ABERDEEN - A taxi boss who turned into a good Samaritan and returned £40,000 that was given to him mistakenly was shocked when bank bosses offered him a reward for his good deed. And the reward? A meal at a nearby pub!
"They then said that I should be rewarded and asked if they could buy me a bar supper. I said 'I am not that hungry' and added that if I wanted a decent meal I would have kept the £40,000," said Derek Smith, the taxi boss who turned in the excess cash. Smith had applied to withdraw £60,000, but an error at the bank at Aberdeen's Queen's Cross caused £100,000 to be given out to him. In a bind over where the money had gone, the bank instituted an internal enquiry.
"I was putting the money in the office safe when I discovered they had given me £40,000 too much. When I went back to the bank, the woman said she couldn't believe I was coming back in with the cash because they had written it off as gone," said Smith, 50 who operates a private taxi service in the city.
A Royal Bank of Scotland spokesman expressed his gratitude to Smith for honestly returning the money. However, Smith was not too amused by their pub meal offer, "I thought what they were offering was a ridiculous idea given that I had come back in with that amount of money and suggested that they donate money to a diabetics charity instead," he said.
The RBS spokesman apologized for the mix-up, which occurred due to clerical error, "In situations such as these we always discuss an appropriate level of compensation and we are doing this with Mr. Smith regarding a donation to a charity of his choice," the spokesman clarified.
Posted
on : Sat, 17 Sep 2005 13:05 GMT | Banking News
By : Anne Philips
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