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now to introduce our speaker Patrick Holmes I would like to give you a little background in addition to working in art industry I have had the hobby of writing and producing comedy and a few years back I was producing one of my shows at a festival and there's this massive buzz among the crowds of people talking about this show mad one bank zero everyone loved it however because of its popularity it was sold out and I was never able to see it and a few months ago as the IPMI was getting closer our president Jason Rubin asked me what should we do this year first speaker Nancy thought of Patrick and thought of all the banks that would actually be here to listen to this story so also yeah Patrick is also an in-demand public speaker and for 20 years he's spoken for brands like Hilton and Google Patrick is also the author of four books which I left one at my chair and and that's Man 1 bang 0 and if you're interested in receiving an autographed copy please visit Patrick afterwards so on behalf of republic metals we hope you enjoy today's speaker and the luncheon thank you very much everyone on August 12 2012 August 4th 2012 on that newspaper article up there my story was on the front section of the life and arts for the London Financial Times I was told by the London Financial Times that it became the most downloaded and shared story in the papers history but the story that I'm telling in that article the true events took place long before the story just continues to reverberate with a lot of people the true life events of this story I'm going to relate to you very quickly today actually began in 1995 and I brought some of the media clips to just kick us off and show you the reality of the situation that we'll be unpacking today in 1995 about August my story internationally get back at your bank for all the hard times that's given you this story is for you it involves a phony check and one man's attempt to teach his bank some manners imagine getting a promotional sweepstakes check in the mail you know it's not real but have you ever wondered what would happen if you tried to cash it all of us who throw those things away however are left to wonder at one enterprising young man in San Francisco who did not the teller gave combs a cashier's check for $95,000 which he immediately put in one of the bank's safe deposit boxes though the cheque for ninety five thousand ninety three dollars and thirty five cents was marked not negotiable will be easy to be lost in the shuffle very bad you pick the words non-negotiable if you're a small guy and you have three dollars over they'll bounce your check they'll charge you $20 fee and they'll tell you to go to the ATM and they won't wait you 5000 they thought you're a rich guy rich guys on a single day I was on Good Morning America that ABC nightly news and then NBC Nightly News on the cover of The Wall Street Journal in The New York Times so the media impressions in one single day were 160 million people which made my life insane but I want to unpack what you just saw in the video clips and tell you the real story that was entirely totally left out of those media clips most of you were bankers in the room so you'll go through an uncomfortable phase where you're not sure you like me at all but hopefully by the end of the talk you'll have a full picture but what I really want to comment on before we go into this in case this is of some value for you is I do a lot of customer service and customer care talks for some stellar brands around the world helping them improve their customer service one of the threads that's becoming an increasing concern is AI and customer care and what brings the humanity into business and before I tell you what my story I want to tell you I walked into a bank I have a very very small community bank now in large part because of this experience and the other day I walked into my community service bank for the first time ever because I had just been doing online banking and there was a red phone in the lobby and I said what is the red phone and sure enough I leaned into and looked up closer and there was a little plaque next to the red phone and it said if you want to speak to the CEO pick up the phone and that was the greatest customer service move I had ever seen in banking and I want you to hold that in your mind as I tell you the rest of this story because one phone like that at first Interstate Bank would have changed everything that you're about to hear see in May of 1995 when I was young and very naive I went out to my mailbox and I got a and I found a piece of junk mail my mailbox and this is what I found in there Patrick Holmes I expected to hear from you by now take a close look at the check above it's the sample of kind of this it's a sample of the kind of money that you could soon be receiving we took in this mount in exactly three weeks this is a get rich quick scheme sent by a junk mailer get them all the time throw them in the trash now this one's interesting it's fun to look at look he wrote new locator makes $95,000 honest first try Patrick Combs put yourself into this picture so I did and I was running away with the fantasy and I liked it but zoom in on this particular check here okay this is a junk mail check of the highest order it's from the treasurer's office they have my actual street address they put bank account numbers across the back they said it was signed by somebody who's authorized they they gave it they made it out for the fantasy number of ninety five thousand ninety three dollars and thirty five cents and then they wrote not negotiable right across the top now I'm fond of telling audiences nowadays before we move any further does