Anyone work at a bank?

CleoKitty

What happens if you lose the key to your safety deposit box? Surely there has to be a way to get a new key, right??

MIL has several thousand dollars in cash (set aside for her burial when we need it) plus some other items in one and I lost dh's keychain to which it was attached. He's furious with me...

A&Amommy

No answer to the key question, but why oh why is there cash in the safety deposit box.  Even a very low interest savings account would earn a smidge of interest, and is FDIC insured.  Why the cash?

mlm1128

They have a locksmith come in and you pay a fee to have another one made.

CleoKitty

We found it in there when she got sick. I have no idea why she had that much cash instead of putting it somewhere else, but dh won't move it because that's where his mom wants it. Plus, she may soon be applying for some services (Medicaid) and it probably isn't a good idea for her to all of a sudden start dumping cash into an account.?

MIL has some bills that need paid, but when I suggested that we use that money for them he wouldn't hear of it. That money is for her funeral and nothing else. ?

Starr_Mom

You have to pay a drill fee. My bank charges somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 - $200.

Flem052204

I was a bank manager right out of college so my info is old (that was a long time ago.  When we had customers lose keys, we had to call a special bank security locksmith to drill out the lock.  Back then, it cost about $85.  That was 15 years ago so its probably double that, now.

And for the PP, I bet at least half the boxes at any bank have large sums of cash in them.  I know that was the case at our bank.  We weren't supposed to know it, the contents of a safe deposit box are supposed to be private, but half the customers would tell us why they were there as we were letting them into the box viewing room.  Some of the customers we just old, and quite frankly, it's just one of those older generation things to think they needed quick access to cash in case of emergency.  My own grandpa died at 95 and my mom found $10K in his safe deposit box.  We also had many small business owners (think restaraunts, liquor stores and other cash businesses) who kept cash in their boxes.  That was a combination of hiding money from the IRS and/or thinking they needed "rainy day" money in case they had a cash flow crisis at their business.  We also had people who were hiding money from a spouse.  The list goes on and on....

Dougsgirl4ever

Did you know that it is illegal to put cash in a safe-deposit box?  I just found this out from a friend that works at a bank last week I was surprised by that.