Noz Posted October 31, 2015 Posted October 31, 2015 How in the wide world of sports can a bank teller manage to embezzle almost $140,000 over a period of a few years without getting caught? With all of the computers and electronics working to keep a balance, it took a team of examiners to finally bring her down. She was only caught when she lifted $6000 from a customer account. All of the other was discovered after this. How is this possible?
Sedalia Dave Posted October 31, 2015 Posted October 31, 2015 Just theorizing Many businesses use the night drop for deposits. The bags are collected the next day and a teller counts the cash, enters the value, them counts the checks and enters them. Say for every large deposit she skimmed $100 off the cash end. Odds are the business owner wouldn't notice a several thousand dollar deposit being off by $100.00. If the teller did the on an infrequent basis then it would most likely go unnoticed or the business may assume they made the error. Same for people with several thousands of dollars in an account that has a lot of transaction activity. If the skimming is kept small and spread over a lot of accounts it may go unnoticed. Sounds like she got greedy and like all crooks greed is usually their downfall.
BONEYARD BILL, SASS #39,030 Posted October 31, 2015 Posted October 31, 2015 I worked in retail banking for 33 years. The ONLY way that can happen is POOR MANAGEMENT. A strong Internal Audit program catches that stuff easily!!! A strong External Audit program catches that easily!! If management just "assumes" that their employees - can't/won't steal from them - that is just stupid. As Ronald Reagan said "trust - but verify"
Tex Jones, SASS 2263 Posted October 31, 2015 Posted October 31, 2015 Banks always have unreconciled accounts over every statement date. Usually, banks require that personnel with access to customer accounts take two consecutive weeks of vacation each year. That allows the system to catch any unreconciled accounts, usually. Other times it's moving money into and out of low activity or dormant accounts. If the monthly statement sent by a bank is not reviewed by the account holder, this type of activity can go on for quite a while. Systems only reflect information whatever is entered into them. Simply put, if a withdrawal is entered into an account, the system can't tell who did it. Amounts embezzled have been much higher than $140,000. Some activities are only discovered when the employee/s involved leave/s the bank, or retire. In some cases the amounts have been so large that the bank settles with the employee (they make restitution, no jail time) so that the negative publicity us avoided
The Original Lumpy Gritz Posted October 31, 2015 Posted October 31, 2015 AND I'll bet you there was more than the one teller in on it. OLG
Loophole LaRue, SASS #51438 Posted October 31, 2015 Posted October 31, 2015 Local law firm lost nearly $2MM to a bookkeeper over about 5 years. She set up phony vendor accounts, and then wrote them checks for phony invoices for goods and services. Nobody had a clue until a partner decided to leave, prompting an audit. It's so easy to do if you work with trusting people, and you are willing to take advantage of that trust. LL
Abilene Slim SASS 81783 Posted October 31, 2015 Posted October 31, 2015 I used to have a bank for a client (marketing). The founder/president was in on an embezzling plot with the head teller. Yep, he was embezzling from his own bank. Got caught during an audit for the annual report. IIRC, the head teller was instrumental in making it hard to detect. I wonder if this gal had help?
Yul Lose Posted November 1, 2015 Posted November 1, 2015 My grandson has a friend who's dad owns a high end cabinet shop in San Marcos, Ca. Probably 10 years ago or so the book keeper/office manager was caught embezzling money from the company. American Express alerted the owner about charges on a company credit card that they felt were strange for that type of business. Well the law was called in to investigate and when it was all unraveled she had embezzled more that $10 MILLION from the company. She was sentenced to 18 years in prison and they recovered $350,000.00 she had been at it for about 15 years before they caught on. I visited his shop one day before all of it was discovered and they were building cabinets for Eddie Murphys new house and I was told that they would cost him in excess of $450,000.00. The company employed this family of woodcarvers from Mexico that did nothing but carve with hand tools all day long. They were working on some crown molding for an estate in Rancho Santa Fe that had carved grape vines and grape clusters around the entire room.
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