The Free Overdraft
A few years ago, I traveled up north for a drink and drugs binge which ended up lasting 3 years and resulted in me returning home with a degree. My good friend Jim wanted in on the party, but had no desire for education. Not a problem - he was working for a large building society at the time, and so just requested to change branches, and landed a job in the city I was moving to.

He found himself a place to live and moved up a couple of weeks before me, and was on first name terms with the staff of the local boozer by the time I got there. It was in the boozer, on my first night there, that he casually asked a favour...

"Can you come in tomorrow and open an account? You don't have to use it, you can open it for a quid, and it'll help me reach my targets this month... and if you want to use it, you'll have a £1,000 overdraft."

Fair enough, I thought. It was his first month with a new manager, and he wanted to make a good impression. So the next day, I dutifully trotted down to the branch the next day and handed him one beer token. A bit of paper work, I waited round for ten minutes for him to finish work and we went to the pub. And that was that. I'd registered the account to my parent's address, so I didn't have the bother of blank statements coming through once a month, as I did with most of my unimportant post. My mum opened anything sent through to make sure it wasn't a bill/cash/court summons/letter bomb, and then binned it if it was junk. Within a matter of days, I'd forgotten all about it.

Fast forward one year - some friends who were backpacking around Australia phoned me when I was particularly pissed, and convinced me to go out and spend my summer with them. Admittedly, I didn't need much convincing - I had just ended a pretty horrendous relationship with a girl that I lived with, and was glad at the opportunity to get the fuck out of Dodge.

I went to Australia, had an awesome time, traveled, drank, saw sights, got laid. Everything a holiday should be. Until my parents called, sounding more than a little bit shaken.

My building society account, dormant for a year, was suddenly completely overdrawn, a few weeks after me leaving the country. My mum wanted to call the police - it was late, and so she couldn't call the branch.

"Calm down and call Jim," I told her. "He'll know what to do."

She did. He assured her he'd sort it out, I wouldn't be charged, and that he'd call her to confirm it was alright. "Don't bother calling the branch, it'll take ages - just leave it to me."

The next day he did call - it had all been a huge mix-up and all was back to normal. No need to panic.

I came back tanned, beer-bloated and happy, and Jim celebrated my return with an enthusiastic session in the pub. A few beers in, he told me the exact details of the "mix-up":

Jim was finishing work one night and had arranged to entertain a young hottie he'd been chatting up for a few weeks and had finally managed to get a date with her. The only problem was he was skint, and it was a few days before pay day. And so, Jim comes up with a grand plan. "I know, I'll wipe out the account Sloppy never uses, look absolutely minted, get her pissed, get in her pants." He could replace the money after pay day, wipe off overdraft charges, no harm done. FOOLPROOF. A bit unethical, taking money out of customer's bank account so that you can go out on the piss, but anyways.

Apparently two minutes after my Mum's phone call he hyperventilated and collapsed, and was shitting bricks at work until I'd returned to the country. If his manager or the police had caught wind of what happened, he was in deep, DEEP shit and could have been banned for working in banking for a long time, if not life.

After laughing so hard I thought I was going to rupture something, I made him buy the rounds for the rest of night for being such a cheeky bastard.
(Sloppy Giuseppe, Thu 16 Jul 2009, 23:38, 1 reply)

Love it.
Really well told, cricked.
( Rookie You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel, Fri 17 Jul 2009, 14:50, closed)