Safety Deposit Coin Theft ?

Man claims $260,000 in gold coins missing from Frontenac safe deposit company


ST. LOUIS COUNTY • The Safe Deposit Company in Frontenac is being sued by a Nevada man who says $260,000 worth of gold coins that he kept there disappeared.

Just when the gold coins went missing is a mystery. What is known is that Barry Thalden began leasing a safe deposit box at the company two decades ago, storing a mix of U.S. gold coins and ones from South Africa called Krugerrands.



http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...cle_34244f7a-a046-11e1-87d1-0019bb30f31a.html

 

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Especially when you work at a place that gives you easy access.

 

I've heard of this happening before at Wells Fargo... do some searching into it, basically you need to watch when an employee closes your SDB and make sure they're actually rotating your key and locking it... because they insert both keys, but only lock theirs... that way, they can go back in later, unlock it with their key, and clean it out.

 

I bury my treasures in undisclosed locations around the U.S. so only I know where they are cause the map is in my head. Much better security!

 

Indeed, it can happen.

About ten years ago, I received a call late afternoon on a Friday from my bank's Branch Manager. "We need you to come to the bank right away!" she explained. Her greeting was immediately followed by, "Please... We can't leave until you get here!"

Luckily for everyone involved I was available at the time.

It turned out that the bank had called in a locksmith to drill out the core locks for some Safe Deposit Boxes that were locked, yet thought to be empty. The local branch had recently been taken over by a larger Regional Bank, and Regional either didn't have keys to the empty boxes or the new management wanted to install different core locks for those boxes before renting those boxes to new customers.

My Safe Deposit Box had been drilled and opened, revealing its contents to the locksmith, who notified bank staff of the problem.

"Pursuant to bank rules," my Branch Manager explained, "two bank officers are standing by to guard your box and its contents, until you can inventory what's inside and we can issue you a new box." The Branch Manager was one of the two Bank Officers. "We can't go home until you sign-off that everything's accounted for."

Fortunately for all of us, I had an inventory list available and the process was completed in short order. The Branch Manager and her second-in-command were able to make it home for dinner that Friday evening, and I didn't lose any numismatic items as the result of the box being breached.

The experience is a lesson learned, however.

I now realize that even 'Safe Deposit Boxes' are only 'safe' to a certain degree. My advice to numismatists with substantial inventory is to purchase insurance and retain at least two copies of a detailed inventory, both by-listing and by-photograph. Store one copy inside the box. Keep at least one other copy in a safe place off site. (Remember: One copy of an inventory does you no good if the inventory list burns, is lost or otherwise unavailable.)

I often wonder what would have happened had I been on vacation and unavailable on that unusual Friday afternoon.


-thecointrader

 

A really good safe deposit box robbery story: http://www.wpri.com/dpp/target_12/i...led?ref=scroller&categoryId=20000&status=true

 

Then you die in a car accident and it's all lost to your family and loved ones. Too much security is a bad thing.

 

there must be some other offsite storage companies for coin collectors other than banks. a company with vaults and high security.

 

http://www.24-7privatevaults.com/

this one made me laugh

take a tour and get a free lollipop !

 

There's always a public storage facility, you would be the only one with a key, and in a few years, or more, would fail to pay your storage fees, and the storage company would consider the contents abandoned and hold a Storage Wars auction for the contents and have to hear Dave Hester yelling, "YUUUUPPPPPPPPPP!"

 

Safe deposit boxes are actually easy to get into. There is a specific tool for them to drill through the box if someone dies, and their estate is never settled. Aside from keys, all it takes is a dishonest bank employee who has safe deposit box access, and master keys.

 

LOL. I don't want Dave Nester near my stuff.

 

basic storage companies wouldn't work even if they were secure. the lack of climate control could destroy coins.

 

Yup. There are employees who are thieves that are addicted to stealing. They love the thrill of stealing and basically get high off of getting away with it. If somebody has a SDB, the person in charge of them is "probably" honest. But, how would you ever know without giving them the chance to steal your stuff? If there's one story there's a million. This situation probably gets handled in house more often than we think.
Now somebody will have to post another link about how safe they are so everybody feels good again about paying a bank to possess their stuff.

 

Good read. My parents got the same call as you thecointrader. Box was drilled & one of them had to rush down and sign a paper saying everything that was in there originally was still in there.

 

They were broken into in April.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/robbery-cu...ibility-at-24-7-private-vaults-148423365.html

 

The ONLY thing that is truly safe from pillage or theft is that which you take with you when you leave this world.

EVERYTHING else can be taken or stolen from you.

 

There are some aspects I don't understand: the victim claimed that there was someone else's stuff in the safe deposit box.

If a bank employee opened the box and took stuff, why would they bother putting anything else in there?

If they gave the box to someone else, there was a second key and there should be paperwork showing access to the box.