Like for instance the teller mistakenly hands you back a one hundred in all those ones or just doesn’t count correctly? I know each teller keeps a personal ledger that is suppose to balance out at the end of the day. But what if it doesn’t, is that employee fired? Is it taken out of their salaries? What about in huge banks were multiple mistakes are possible. Are the mistakes just chalked up and written off or what?
One of the few to be personally welcomed to this board by Ed Zotti.
You’ve got multiple checks to fix mistakes- adding machine tape, the computer system, drawer requirements (can’t go above/below certain amounts) and of course surveillence cameras. With all of these you can normally pin-point when the mistake was made and often with who. The manager then can call the customer “Excuse me, but our teller was off by $100 today, and we think it was during your transaction…” Now, most people are honest, so they fess-up and return the cash, and some try and see if they can get away with it, but as soon as the bank calls and says “camera” they check their wallets one more time, and guess what? The money IS there…sorry! If all is said and done and the money is lost, then the bank covers it up to a certain limit ($100?) and above that it becomes an ‘issue’ to be dealt with with your manager. If you are a star employee, nothing happens, if you have done this 5 times before, you can get reprimanded or fired. I was taken for $900-something in a scam years ago (that was when I learned that cashiers-checks are NOT the same as cash…cash = cash = cash = cash, nothing else equals cash but cash…) and nothing happened to me because I was a good employee, even though it was 100% my fault. I got taken, hook, line and sinker. But while working as a teller, I was shocked at the amount of honest people (maybe I’m a little cynical). Often people would drive back and return money, or if they were shorted, would laugh it off and just say “hard day, eh?” without yelling or anything. Human error happens ALL the time in banking…that is why you see so many automatic-teller machines and phone-teller options these days…to get the human factor out of the equation.
I have so many thoughts going through my head that sometimes it’s hard to finish a
By law in New York State, an employer is prohibited from docking an employee’s wages to recover cash shortages from a drawer the employee is responsible for. The employer’s options are, depending on the amount short:
(i) eat the loss;
(ii) eat the loss and discipline or terminate the employee for poor performance; or
(iii) eat the loss and refer the matter to the local prosecutor for criminal charges against the employee (i.e. where the loss is due to deliberate malfeasance by the employee).
The same rule generally applies to employers making deductions from employee’s wages for broken or damaged equipment.
Other states may not be so charitable, though. However, if the employer deducts too much, it might run afoul of minimum wage laws, which will get it in a whole different kind of trouble.
If the employees’ ledger (actually, their drawer) doesn’t balance, yes, that employee is usually fired. But the employees know this, as well as that it is impossible to steal and not be discovered. (The drawers are balanced sometimes several times a day.) This makes them VERY careful.
Big banks are no different. There are more clerks, but there are also more supervisory people.
I reconcile large bank accounts for the hotel group i work for, with several hotels deposting large amounts of money on a daily basis. There normally are at least 2 or 3 human error entries on the statement. Either on the part of the hotel or the bank. They usually just debit or credit the account, whichever it may be, and attach a handwritten form with a brief description. On my end, if it is a bank error, the account is usually both debited and credited, to correct whatever error was made.(If not, I call to bitch, then the FUN begins! j/k kinda) If it was a hotel error, I deal with the GM or controller and do an adjusting entry in our system.
Alcohol and calculus don’t mix. Never drink and derive.
In this regard, IMHO, banking ain’t different from any other retail or service organization that deals with cash transactions. Clerks can make mistakes. Generally, it’s easy to catch errors, since everything has to balance in the end.
Most reasonable employers would overlook a few honest errors; they happen. If an employee makes mistakes consistently, the employer probably has some standard or performance measurement, and the consequences can be anywhere from reprimand, required training, dismissal, or job-switch.
Obviously, if the employer finds that the employee is engaged in deliberate fraud or theft for his/her own gain, that’s different than honest error, and is usually dealt with pretty harshly.
Example: At O’Hare Airport, the parking attendants collect the parking fees as you leave. In the olden days, if you didn’t ask for a receipt, the attendant could pocket your money, destroy your ticket, and no one would be any the wiser. The books would still “balance” because your transaction just wouldn’t show up. Nowadays, there’s a computer that reads off the ticket and shows the amount due on a screen, so it’s registered in the system, whether you ask for a receipt or not.
People can be very clever at setting up ways to steal from their employer. Banks, dealing with larger sums of money than most other cash transactions, have to be particularly wary.
I worked for awhile at various Indian Casinos in Minnesota, and their policies regarding variances varied from casino to casino (even between the two I worked at which were owned by the same band).
At the first casino I worked at, all shortages over $5 were taken out of your check. Natch, I would’ve worked at this one first, when I was making all the rookie errors. For variances over a certain dollar amount (for some reason, the numbers $50 and $100 are striking a tone with me) they would call the surveillance department and have them investigate the error. There was basically no punative action (with the exception of HUGE amounts) at this casino for variances, as the casino always got their money.
The second casino at which I worked had a somewhat more liberal policy, and they covered anything up to $100… Although it would eventually end up in ** disciplinary action ** ™
The third casino at which I worked never took money out of your check, but if you had a certain number of variances over a certain amount of money (again, the numbers aren’t coming to me… I’ve spent a significant amount of time putting my time at casinos BEHIND me) you’d get disciplined.
