Banks, especially smaller banks, need to ensure controls are in place to prevent such losses and to detect them before this type of time passes. Sometimes, a reminder such as this can cause us to realize that it can happen to us, even when trusted employees are in place. Even the checkers, need checkers.
Beth A. VanOsdol was the loan review administrator and credit compliance officer at MarkleBank in Markle, Ind. She currently faces felony fraud charges for $94,000 in loans made between 2001 and 2001. She had loans at the bank and used vehicles as collateral, a 1999 BMW, a 2002 LandRover and a 1997 Honda. The bank never had the documents to perfect their liens and some loans had the collateral lined out.
An internal discovery of the problem lead to VanOsdol's firing last year. AN outside firm has reviewed the loans and discovered no other losses. And the bank has changed their procedures on internal controls to better prevent a recurrence and to discover any similar problems faster.
VanOsdol is currently on a $20,000 bond and faces between two and eight years in prison.
Banks, especially smaller banks, need to ensure controls are in place to prevent such losses and to detect them before this type of time passes. Sometimes, a reminder such as this can cause us to realize that it can happen to us, even when trusted employees are in place. Even the checkers, need checkers.
