I saw a robbery......

The other day I just happened to visit a bank with a friend of mine. No point mentioning the name of the bank ( because I view it as a policy loophole across all banks). Coming back to what I saw, apart from a good crowd in, I saw someone who got mugged within the bank and more surprisingly by the bank.

Meet the victim, a guy who wanted to deposit some cash into his account. He, confidently, took out a bundle of 500 rupee note to be deposited. With his hands in the small hole of the protective glass window, he was expecting the 'cash receipt' to be handed over to him ASAP and this is when the cashier came into the scene.

Meet the cashier, a middle aged guy wearing 'irritated with my job look' on his face. He counted the amount manually on his own then used the automatic counting machine & then finally those notes were put to test by an another piece of machine which were suppose to check for the fake notes. It threw two notes out of the bundle and there it was, the bad was separated from the good and the cashier now wore a look of an informed "messiah" who could tell the good and identify the bad!

So far so good, the fake notes were identified, but then came the blow. The cashier in no time put a stamp on those fake notes saying (rather declaring with all his limited might) that the currency has been FORGED. A loss of 1000 bucks for the depositor as now he wont be able to use them in day to day transactions forget depositing them anywhere.The depositor resisted, so did few people standing behind him (including me) but it didn't help much. And this is how I saw some one getting robbed.

I don't know how good this policy of returning fake currency is. But what I know for sure is there have been many instances in which ATM machines of the these very banks throw out fake notes. So what actually is happening? Why shall we bear the brunt of fake currencies? Why cant banks be given the moral responsibility (with govt. support of course) of accepting fake currency?

The depositor over here was perhaps well endowed with money. Think of a situation in which a small time worker/ wage earner goes to deposit money in a bank and he comes across such a problem. For him this kind of loss might just be a big one! 2000 worth fake currencies on an earning of lets say 10000 per month is a big pie!! A high price indeed for something in which he is not even involved.