On Monday the 5th of June I did something fairly foolish for some easy money (a bad reason to do anything). Unfortunately, it didn't pan out the way I had hoped.
A friend had told me of a trick to get free money out of a cash machine - A fairly foreboding first sentence of an anecdote I'm sure you'll agree - basically the trick is you take out a fairly large amount of money (the number of notes is the key to the scam), I took out £50 possibly too little. You then just remove the centre notes and wait until the machine swallows the remaining notes back up - the idea being that the atm will refund your account the whole amount, but you will have half the money. Sounds like a good idea and I have no qualms about stealing from the banks that have been stealing my tax money over the last couple of years.
So picture the scene it is 7.30pm, storm clouds roll ominously over the town of Penzance I am following Becca and Monika to the Chinese, after spending a couple of pints in Kasbar. As we are passing Natwest I decide to check my bank balance, nothing suspect about that... I’m standing there waiting for my balance to pop up when this thought pops into my head, it’s been sitting there dormant for a couple of weeks but now… why not. I hit the 'new transaction' button. I hit the withdrawal button. £50 (who new withdrawing money could be this exciting). I took two tens from the center and waited. Beep beep beep – computer language for ‘please take your f’in money’. No one else on the street. Beep beep beep…. Gobble gobble gobble. So I check my balance again and low and behold... It’s minus £50. Fuck, Frazer you wanker you’ve just lost me £30.
So it’s the next day. I am about to put into action a skill of mine I do not readily use (it would be unfair on the rest of the humanity) my ability too blag. I strolled into Natwest, up to the enquiry desk casual as anything:
"Excuse me the machine outside chewed up some of my money last night, I'm wondering what the procedure for getting it back is?" (Keep it simple, people always overcomplicate lies).
"Oh, you have to fill in this form and if the atm doesn't balance when we change it we can refund your account. Have you got your bank card?"
She finds me on her computer. Here comes the fuck up.
"How much did you withdraw?"
Now, do I tell her the actual amount I tried to withdraw or the amount that was left in the machine?
"30 I think." Weak Teagan she's suspicious now.
"Well it says here your most recent withdrawal was £50."
"Oh yea actually it was."
She looked up at me sceptically "I'm going to have to write the reason for you not receiving the money and if it’s at all suspect we are allowed to refuse repayment."
I felt my cheeks begin to warm up. I had to think on my feet now so I go into my ‘hesitant coming clean’ bit, awarding me some precious thinking time "Awww... It's just it's a bit, ummm, well embarrassing really."
"What happened did your cock flop out or something?" No word of a lie that’s what she said. She was in her mid 20s and a bit of a joker it seemed. I cast aside this outrageous accusation and carried on with my story.
"Urhh no, I was at the cash machine wallet in one hand phone in the other" I demonstrated "and as I grabbed the notes with my wallet hand I only managed to snatch a couple, in doing so one of the tens slipped out of my hand and began to blow down the street. I chased it down the street like an idiot, luckily no one was about at the time." That covered up the embarrassment. "By the time I got back the money had gone. Like I said there was no one about so, the machine defiantly took it."
After writing this and a few more details in the form she let me go. I was rung up a couple of days later and told the full amount of 50 pounds had been transferred back into my account. I think what I got out of this experience is threefold firstly: crime sometimes does pay, banks don’t give a shit about dolling out small amounts of money and lastly in retrospect I am probably partly responsible for the recession.
