Work Excitement

I'm new to my banker position and get to sit at my own desk. A young man came into the bank today, sat down in front of me, and told me he wanted to open an account. He had tried to do it online but the system couldn't verify his ID so he was told he had to come into the branch. I told him I was happy to help him, asked for the ID, and started to look him up. He presented me with a check he wanted to deposit, and I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. The check was clearly a fake. It was printed on paper with perforation to make three separate parts but was printed across the perforations. When I asked him where he got it, he said a friend had given it to him and he wanted to use it as the opening deposit. 

Tyler happened to walk behind my desk as I was looking at the check and I asked him to look at it. He and I exchanged a look, and he went back to his office to call the police. Anytime someone is trying to defraud the bank, that's considered a crime and we are supposed to call the police. Tyler sent me a message on Teams and told me to keep him there as long as possible. I messaged back and told him to tell the police to hurry. 

I chatted with the client, a young man with a box of perforated check paper sticking out of the pocket of the backpack he was carrying.  I made copies of his ID, talked about benefits of the account he was opening, made up all sorts of ridiculous bank procedures I needed to do as part of the account opening, and generally dawdled at my desk waiting for the police to show up.

After probably ten minutes of my nonsense, the police arrived. His back was to them, but as they came up towards him, he turned his head and jumped up out of the chair. They had him sit back down, I stepped away, and they talked to him. Eventually they handcuffed him and took him outside. They were in the parking lot for several minutes before putting him in a squad car and driving away. The whole experience was very nerve wracking! 

We heard later that he was not charged with anything, mostly because it was small beans. Because I identified a fraudulent check (not difficult!), I later got $100 for protecting the bank from being defrauded. Small beans for me, too, but I was pleased to have done my part.