Omaha daily bee., 1911-05-28


| choice stock from the New Mexico man 70
/ mix the breed Let me have your name"
| the crook said, and when ! 60 back to
| Wyoming I will mail you pictures OF my
| ranch"
There could be no objection to that. the
| New Mexican thought. and he signed his
name in what he believed was memo
randum book
When the New Mexico ranchman re-
turned home. his banker asked IL he had
bought farm One surprise followed an
other. There was his name signed 10 a
| check for $1,000 There must be some
mistake-no. there could be none. Finally
it all dawned upon the ranchman, but too
late 1t had been two weeks He was the
loser. for was it not his signature upon
which the bank had paid the money!
Down in Buckner Mo. there is a case
pending In the courts to determine whether
bank or the victim shall be the loser in
such cases. A patron Of a Buckner bank
signed his name to a letter of recon-
mendation. The crook traced the sigma
ture onto a check with a drawing pencil
Then the impression was linked and the
likeness was an exact reproduction Of the
signature. The patron admits that It is his
signature, but contends that he did not
sign the check. The courts will have to
decide the case
Most banks watch closely the accounts
Of their patrons. Especially do the paying
tellers. They are careful to know the per
sons to whom money is paid and II the
amount is large they are doubly careful
But often collections are made through
other banks and the payee is not identified.
And even should a teller suspect that a
check is bogus sometimes It is not the
best business policy to call a depositor over
the telephone and ask him IL the check to
Jones for 5000 is all right. Depositors.
many of them especially IL the transaction
is with friend, feel that the paying teller
is annoying them and at the same time
embarrassing the friend when the telephone
is used to vartfy a transaction. So 1T goes.
PreyInE Upon Banks.
There are many ways in which sharks
prey upon banks. They are big game and
crooks realize that one haul from a bank
is equivalent often to a dozen other ven
lures. The national banks of the United
States, to protect themselves from a gang
OF sharpers who obtain money by tele-
graph, found 1t necessary to establish a
universal cipher code. For example, a
Texas bank recently received a telegram
from an alleged Kansas City bank to pay
John Jones $1,000. Jones explained that his
wife had died. and the Texas bank, be-
lieving that it was accommodating a Kan
sas City bank, paid the money. The cipher
code will check this. But check It only,
because the state banks have no universal
code, and were a crook to get hold of this
code used by the national banks il would
mean big loss to the institutions which
happened to be the victims. Paying money
by telegraph is a factor that is entering
more and more into the legitimate business
world every day
In a New York bank a queer incident
happened last month. package of valu-
able securities was thought at first to
have ben stolen from a safety deposit
vault The manager OF the institution
showed that this would have been impos-
slble' thin tie patron remembered an in
cident which explained everything.
Man is more or less a creature of habit
member of the gold brick fraternity sta
toned himself in the vicinity of a safety
deposit bank In New York for several days
He learned the habits of the different Gus
toners. One patron of the bank was seen
daily carrying the same kind of an en-
veiope. The envelope was always the same
color, The crook noticed these things and
In the rush OF the busy hours as this man
came into the bank, he stumbled at the
door, He ran into a heavy individual. The
envelope fell to the floor and O. little man
who was near picked 1t up and seemingly
returned It to the owner.
All went about their business A week
later, after the patron had accused the
bank Of losing the envelope from his
safety deposit box, he remembered how he
had fallen 1t all came back to him and
he remembered that the little man had
turned around before giving him the en-
velope.-Kansas City Star.
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