everybody know what not negotiable means because if you don't you'd be in trouble not negotiable means that you can't take this into your bank hand it to your branch manager and try and negotiate for more money your bank manager will say no it's ninety five thousand take it or leave it which of course is a false statement not negotiable means that cheque is not worth the piece of paper that it's printed on that in effect is monopoly money do we all agree so knowing that this was now monopoly money I got an idea that was very funny take it to my bank deposit in the ATM machine and make a banker laugh if that's not banker humor I don't know what is and obviously I don't know what banker humor is so I love the idea I thought I was gonna cheer up a teller so down to my ATM machine I win I punched up the deposit and then it said endorsed your cheque and I said oh that's right I need to endorse this so I endorsed it with a smiley face on the back now I figured that made this really obvious that this was a joke and I sent it into my ATM machine and I thought those ATM machines were sophisticated and once it disappeared the machine I thought it's gonna spit it back out and write across the screen but it didn't it accepted my fake money and that was the most fun I ever had in an ATM machine at the time I only had a hundred dollars to my name so this was my Bill Gates day and I went home and I went back to my broke poor life and I began just waiting for my bank to call me and after many days my bank never called and I forgot that I had done this little joke at my bank until I returned to my ATM machine five days later hoping that I had twenty dollars to my name and I punched it up and it gave me twenty dollars and as I was stepping away from the ATM machine I said oh wait that's right they gave me the receipt with my bank balance which I didn't want because it's depressing and I grabbed the receipt and I looked down and it said that I had almost $100,000 in my account that was the first greatest moment of my life now I rant this is true everything I'm telling is true I do not exaggerate the reason why is there's no reason to exaggerate in this story so as soon as I had that that astounding bank balance I ran all the way home even though I had driven to the bank I actually forgot my car so I got home from the bank and and I just wanted to know what was going on and so it didn't take me long to realize and to learn that nothing was going on that this was standard banking practice that banks accept whatever you can fit into the ATM machine I even learned technically speaking that you could write your check on the side of a cow bring it into the bank and they would have to accept the cow so nothing had happened they had just credited my account for the money and they were waiting for the cheque to bounce the check would bounce in three to five days and then my bank account would be dismal again so I waited three to five days and the money was still in my account five days later and that puzzled me I thought I thought this was supposed to bounce so I went down to my bank and I dared to walk in and walk up to a teller and I walked up to her and I said and I said I'm thinking of buying a house this afternoon if if I wanted to get say $90,000 out I couldn't get that money out today right and she looked it up on her account and she said yes mr. combs would you like it and I said no thank you and I left the bank thinking don't touch that money this is a mistake and then I waited and I waited and I waited and I want to tell you how difficult it is to wait when you have a hundred thousand dollars of free money in your bank account every day seemed like an eternity and I waited and I should get a medal for this I waited two weeks with a hundred thousand dollars in my bank account I could no longer stand the waiting and I didn't understand why my bank account still had such a high bank account balance so this time I went down to my bank and I went up to the branch manager and I said I recently deposited a check for $95,000 now I don't want to start spending that money if the cheque could still bounce could you please tell me when I would be safe to start spending that money and my branch manager ah yes mr. combs I see on May 19th you deposit a check for ninety five thousand ninety three dollars and thirty-five cents click-click click-click click-click mr. combs I need to inform you legally you're safe to start spending that money because the check can't bounce after ten days you're protected by the law and I was like I love this Bank of which I had been a customer according my ATM card a customer in good standing for 12 years it was my first Bank in my only bank so my mother said something to me growing up don't believe things look him up for yourself so as much as I wanted to believe that branch manager the stakes seemed too high so I didn't believe that branch manager and I did not take the money out but I grabbed every single brochure available in that Bank and I ran home and in the stack of brochures I found exactly what I was looking for I found a bro a brochure that said your banking rights and I read the brochure and it said the bank had the right to do this and the bank had the right to do that and the bank had to do the right to do that and by the time I was reading the brochure I thought why didn't they title this brochure what the hell made you think you had rights because I couldn't find any customer rights in that Bank what's in that banking brochure whatsoever and nor could I find any 10-day law when I was about to give up I noticed though it asterisks and a footnote at the bottom that said for more information contact the office of Thrift Supervision and i thought what does where I