Massive moral / criminal dilemma – what would you have done?

I wouldn't have taken it. Firstly, these things always come round to bite you in the rear and also, it's not my money and therefore stealing.
 
You wouldn't have gotten very far - bearer bonds aren't as easy to sell as they sound and you would have been hard pressed to have found a 'no questions' cash buyer for that sort of sum.

Most definitely you would have been caught and any finance career prospects over.
 
Cheque reconciliation is done primarily by TPC or by electronic inhouse means and probably accounts for less than 2% of all banking transactions these days. Even using your non-defined time frame which could be going way, way back, there were processes and, far more importantly, laws in place to ensure AML schemes such as tax evasion, laundering etc were minimised or at least transparent.

Whilst the OP is an interesting would you/wouldn't you scenario, it is exactly that, a scenario. This did not happen.
 
I have an annoyingly stubborn conscience which would have made that piece of paper feel like a 10T weight around my neck.

However, it would have been interesting to have kept it for a few weeks, prior to cashing it in, to see if anything started to happen; police, internal affairs etc. If I was going to take it, I would have put it away somewhere for weeks or months before doing anything with it...
 
Reminds me of something I was told ages ago. In a high street bank the new staff are given the job of filling up the cash machines. Letting them touch a big pile of cash is a very quick honesty and stupidity test (like you're really going to get away with pocketing a few notes without someone figuring out it was you)

I have no idea if this is true btw.

I'm surprised at the lack of "Investment banks are all scum so they deserve to lose the money" comments.
 
:D

They're not scum but they don't do what the OP's imaginary story suggests.

e: whilst also doing lots of other terrible things, naturally.
 
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peterwalkley said:
Reminds me of something I was told ages ago. In a high street bank the new staff are given the job of filling up the cash machines. Letting them touch a big pile of cash is a very quick honesty and stupidity test (like you're really going to get away with pocketing a few notes without someone figuring out it was you)

I have no idea if this is true btw.

I'm surprised at the lack of "Investment banks are all scum so they deserve to lose the money" comments.
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No that job is mostly given to securicor etc.

I have a mate who used to do it.
He was telling me about another lad who got the £10 and £20 crates mixed up and thats when ATM's kick out 20's instead of 10's. You'd think someone would have thought about that and made a different crate.
 
[FnG]magnolia;24335297 said:
Cheque reconciliation is done primarily by TPC or by electronic inhouse means and probably accounts for less than 2% of all banking transactions these days. Even using your non-defined time frame which could be going way, way back, there were processes and, far more importantly, laws in place to ensure AML schemes such as tax evasion, laundering etc were minimised or at least transparent.

Whilst the OP is an interesting would you/wouldn't you scenario, it is exactly that, a scenario. This did not happen.
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This was around 1990 - 1991. Like I said in the first post we would get hand written cheques delivered by messengers, daily from Natwest Lothbury (their head office) averaging £5m per day sometimes as high as £50m and other cheques from others mostly major clearing banks settling Gilts . Maybe you don't / didn't work in the same type of institution.
 
grimm said:
There's a very high chance that they would have found a way to trace that back to you, so you did the right thing in returning it.
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This!

I'm really suprised so many would have taken it, there would have been a very high chance (i'm talking in the high 90%) they would have traced it back to you in less then a week. And you would have been thrown in prision for a couple of decades!

Even back as i teenager i would have have know this risk and handed in almost stright away.
 
Gilly said:
It's just that the largest bearer bond issued in USD is $1m.

You had a £2.5m one, so I just wondered whether it is different based on currency.
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I think that $1m on Wikipedia is meant to be the largest amount issued by the US treasury (although there are other sources which say $10m). Corporations can also issue them and certainly other countries do.

There was a robbery in London in the 90s where some messenger got robbed over about £300m bearer bonds, the guy who did it got murdered and the rest of the gang got collared IIRC.
 
I think, providing I fully understood the way they worked, and was 100% sure they could not be traced. Id have taken it. But not straight away.

And for some reason I can even figure out exactly howd Id have done it..

1. Dont take it straight away. Lightly sellotape/stick it to the top inside of my draw at work and leave it there for a few days, till I knew suspicion in work had not fallen to my feet.

2. Take it, but on a lunch break. In morning make sure people see me putting wallet/notes inside the draw. Then at lunch make a fuss and have a good rumage in the draw, discretely taking it aswell.

3. Keep it safe. Potentially for a couple years (providing they dont have expiry dates). And dont tell a living sole.

4. Plan a holiday well in advance. Book flights nice and early.

5. Buy a nice suit.

6. Once abroad, cash it in.

7. Still never tell a living sole and dont go crazy once its in your bank.

8. Wait at-least a year again and quit the job.

9. Have fun :)
 
Not really worth taking such a small amount I'd hardly notice it when it's slung in with all my bazillions.
 
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