That Must Have Been One Heck Of A Note

Bank robber gets cash with message sent through drive-up tube system

Reuters
Updated: 7:12 p.m. ET July 12, 2005

CHICAGO - That was easy.

A bank robber behind the wheel of his car Tuesday sent a note through a vacuum tube to the teller at the drive-through window at a branch of Chicago’s LaSalle Bank, and the teller obliged, returning an undisclosed amount of cash, police said.

The exchange was completed through the bank’s pneumatic tube communications system, in which canisters are passed back and forth between motorist and teller.

The FBI said it was investigating the drive-through theft.

The bank is owned by ABN AMRO Holding NV.

 

I wish this bank robber luck if he went to the bank drive-thru that I normally use.  For the record, this is the financial institution where I do the church's banking; for my personal banking needs, I patronize our company's credit union.  The credit union doesn't have the convenience of a drive-thru, but they have excellent customer service.

I've been making the weekly church offering deposit for over a year now, and I rotate between a branch up on Dixie Highway in my 'hood or a branch on my way home from work, referred to as the bank in THE 'hood.  Sometimes I have to go in person to take care of business; in which case I go to the branch across from church.  That's a whole other story for another time, faithful readers.  For the past few months, I've been stopping at the bank branch on my way home from work and going to the drive-thru.  Keep in mind our church is small, and it's not like the zippered bank bag is bulging. I've always just rolled it up and stuck it in the plastic tube and then sent it on it's way pneumatically to the teller inside.  Well, not any more.  Yesterday, the teller that I affectionately call "Rip Taylor" was working at the drive-thru.  He caught my eye a few months ago when I had to go inside the bank to ask a couple of questions.  He was working feverishly at the drive-thru window. He looked just like Rip Taylor.  I expected him to throw a bucket of confetti on the bank customers.  So anyhoo, yesterday he processes my deposit, but then tells me that they don't accept deposits "like that" at the drive-thru window, and that I'll have to come in next time.  I wanted to say "If you don't accept deposits "like that", why have you accepted them for over a year now?  I didn't argue, for fear that confetti would shoot out of the pneumatic tube. I guess from now on, I'll have to go inside the bank in the 'hood.