buy my clothes have to do with this I don't know what an office of Thrift Supervision is but I called directory assistance and I got a telephone number for one in San Francisco California and I dialed it up and the man answered the phone and I told him everything except where I Bank and he said these exact words to me your branch manager was wrong there's no such thing as a tenday law it's a 24-hour law it's known as the midnight deadline banks have by midnight of following day to tell you your check bounced or you're safe to start spending that money however before you celebrate let me tell you I don't think that's what's going on here I think something different is going on I said I'm all ears he said you said that this cheque you deposited looked real I said yeah it looked very real but it was a junk mail cheque he said hold on maybe it was it looks so real that it accidentally matched the eight criteria of a negotiable instrument and hence it was a real cheque and that's why your bank took it and I said what are the criteria he said I don't remember law school was a long painful time ago I said where would I find them and he said at a law library in a book called Brady on bank checks the definitive book of Bank check law it took me about 15 minutes to be down at my first law library ever the Hastings Law Library in San Francisco so I walked into the Hastings Law Library it took me an hour to find a book called Brady on bank checks the definitive book of bank check law this is the single worst book I've ever seen in my life it was a nightmare it was awful it was six thousand pages and get this with no table of contents why was there no table of contents for a 6,000 page book it would take me a year to learn because the table of contents was a separate book now I'm not smiling went to a state school my SAT scores were low I wasn't smart enough to decipher a 6,000 page book that apparently could have been written in Latin so I gave up even though I had $100,000 of reason to figure out that book I could not figure out that book so I got up I was dejected and as I was walking out of that aisle as if it was meant to be I saw a small book face out on the Shelf like it was recently read like I was supposed to see it and it had a colorful cover the kind of books we used to read at San Francisco State University and it was actually titled negotiable instruments and check collection in a nutshell I opened up the in a nutshell book for squirrels and inside I opened it randomly but I promise you and I assure you that I happened to open it to the page that said the eight criteria of a negotiable instrument it must say pay to the order of it must have an exact dollar amount it must have a signature it must have a bank account it must not have condition and it went through all eight criteria and my check matched all eight criteria but with one problem my check said not negotiable right across the top and son of a gun read it for yourself I turned the page in that book and it said but what if someone writes not a not negotiable on an otherwise negotiable instrument what then and I was like not looking at that answer yet not until I'm ready to know I said a little prayer I move my hand and it said then that check is still valid not negotiable doesn't mean on an otherwise negotiable check I had accidentally inadvertently deposited a real junk mail cheque for $95,000 into my bank account I was rich so just as a fun fact being rich from a junk mail check I ran home and the first person I wanted to call was to tell my mother I thought this was huge family news $95,000 would have taken my mother at least five years to earn in her job as a licensed practical nurse so I thought she'd loved the news she heard me and she goes oh son don't spend a dime of that money they'll kill you I was like wow where does my mother bank must get my mom a new bank so then I decided that I should call in the wisdom of my brother Mike my older brother Mike who lives in Boston because mike is conservative Mike's an IBM guy right so I thought I better our safety check this before I touched that money and I called my brother and he goes let me see if I have this straight little brother you put a $95,000 junk mail check into your bank as a joke are we related I said yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Mike but what would you do he said before I tell you what I do I'm gonna tell you what I think little brother I think whoever's missing this money is going to come for it at night I said oh yeah that's probably true so you would I would get it in cash that was a bonding moment between my brother and I my brother my older conservative others said get it in cash and lock it in a safe deposit box at your bank I said why are you telling me this I love it but why he said for two reasons little brother he said first of all because then he junk mail company that issued these BS checks can't just phone up your bank tell him some BS story and have the money just removed from your account they will have to call you and ask you for the money back nicely what do you think of these people that junk up our mailboxes with these get-rich-quick schemes I said well I think that they're preying on people that believe them they're probably stealing the savings of elderly people I have to admit they've been very good to me he said the second reason I would get in cash and lock in a safe deposit box Patrick is so that you could go visit ninety five thousand dollars of cash you could just hold all that money in your hand you could fondle it you could smell it how many times in your life you're gonna get to hold that much money I was like man brother you need to calm down so that became my new mission get the money in cash