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Question & Answer
Question: You said in one of your seminars that customers should not be left alone in the vault with their safe deposit box, but should be escorted to a "place of privacy" such as a safe deposit viewing room or a coupon booth. In many of our branches we don't have a such a place, or even an empty office where customers can go. There is a pull-out shelf in the vault where they can rest their boxes, but that's it. Do you have any suggestions?
Answer: David McGuinn, president of Safe Deposit Specialists, says con artists and professional safe deposit thieves look for offices like yours! The first thing they look for is opportunity and the second is lack of procedures. Your pull-out shelves should indeed be pulled out ... and thrown away. They encourage people to stay in the vault. If someone is in your vault alone with their safe deposit boxes, how long would they be there unobserved? A few minutes or several hours?
There is now a manufacturer and distributer of a very user-friendly tool that will open a safe deposit box in less than ten (10) seconds!
How many boxes could someone get in while in that vault alone? Open the door, yank the tin, dump the contents into a briefcase or a bag, put the tin back, close the door so there is no evidence, etc., etc, etc. Whether your state is legislated by the landlord/tenant laws or the bailor/bailee laws, you would have to prove in a court of law there was absolutely no way anyone could have gotten into those boxes except the renters. David and I strongly agree -get rid of the shelves, find someplace in your office that can be set aside for people to take their safe deposit boxes for inspection- but get them out of the vault. NOW!
Copyright © 1997 Bankers' Hotline. Originally appeared in Bankers' Hotline, Vol. 7, No. 5, 4/97
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