BANKING & FINANCE - Dec. 28, 1994

Customers Allege Fraud at Great Western: About 50 senior citizens said securities brokers at bank branches deceived them into investing their savings in risky, uninsured mutual funds. Attorney Michael Linfield said he organized a forum in West Hollywood to try to gauge the extent of the problem and determine if he should file a class-action or a multiple-plaintiff lawsuit. Linfield filed suit against the bank last month on behalf of a Santa Monica widow. Ian Campbell, a spokesman for Great Western Bank, said, “We’re very angry at these charges because we think they distort our records and our performance and distort it wildly.”