I started phoning banks and that's the time when I learned for the first time in my life that it is difficult to get ninety five thousand dollars of cash from a bank as the woman put it to me at American Savings in San Francisco haha oh no no no no no no no we would have to order that by armored car I said well that's what I'm asking you to do it she's like uh-huh no nobody wants ninety five thousand dollars of cash I said well I was thinking of it she's like oh well there must be and she just literally did not want to give me ninety five thousand dollars of cash she said oh and then we have to tell the IRS and I was like she's the one that made the suggestion get it in cashier's check she said because in San Francisco all of the boxes that would the state deposit boxes that would hold ninety five thousand dollars cash are always gone always taken never available but a cashier's check which is as good as gold anywhere in the world the equivalent of cash would easily fit into the smaller size safe-deposit boxes that's the only reason that I thought to myself okay well I'll try and go get this as a cashier's check so I went down to the bank in I changed branches because normally I would branch in the haight-ashbury district of San Francisco have any of you been to the Haight Ashbury district nasty filthy disgusting neighborhood if you haven't been there full of hippies it works fine for me when I was poor but now I thought I'm gonna do the biggest banking transaction of my life I want to do it at the best branch that first interstate has to offer first interstate the tenth largest bank in all of America and that's downtown on California Street in San Francisco so I walked down to there Roman Empire of a bank and I walked in wearing jeans and a t-shirt looking quite the disheveled 27 year old and I walked up to the counter and I tried to speak and words wouldn't come out of my mouth I was so nervous true story so not realizing what I was doing i signaled for a piece of paper and pen and i wrote I'd like a cashier's check for ninety five thousand please and I slid it over to her very much appearing to be the bank robber the woman read it she convened with the branch manager it felt like an eternity watching them talk about me the branch manager came back and said we'll begin preparing your cashier's check mr. combs I waited and they brought me a cashier's check for ninety five thousand ninety three dollars and 35 cents I was down to only fifty dollars in my bank account now maybe 75 I had just enough money left to my name to get a safe deposit box at that Bay at that Bank I locked my cashier's check into that safety deposit box at that bank and then I walked out on the street that much richer when I got home I decided that I needed a plan and I thought I'm gonna wait a year I'm gonna leave that money locked in that safe-deposit box for one entire year figuring that after one year if nobody's come to claim that money no one's ever coming to claim that money and then I would finally feel good to spend it and I waited and I waited and I waited and I waited as long as I could and 48 hours later I was like I can't wait any longer and I got an idea remember the junk mail king that sent me this letter I still had the letter and I looked at the letter again and his phone number was on the letter and I thought why don't I just force the issue I mean this guy's gonna find out I have his money anyway why don't I just call him and tell him I have it legally mine see what he has to say so I called mr. Mitch Claus phone call was kind of cute his secretary answered the phone I said is mr. Mitch Claus there and she said no I'm sorry mr. Claus isn't in today he's out of the country how may I help you and I said oh I was just calling mr. Claus to thank him for sending me the check for $95,000 I cashed it and I really appreciate his generosity and she said you're you're joking I said no not at all I'm really sincere and you know how he uses those testimonial quotes about getting rich quick I didn't believe them when I first read them but now I'm a complete believer if he needs another testimonial there was a long pause on the phone and she said just a minute I'll get mr. Claus I said Wow he got back fast money talks mr. Claus came back or mr. Claus did not come on the phone she came back on the phone and she said mr. Claus said to give you a message he said to tell you to have a very nice day and she hung up on me I was having a great day honest I called the guy told him that I had his money and he wished me well so I started thinking hey you know what I can start thinking about what I finally want to do with this money you know what my thinking was I had $45,000 of credit card debt at this point in my life I was thinking man you know what there's no sense in paying that off I could go to Mexico I could buy a home I could buy a nice car why pay off my student debt this is gonna be really fun but first let me go to Boston because I'm scheduled to to go out hang out with my brother and my mom like we do every year for two weeks so I jump on an airplane but before getting on that airplane at SFO I need money for my trip so I go to my ATM machine hoping literally that maybe I have a couple bucks but my ATM machine will no longer respond to my requests on the screen it is flashing card confiscated contact your branch immediately my friend Scott was standing next to me I'll never forget him leaning over seeing that on the screen and saying oh dude you're going to San Quentin I was like no I'm going to Boston check my airline ticket I didn't do anything wrong here as a matter of fact at this point in the story are starting to think about something First Interstate Bank had one tremendous killer