While a safety deposit box at a bank may seem like the most secure place to store expensive jewelry and important documents, a few clients have found out otherwise. Apparently, if the bank doesn’t have all your required information, they can drill into your safety deposit box and remove all its contents. Moreover, the bank will ship you the contents in a safety deposit box via uninsured UPS postage.
According to San Francisco’s cbslocal, East Bat residents Micahel and Maggie lost over $17,000 in family heirlooms and wedding gems after B of A had drilled their box due to missing account information. Maggie said:
“I just got robbed from the bank, they just took my stuff.”
According to the bank, it had sent them a letter earlier that year notifying them that Michael’s social security number wasn’t on file. After not receiving a response from the clients, the bank proceeded to drill the box and ship its contents via UPS. Luckily, Maggie was able to retrieve the nearly $100,000 in jewelry after it was sent to a holding center. However, to her dismay upon receiving the items more than $17,000 worth of jewelry was still missing.
Another example is a couple whose box was also drilled due to missing or incorrect information. In their case, instead of loosing expensive jewelry, the lost a deed to a property in China. In their case the bank said that it was missing some personal information. Similarly, the bank claimed that it had sent a letter notifying the client of the discrepancy. However, when asked the bank wasn’t able to produce any records of having mailed such a letter.
There are many more cases of clients having their boxes drilled due to certain clerical issues. It goes without mention that one should have correct information with the bank in the first place, but even if issues arise the bank should not resort to drilling one’s box so quickly. Furthermore, if the bank does end up having to end a client’s safety deposit box rental agreement, the least it can do is mail the content of the box via a secure method.
This is just one example of how deposit boxes are not the perfects storage solution for irreplaceable documents. However, there is something called the blockchain, where you can securely store information that can’t be altered by anybody. Important documents like birth certificates, property deeds, and even wills can be stored in the blockchain without the risk of any entity modifying to destroying the data.
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