HUNGER FOR CASH AT THE BANK Controversies around the theft of valuables from safe deposit boxes

It would be a very nice thing that the bank doesn't ask you what valuables you have put inside the safe deposit box, if those valuables didn't get stolen afterwards.

Yesterday, three new complaints about missing valuables from safe deposit boxes were made, after another client had complained recently.

A few had complained two or three months ago.

Another complaint was filed one year ago.

In the name of confidentiality, the content of safe deposit boxes remains unknown to the bank.

This principle would be nice, if those valuables didn't get stolen.

The fact that banks don't ask for a listing of the contents of the safe deposit box allows them to dispute the missing objects claims, which means it sometimes gets to the ridiculous situation where the bank can get to claim that the customer couldn't have owned the valuables that were stolen, because they don't have the kind of businesses that could generate the amount of money that they claim they had in their safety deposit box.

The complaints of the theft victims were actually proven true afterwards.

Are the plaintiffs crooks?

Or are the banks' employees thieves?

I don't know.

We don't rule out the third option, in which the bank employees are thieves and they are in cahoots with the clients making the complaints.

But, one way or another, the safe deposit boxes services seem compromised.

• Four thefts from safe deposit boxes, at the central headquarters of BCR Piteşti

Three thefts from safe deposit boxes were reported in the last three days at the central headquarters of BCR in Piteşti. On Friday, Eugen Florea, a businessman from Piteşti, filed a complaint alleging that money and jewelry worth approximately 500,000 lei disappeared from his safe deposit box, and two other similar complaints were filed yesterday, according to the local press.

According to Dinu Dănuţ, chief-commissioner in the County Police Inspectorate (IJP) Argeş, the authorities believe that the number of victims is far greater. "People having only just begun coming to the bank to check their safe deposit boxes. We think there are more victims, but we will only know more after we do more verifications", he told us.

According to the representatives of BCR, the lender is not responsible for these incidents, but it claims that it will cooperate with the Police to uncover the truth. They told us: "The Romanian Commercial Bank provides the rental of safe deposit boxes without asking the clients to state the contents of the boxes; the clients are the only ones who know the contents of the boxes and the value of the goods in their boxes. The configuration of the security system makes the unauthorized and unrecorded access to the room of the safe deposit boxes impossible. According to the procedure, the safe deposit boxes can only be opened with the unique access keys which are in the customers' possession, after first using another unique key which is in possession of the bank. According to the same procedure, clients are not accompanied by the staff of the bank at the moment they open the safe deposit boxes, so that the employees of the bank have no way of seeing the contents of the safe deposit boxes of the clients. BCR is collaborating with the Police and it has made available to the investigators all the material evidence and the electronic recordings in order to help uncovering the truth. The safe of services provided by BCR to its clients comes first, and the tolerance towards this kind of incidents is zero. We are still waiting for the completion of the investigation, without excluding at this time any theory concerning the veracity of the complaints filed".

Two similar incidents have occurred at Raiffeisen Bank branch in Ploieşti, approximately three months ago. At the time, complaints were filed concerning the activity of the employees of the bank. The first came from a businessman who complained to the police that several assets and some money disappeared from his safe deposit boxes. The businessman valued his loss at 200,000 Euros. A second complaint came from the mayor of the Plopu commune, Adrian Bălănescu, who complained that from the safe deposit box of the same branch of Ploieşti, goods and money worth approximately one million Euros disappeared.

Just like the officials of BCR, those of Raiffeisen Bank told us, at that time, that they had made available to the Police all the necessary evidence and that they are offering all their support to the ongoing investigation. "It is in our interest, as well, to get to the bottom of this situation and we are confident that we will have a response within the briefest delays".

About one year ago, a lawyer from Bucharest has complained that from the safe deposit box he rented from Romanian International Bank (RIB), four gold ingots and 20,000 Euros were stolen. Contacted by BURSA, he told us that after all that time, his complaint has not been solved in any way, even though in his case, there were clues that could have incriminated the employees of the bank. The thefts from the safe deposit boxes seem like the perfect crimes, as they are hard to control, because the banks deny any responsibility when it comes to the boxes, the lawyer told us. He also told us that aside from the fact that he has suffered a loss and that his case has not been solved, he was required to pass the lie detector test to prove that he hasn't committed a fraud or concealed the truth when it comes to the content of the safe deposit box.