feature they invented the feature they were the only bank in the world that had this feature and they called it the five dollar perfect service guarantee and that meant if first interstate ever made a mistake all you had to do was walk into the branch tell the teller about the mistake and they would give you $5 cash right there on the spot so when they confiscated my ATM card I thought that's a mistake I'm gonna get $5 for that but I flew to on my way to Boston I I landed in Chicago's O'Hare Airport I called and checked my messages from a payphone I had three messages they were all from Bank different Bank officers but the last one was from a guy that claimed to be a bank security officer and he sounded very angry and I thought I wonder what this could be about so I phoned him back and that call went like this his Owen persons there no I'm sorry mr. persons isn't in today would you like to leave a message please would you tell them that Patrick Holmes returned his phone call Patrick Holmes hold please I'll get mr. persons for you I'm like wow being rich is really amazing people just take your calls my name is Owen persons I'm on the case now do you understand I'm your only point of contact at this Bank from this point forward when you put this piece of into your bank you committed a crime son now you're gonna come into your bank right now and you're gonna give me back that money I said oh it's nice to meet you mr. persons even if I wanted to come into the bank right now I can't because I'm halfway across the country on my way to Boston I'll tell you what when I get back from Boston in a couple weeks I'll phone you up and we'll continue the conversation I hope you're not as stupid as you sound son because you committed fraud you're gonna turn around catch the next flight back to San Francisco and you're gonna come in and give me back that money or you're going to jail I said mr. persons even if I wanted to turn around and come back right now I don't have enough money to change my airline ticket I know the irony of that but it's true he said what did you do with the money I said I locked it in a safe deposit box at First Interstate Bank downtown are you in that building right now because you could be very close to it he said then you're gonna give me permission to drill open that box excuse me mr. persons this sounds serious to you so we're gonna do this differently now you're gonna give me a letter on official Bank stationery stating that you are who you say you are and that you actually work for First Interstate Bank because I don't know you from Adam now in that letter you're gonna write down the reasons why First Interstate Bank feels this money needs to be returned when I get that letter I will review it and when I'm ready I'll phone you back have I made myself clear he did not like that answer and I quote I'm not giving you any letter this phone call is all I'm giving you it is all I ever will give you and those to me were fighting words because my mother raised me that when things were official and serious you get a letter for your files for documentation for credibility so I said well it sounds like the best we can do right now mr. persons is you give me until I land back in San Francisco in two weeks and I give you my word that when I land back there I will phone you up and we'll talk and we'll go from there so he requested my flight information he required my brother's personal telephone number he wanted to know exactly what flight I was returning home on and what time so by the time I got to Boston I felt I was in real trouble and that I needed that I had made a serious mistake when I believed in what the book for squirrels told me as opposed to the real definitive book of bank check law because I had just been accused of committing fraud so when I got to Boston instead of going to my brother's house first I went to the Boston College Law Library and I refined the book brady on bank checks by Richard Hagedorn and Henry Bailey and I tried to read it but still my intelligence failed me I could not find any law in a 6,000 page book that we're gonna support in my case here but this time I had an epiphany the authors of the book who better to talk to about this than if I could speak to Richard Hagedorn or Henry Bailey so I found that they were both law professors it will lament University in Salem Oregon and I wondered if I could reach them so I phoned up Willamette University is law library a law school and a gal answer the phone and I said is Richard Hagedorn there and she said no he's on sabbatical for the next six months would you like to leave a message and I said I'm gonna be some prisoners girlfriend by then I said it's Henry Bailey there and she said no Henry Bailey retired so I said does he ever send you postcards do you ever hear from him and she said yes he's yes he does he sends postcards I said and he lives where she said Providence Rhode Island and I hung up the phone and I dialed directory assistance for Providence Rhode Island and they gave me a number flan Henry J Bailey in Providence Rhode Island just as a fun fact that man let the telephone ring for at least thirty eight times before he answered the phone in his retirement and that phone call went like this who is this hi my name is Patrick what the hell are you calling me for I was called are you the press now no sir then you're a banker no sir then you're a lawyer no sir then what in the hell are you calling me for just to ask you a quick question but now I know why you retired sir I wanted to ask you a question I put a junk mail check into my bank my bank cashed it well it sounds like you weren't being very honorable well I just did it as a joke sir can we debate my sense of humor later listen to