We have a customer who has come in with $1,000 in $100s 3 times this week to get bags of dimes. He is 19 and never brings any coin back as some do that get coin to search it for rare coins. We can't figure out what he is doing with that much coin and even questioned him about it. He gave different answers to different tellers such as for his nephew's pre-school, or for the PTA, or for personal use. He works at a grocery store as a deli clerk, but only keeps $1 in his account with us so that he can get coins as a customer. However, I can't figure out what he would be doing with so many dimes. Has anyone ever heard of anything similar?

No, but based on the fact that he:



it's not something I would hear about again. A couple more times and you're going to either file a SAR or explain why you did not. Close the account.

Wait, back up. Where does a 19 year old get 30 $100 bills in one week?
And no, I've never heard of anything similar.

I had a customer a few years back who was doing the same thing with pennies. Although, instead of giving us an assortment of weird stories, he told us up front that he was sorting the pennies in order to extract the older ones that have a high copper content. He even posted videos on facebook that demonstrated his penny sorting machine.

It's entirely possible that your customer is doing something similar in search of silver. And since some of the more enthusiastic silver hoarders don't want a whole lot of competition, it wouldn't surprise me to hear someone provide an alternate story, lest the bank staff be inclined to searh the dimes themselves.

That he doesn't bring the coins back is also consistent with this type of activity. If he's sifting the dimes, then he's probably returning the ones that he isn't keeping to another branch, or even another bank, in order to avoid sifting the same pile over and over. This was my experience with my penny customer. He had a few "pickup" branches and a separate "dropoff" branch.

Depending on where in PA you're located, your customer may even know my customer...

Ditto what Ken said.

Maybe when he dies he will be thought of as "dimelsss" (that would pennyless considering for future inflation) and they will find $7 million in dimes in his garage, like the guy that just died with that much gold.

Close the account and let someone else deal with this.

LOL, rlcarey! Believe me, we are closing the account! I was just trying to understand his activity and have yet to figure out his source of cash. Never a dull moment in the BSA Dept!