WHY, EVEN I COULD MAKE MONEY THAT WAY.

Blog number 370 **** 31 January 2009

This story will most probably mean more to me than to you, but it is emblematic of the human condition nevertheless. This happened back in the sixties when I was still in the Air Force on active duty instead of my present employment as a napper*

The services have a monthly meeting of personnel called, "Commander's Call" whereby the commander's units gather to hear reports, orders, gossip, whatever, and then the commander gives the floor to whomever wants to speak. A guy in my unit wanted to speak.

He told of depositing money in the on-base bank and the money didn't get into his account. He said that when he told the teller, her comment was, "Oh yes. This happens all the time."

When the man was done talking, the commander asked if there were any more comments, and when none was forthcoming, closed the meeting.

This guy started complaining to me about not being able to get anyone interested in the fact that monies deposited were not getting into the accounts and that this was "happening all the time." He complained that he thought telling the commander and the rest of the squadron about this problem might start some fixes, but nooooooo.

A few years later I'm reading about a scam whereby criminals were rerouting other people's deposits into their own accounts. What was happening was that banks used to have deposit slips lying on the counters and a depositor had to fill out one of the slips with his name and account number and give it to the teller along with the deposit. Then along came deposit slips with a bar code so all the depositor had to do was put in the amount and that amount would go into the account of the bar code.

The blank deposit slips were still stacked on the counters, and many people still used them, so all the criminal had to do was to place deposit slips with HIS bar code info on them on top of the stack of universal deposit slips and when a person filled out one of the slips, that money would go into the criminal's account. Neat, huh?

*One who takes naps.