the facts I deposit that check on May 19th aren't you guys do you hear these facts my bank didn't tell me anything was wrong with that cheque until June 20th 31 days later so this money is legally mine right because of the midnight deadline and he said oh I have a legal expert on the phone I didn't realize that well pardon me no son the midnight deadline doesn't start ticking until your bank receives notification from another bank that your check bounced so perhaps they found out on June 20th hence why they notified you on June 21st well within their legal limit now how else may help you waste time during my retirement I said no other way sir how would I know when they received the bounced check notification you wouldn't know because that's an internal document you'd never be able to get out of your bank that's a smoking gun you need a court order to do that so I presume you just told me that I committed fraud with a joke mail check he said a junk mail check what do you mean like did it say pay to the order of yes sir to have a signature yes sir to have a date yes sir it matched all eight of the legal criteria well it sounds like these dummies deserved it I'm just gonna get off the phone sir no you're not you're not getting off the phone son till you tell me what you did with that money yes grandfather sir I'm so stupid I got in a cashier's check and I locked the cashier's check in my bank at the you got in a cashier's check that's right sir did you get that cashier's check for the exact same amount of money as that junk mail cheque you deposited yes sir I know listen to me right down to the penny yes sir right down to the 35 cents why because you've got this Bank by the balls do go on that's called finality of payments son in the history of course in banks any time a bank has issued a cashier's check for the exact same amount of money as a recent deposit courts have ruled in their favor every time in the customer's favor every time for a hundred years son this money is legally yours that was a real check that you put in there and you got a cashier's check your bank screwed up so get a lawyer and not the kind that chase ambulances get a real lawyer a bank check lawyer I said I loved your book man and I got off the phone so I got to hurry this up I was emboldened I just been told by the man who wrote the definitive book of Bank check law that the money was legally mine so I phoned up that that awful bank security officer and I left an ultimatum on his voicemail you either give me the letter or I'm going to Mexico with this money where it's worth twice as much then I got a fax apparently he thought he was sending me the letter now this is difficult let's go fast I don't Bank a first Chicago I don't know first Chicago bank so first I didn't understand what I was looking at but the closer I looked I said oh this is about me because if you look close it says the debit amount is ninety five thousand ninety three dollars and thirty five cents so it is my check and it's the circled non-negotiable what mister angry security officer accidentally did is try to prove to me that my check had bounced so by proving that he faxed me the smoking gun that Henry Bailey was talking about he he faxed me the document that showed me exactly when First Interstate Bank was notified by first Chicago Bank that my check had bounced and when you look close for that it's in the middle of the document underneath debit advice and that says my bank found out my check bounced on June 5th 1995 and they told me on June 21st 1995 so instead of missing the midnight deadline by say one hour or two days my bank missed the midnight deadline by 16 days and then faxed me the smoking gun that right there is customer service so now I knew that this money was legally mine three different ways I had put in an accidentally over designed real ninety five thousand dollar check my bank had issued a cas ier's check which made a finality of payment and my bank had missed the midnight deadline by 16 days which means I could have walked into any court in the land showed that to the judge and said your honor proof right here that somebody at my bank was smoking crack so truly emboldened and because I guess I'm a nice guy I decided to give this bank one more chance to do the right thing so I sent so I called up mr. Owen persons and this time I spoke to him in person and I said mister persons you gotta listen to me really clearly here I understand that this money is legally mine three different ways so the bank is either going to give me a letter and in that letter they're gonna say sorry for the mistakes they made here go ahead put my mistake first my mistake was putting in the ATM machine and thinking that it would be funny to someone at the bank but the rest of the mistakes are yours write that down in a letter send it to me and I will return this money to you he said that he would try to do that for me and I flew home and back to San Francisco from Boston and I waited for that letter and sure enough a week later there was a letter in my box from first interstate I was kind of scared to open it but I opened it and it was a letter and it said we're offering you $1,000 of accidental death and dismemberment and I thought oh stuffs getting real okay it was just ill time junk mail but as I continued on they have a funny slogan don't they we mean business so what I did is I hit the Internet I felt really unsafe I felt like my bank was probably going to come out swinging and hit me with a lawsuit and that I needed protection the only way I could think to protect myself was to call The Wall Street Journal and to set up an internet page so I wrote this thing on the Internet it exploded in the Internet it became at the factually