The most amazing thing I learned while working at casinos is the amount of effort that goes into the securing of the casino funds. All the money is behind a mantrap, which the surveillance team can lock, should they need to. Every transaction is captured on tape, and at some casinos, all money leaving to be paid on a jackpot, etc. has to be verified by surveillance.
Since I’m sure it’s what you’re wondering, no, we didn’t get to keep any money that our drawers were over. That was a constant bone of contention at my first job where we could regularly be docked for $100. Actually, there were a few people I knew who were fired for throwing their overages into the tip jar.
I once had a very strange thing happen at a Bank of America here in San Diego. I was making a rather large deposit and withdrawl at the same time, and the teller was scribbling on a note pad and doing the math by hand, which I thought was very suspicious. Sure enough, when I got my receipt, she wrote down the deposit amount wrong! I went back and complained and she apologized and gave me a new computer receipt that showed the correct amount. But I couldn’t believe that the teller was even allowed to do that. What, the bank can’t afford to give her a calculator?
Another question I have on the subject of banking is travelers check charges. For my honeymoon, I wanted to get $2000 in traveler’s checks, and having never gotten them before, I had no idea they charge you for them. At 2% they wanted $40! I remembered that the Automobile club (AAA)gave free travelers checks and when I told the bank to blow it out their ass and just give me the $2000 and I’d go to AAA and take care of it myself, “suddenly” they said there would be no charge for them! I imagine that this was supposed to make me happy, but it just pissed me off, because clearly the bank can “comp” you some or all of these bullshit fees, and this was done by the teller (who I assume has zero power). So to anyone who works in a bank, what “comp” powers DO you have? Can I get free money orders and cashier’s checks by complaining too?
When I withdrawal money from my credit union account, the teller counts the money three times:
once when she takes it out of the drawer
once more on the desk and using a hand calculator.
a third time when she counts it out to me
Once when I was still in San Antonio, I made a mistake on a deposit slip. I transposed digits writing down the number, but spelled the amount out correctly. Three or four days later, I got a letter from the bank with a copy of my deposit slip that spelled out exactly what had happened and what they’d done. I felt awful because I knew some poor schmoe had gotten stuck late one night trying his or her darndest to make the books balance, and they must have gone through every deposit that day to find my little mistake.
I know an accountant who worked at a hotel who spent 4 hours trying to find out why his books missed 34 cents…
One time recently, I forgot to sign the back of my check & the clerk ran three blocks trying to catch me to bring me back to sign it. I don’t know why she did that since she could have just called me instead.
I was doing multiple transactions at the bank, including deposits with cash back to four different accounts. There was a long line behind me so I stepped aside before checking all the paperwork. The teller had forgotten to give me $300 cash back in one of the middle transactions. I immediately called it to his attention. The shift manager opened another window to handle the waiting customers, another bank manager type and the teller then counted his cash drawer (took about 20 minutes), confirmed that he did indeed have $300 extra, and they gave me my money. I was very relieved and always check before stepping aside now! I don’t know what, if anything, happened to the teller. I think it was an innocent mistake.
Inconceivable? I don’t think that word means what you think it does.
As with any business that employs humans, mistakes will happen. There are as many different ways of dealing with outages as there are banks. I have worked at one where the teller had to balance to the penny, or show an outage on their record. I worked for another where anything + or - $5 was just made up from a “kitty”. Generally, regardless of the tolerances of individual banks, tellers are given the bank’s teller outage policy prior to running a window. Those policies are usually very specific, naming the number of times and/or dollar amount a teller can be out of balance during a particular time frame - usually monthly. Exceed the guidelines and you risk your job.
As losses go, human error at the teller window is the least of a bank’s worries. The real losses occur on checks, drafts, and wire transfers - both through human error and fraud.
Yarster asks:
Like any business, banks can and do “comp” fees. This can be based on any number of reasons. Yell if it makes you feel better, but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t work very well. BTW, your “free” travelers checks at AAA are covered by your annual membership. The travelers check company charges a fee to the merchant/bank, why do you expect the merchant won’t pass that fee along to you - plus a profit. That is what businesses do, ya know. Most banks do, however, offer one or more account types that include “free” travelers checks, checks, money orders, etc. They are usually flat fee accounts or require a hefty minimum deposit, but check into it at your bank.
Handy admits:
Congratulations, you committed a felony.
After all, what is your hosts’ purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they’d have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi. – P. J. O’Rourke
Thanks Doctor Jackson,
I guess I am an idiot. I hadn’t thought of the fact the AAA fee covers that charge. After all, I sign up every year for fear my car (which is American — need I say more?) will break down and I’ll need a tow. Yet, this was the first time in my life I ever went to get traveler’s checks.
I’ve been a bank teller for almost three years now and i believe the answer you seek is quite easy… don’t make any damn mistakes. The bank will cover any errors under the amount of $4.99 and anything over that pretty much brands you an idiot and means your not getting a raise. That’s about it.
But when you get the cahnce you are the dancing queen…
-ABBA
