A 74-year-old San Diego woman received\u00a0$1,848 that had been left in her late son’s Varo Bank account after months of trying to access the money.<\/p>\n
In\u00e9s had turned to NBC 7 Responds for help in April after struggling to complete the process required to claim the funds. After NBC 7 Responds contacted Varo Bank and In\u00e9s submitted a missing notarized small estate affidavit, she received a check a few weeks later.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks to Telemundo for helping me resolve the case involving the money my son had left in the bank. I am very grateful,” In\u00e9s said.<\/p>\n
In\u00e9s’ son, Renme, died of a heart attack in September 2022. She remembered him as someone who was always looking out for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he got paid, he would take me to restaurants and invite me to eat,” she said. \u201cWe were always together.\u201d<\/p>\n
In\u00e9s said losing her son was devastating and very difficult. <\/p>\n
Amid her grief, In\u00e9s learned that her son had nearly $1,900 in a Varo Bank account and she asked how she could claim the money. <\/p>\n
The bank asked her to provide a number of documents. In\u00e9s said she felt overwhelmed by the requirements and initially did not move forward with the process.<\/p>\n
In January, In\u00e9s received a letter from Varo Bank stating that the inactive account had a balance of $1,848. The letter warned that the funds could be transferred to the state administrator of unclaimed property if Varo did not receive a response by Feb. 27.<\/p>\n
Her caregiver, Cecilia, encouraged her to keep trying.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe had become discouraged. She wanted to give up on everything, but I told her, we have to keep fighting. It\u2019s something that belongs to her as his mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Cecilia’s help, In\u00e9s said she sent the documents Varo Bank had requested, but the matter remained unresolved.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought about calling Telemundo to help me,” she said.<\/p>\n
In\u00e9s contacted NBC 7 Responds in April, who then asked Varo Bank what was preventing the claim from being completed.<\/p>\n
After reviewing In\u00e9s’ case, the bank said a notarized small estate affidavit was missing. In\u00e9s said she did not know what the document was. NBC 7 Responds explained that it’s a document signed by the heir or representative of a deceased person and certified by a notary.<\/p>\n
In\u00e9s submitted the missing document and received her check a few weeks later.<\/p>\n
Varo Bank told NBC 7 Responds: \u201cVaro Bank is dedicated to high customer service standards as a first all-digital, nationally chartered consumer bank in the U.S. Once all documentation required under regulatory guidelines was submitted and verified, Varo completed its review and successfully resolved the matter by issuing a check directly to the beneficiary.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In\u00e9s’ experience highlights the importance of organizing financial documents and planning for what will happen to bank accounts and other assets after death.<\/p>\n
Experts recommend organizing financial documents in advance. A will is important, but it is not necessarily the document that, on its own, allows someone to directly access a bank account.<\/p>\n
A lawyer recommended naming beneficiaries when opening an account, or opening a trust.<\/p>\n
A trust can help organize assets and establish instructions for how they should be managed after death or if a person loses the capacity to make decisions.<\/p>\n
Taking these precautions in advance can help spare loved ones from a long and complicated process later.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 74-year-old San Diego woman received\u00a0$1,848 that had been left in her late son’s Varo Bank account after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7948,16098,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-457867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-consumer","tag-nbc-7-responds","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}