Shredded Deposit

In the summer of 1996, we traveled home from Florida to Wyoming. It was the only time we went home from Florida. I had completed my comprehensive exams, and we needed a break after two years of graduate school. Mom and Dad also celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary on June 16. 

On a Sunday afternoon, while we were at Mom and Dad's home, I got a call from Bishop Christiansen (the bishop I served with in the Tallahassee 5th Ward bishopric). He had somehow tracked down my parent's phone number (I do not remember how). Bishop Christiansen said that the church had never received the tithing and donations offering deposit from a few weeks before, and church headquarters had called him to ask about it. 

The total deposit had been a few thousand dollars. 

Fortunately, the ward clerk and I followed all church protocols with the donations. We had the complete paper record showing that both of us participated in accounting for the money, and in taking the deposit to the bank. 

Bishop contacted the bank. The bank was able to review its records to find that the deposit bundle was removed from the overnight deposit bin. However, they did not have a record of the money being deposited into the church bank account. Further, the bank had also heard from other depositors that their money was not deposited in their accounts.  

So, the bank reviewed the security camera footage. They discovered that the bank custodian had shredded all of the deposits from the overnight deposit bin for that date! At least that was the story from the bank. The bank could not guarantee that was what happened to our deposit. 

Most of the money we received from the week in question was paid by check. So, I had to call each of our ward members who had made a donation during the week in question and tell them to ask their bank to cancel their check and make a new donation for that amount to the ward. 

The week in question had occurred during the regular semester, but most of the students had gone home for the summer. I had to review their ward information sheets to find their parents' phone numbers to contact them. For some of them, their bank charged them a fee to cancel the check. In that case, they had to contact the church's bank (Bank of America) in Tallahassee to get reimbursed.

Bank of America covered the donations that were missing which had been paid in cash and coin. 

Eventually, we got it all sorted out. But I think it took about 6 months.