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Comment by billy99k | Hacker News Reader

Robberies still happen. The banks and police just don't make it public. I worked for a bank around 2005-2010. There was an attempted robbery at least 3 times when I worked there. Nobody outside the bank really knew about it and it never made it to any news outlets.

I wonder how common it still is.

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However, the score is frequently minimal, where they just take what it is in the front cash registers. Random website [0]

> The vast majority of bank robberies are relatively unsuccessful affairs, having netted criminals just $7,500 in 2010 on average, according to the FBI.

[0] https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/06/11/what-you-sho...

Maybe you don’t get rich, but 7,500 tax-free dollars for a 2-minute job sound like a good deal, once you get the hang of it.

Maybe I should switch careers…

Assuming you don't get caught, which if you keep on bank robbing probably increases the odds you do.

The risk isn’t worth it to most unless you are really desperate for a stay in the fed. At least you get fed and don’t sleep unsheltered.

Caught by a fed and thrown in the fed where at least you get fed.

or be a politician. they seem to make a lot of $ for little work

They do work. Just not the work you want them to do.

bank robbery is automatically upgraded to the FBI and has (IIRC) a minimum sentence of 7 years, worse if you use a real weapon. I'm sure there are other ways to commit a petty offense or 2 that would net the same amount with less risk.

Robbery has an under 25% clearance rate, but bank robbery has an over 60% clearance rate—the median bank robber gets prison (yes, 80% of stolen funds aren’t recovered, but how much of a prison term js getting away with $7,500 worth?)

Robbery is often committed by a single person. Bank robbery generally requires multiple, and often results in multiple charges per crime (which can skew clearance rates)

"You'll also likely have more people to split the money with" is further eroding the appeal of the $7,500 take.

If bank robbery is less profitable than working for a minimum salary then why people do it?

Because as should be obvious to the most casual observer, assuming rationality combined with financially-return-focused utility functions produces a model of human behavior that bears basically no relationship to reality. (Which is more an answer to why the prior underlying your question is silly than it is an answer to the question, but...)

My brother is a detective. One of the early, surprising discoveries in career is that most criminals are dumb, fully driven by their Id. Basically, people driven by getting drugs or getting laid.

Seems like an amount the banks would have no problem sweeping under the rug. 7.5k should be a no-issue. A bank's existence is based on trust after all and if the public hears of this, the loss of trust will cost them a lot more in revenue than that puny amount. They might not even report it to insurance, because in the long run that could also end up costing them more due to increased premiums.

What? I don’t give a shit if my bank is robbed. FDIC insurance makes that a non-issue for the vast majority of the country.

What a silly, immature statement. Sounds like the typical reaction I hear to organized retail theft and the rioting and destruction of property back in 2020: "They have insurance."

As if the lack of consequences for perpetrators doesn't have consequences of its own. Insurance is not free money.

I am pretty sure they were responding to the "lack of trust" point raised by the parent, not the crime itself.

Their point was that they aren't worried / don't lose trust in the bank if it gets robbed. Rather, the money is guaranteed, so they retain confidence in the bank even if it loses a lot of many due to a particularly successful robbery. Because they'll still get their deposit back.

This is 100% what the FDIC and NCUA are about: ensuring continued consumer confidence in their banks.

That's not trust in the bank though, that's trust in the system/fdic.

I think many would lose trust in their bank if they heard it was being robbed with abnormal regularity.

I would only if I had a safety deposit box there.

It's of course your perogative to use businesses that don't protect themselves.

It's also your perogative to shop at shady websites, and hope your credit card will accept the fraud claim. It basically the same thing.

Read the fucking thread. I’m responding to banks trying to hide being robbed from their customers.

In no way do I condone robbery.

Insurance is not a free money generator though. Most homes are insured. Should we therefore not care about burglaries and break-ins?

Homes are somewhat different because it is a personal annoyance to replace what was lost, and there’s a sentimental value attached to most things which insurance wouldn’t cover. If I show up at the bank tomorrow and make a withdrawal and the money comes from insurance rather than the actual dollars I put in, who am I to care?

When you use your insurance, your rates tend to go up. When costs go up, the bank passes those on to the customer. Now you pay more for banking, or receive less interest, or get worse service, or however they cover that cost. Perhaps it doesn't effect you (an individual) directly, but they increase the cost for commercial customers and those companies pass the cost on to you.

Now, if you don't care about that kind of creeping cost increase, I have a cloud architecture to sell you.

That has nothing whatsoever to do with trusting the bank.

Would you trust a person who drove their car into the same pothole every day to make responsible decisions with driving when not near that pothole?

Why would you trust a bank, showing lax security in one aspect, to be stable overall?

We should care. Banks shouldn’t hide robberies.

That's being rather generous re: the average consumer. You can try to explain to people that their money is safe by law but it doesn't mean public trust doesn't somewhat erode. Grandma with her retirement savings doesn't want to hear that her bank got robbed.

It’s not, it’s the only reason a huge chunk of the population that lived through the financial crisis trusts banks at all.

You realize that as a client you pay for this?

My bank (outside of USA) offers interest lower than inflation.

>My bank (outside of USA) offers interest lower than inflation

It does, but absolutely not because of robberies

Indeed, banks have a lot less money up front and on-site now. A lot of this is how much is done electronically nowadays compared to decades ago, but a lot of this was change in protocol after big hits in the 1990s became too commonplace.

The Boston area was already particularly had hit during the 1990s, with multiple scores in the $120 - $500K range by just one gang, all laid out in the last paragraph: https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/state/1997/12/23/...

Still happens somewhat regularly, as I've found following scanner accounts for my city on twitter.

But today the bags are tagged with gps trackers and they're almost always caught.

It's a good thing the robbers don't seem to know about faraday cages.

Or BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag)

If they risk years in prison for $7.5k they probably really aren't that smart.

> The banks and police just don't make it public.

Is there evidence of this? Anytime someone mentions declining crime rates its always with "well, they clearly don't report it!"

The statement should be that the media doesn't report on it anymore. Bank robbery hysteria was a fad from the 70s.

Read your local newspaper or the police department crime blotter; bank robberies still happen. The take is diminishing and the risks increasing though.

ROI is better on ATM theft. Clever thieves can subvert them with USB malware through hidden access panels. They still run crap like Windows CE (or whatever the Embedded version was).

Does bank offices have a lot of cash now? Just thinking that the use if card and mobile payments reduced the cash in place.

Just curious ;-)

I have an ex who worked for a bank. No, they do not. In fact, a lot of customers get pretty angry they can’t “just have their money” on a whim because bank offices are now extremely strict about knowing when, why, and for how long a given bank will have beyond a certain threshold of funds, and they generally work hard to keep it below that threshold.

Yeah, I wanted to pay a contractor in cash. The amount was under $1,000. The bank would not allow me to take that much out without calling them a day or two in advance.

(I did later find out that same branch had been robbed earlier that month)

That bank

and your relationship with that bank

you shouldn’t have to be limited to a payment/custody system where you think about it but that’s how it is

always fix your banking rails before you need them

Not being able to access $1k cash is inexcusable. I would switch banks.

Yeah that's not really a lot of money these days.

I had no trouble last year walking in to my bank and getting $7,000 in cash to buy a car. They didn't have it in the drawer at the counter, but it took them just a few minutes to go the the back room/vault and get it.

It’s not usually a problem because they will happily give a cashiers check

Usually they have a few branches in each decent sized geographic area that carry heavier cash.

If you’re a frequent flier for cash, you learn about them.

they keep the absolute bare min. to deter theft

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