speaking the most popular widely read story on the internet for Ted for it for the next decade to come but and people would mail me all kinds of funny things all kinds of funny emails this was one of the classic someone emailed me this bancaire on your favorite collect ninety five thousand the next day he emailed me this I go directly Jo collect ninety five thousand and and another guy named Wally left it left me a voicemail and he said my name's Wally I'm a teller at First Interstate Bank just across the Golden Gate Bridge from you today we got we had a meeting all about you we're not allowed to talk about you in the break room we're not allowed to accept any more of these checks and every document about you is top secret and confidential so I'm gonna mail it to you Wally lived up to his word and he sent me this Bank Security Department warning for internal use only don't accept checks like this anymore and he sent this letter which is kind of cute I said hey Patrick it should make a lovely souvenir viva la revolucion Wally and then he signed it PPS eat this note The Wall Street Journal loved my story and they they ran it as a cover story that's when the that's when it exploded in the media as I told you and made 160 million media impressions over the next two weeks straight it actually landed in global newspapers around the world after this is the Wall Street Journal article itself right there prankster exploits of banks gaff and turns trash into quick cash it triggered global stories my later became a stage play and in a book the title of both of those are men one bank zero as a fun fact that's because the headline of the San Jose San Jose Mercury News was man one bank zero so there I was I was a headline story around the world hadn't heard a word from my bank for a month Diane Sawyer called my bank personally and tried to get them to talk about their side of the story to which they would only reply no comment after the media died down first interstate sent me a what it's called a summons they had someone knock on my door and give me legal papers I opened up those legal papers and I showed them to Henry to the author of the bank book Henry Bailey and Henry Bailey verified that showed what they were trying legally showed the banks desperation that they had no legal leg to stand on so they were begging a court to try and temporarily ban me from cashing the cashier's check but it gave me a new name because on those legal papers was the first interstate banks senior legal officer and I think you can start to see a persistent pattern with me what started as a joke to me and became money in my bank account switched when the man said he wouldn't give me a letter and that and that became a principled argument to me that I felt like no no no good customer service demands that you would give me a letter making this official and in apologizing and requesting the money back that's just old fashioned customer service and so I still wanted that letter I actually didn't want the money because I never wanted the money always just it was just a joke so I called up their senior legal officer and I reached him on the phone it turns out he didn't like me at all oh and I called I've never felt more hatred through a phone than speaking to their senior legal officer even though I felt like I really hadn't done anything wrong I had just played it what I thought was a harmless joke on a bank and I'll tell you what and this goes back to the red phone in my community bank now what I've left out of the story is that for the last two months I had been writing letters to the CEO and trying to call the CEO of First Interstate Bank thinking look I should just go to the top and tell this man somebody at this Bank has to be a human being and will actually talk to me in a non-threatening voice and asked me for my side of the story and notice that I haven't run off and spent the money but it was a clear case of a bureaucracy that was unable to respond in any human way whatsoever their lack of humanity boxed them into a public relations nightmare why wouldn't their CEO answer a letter why why did they feel that they couldn't talk to a customer that was trying to talk to them so anyway I got their senior legal officer on the phone we had a funny moment because I said hey you got to give me a letter like this is becoming really embarrassing to you guys in the news to which he said son we're not giving you anything we've decided we're happy to see you in court and if you go to jail for it that's fine by us so no we're not giving you any letter and I know you think this money is all legally yours but you're wrong how do I know you're wrong because sitting on my desk is the only book that matters in banking brady on bank checks by Richard Hagedorn and I cut in and said and by my friend Henry Bailey and there was this long silence I said oh you didn't know I'm friends with Henry Bailey oh yeah I'm friends with Henry Bailey you know what's interesting he has a different opinion than you there's more long sound as it matter of fact he thinks that I have you by the balls and there's still more silence and he said I think we could get you that letter I said oh that's nice that would be nice I would really appreciate that and so he flipped and and he said he would prepare the letter so we're almost done here it was time to return the letter I want to place this right in history to you the day that I woke up to return the letter the OJ Simpson announcement came in early the verdict came in early so I watched the OJ Simpson verdict came in and I and I and I went on my course of action the first thing was to stop by my safe deposit box and get the ninety five thousand dollar check out of my safe deposit box it's unbelievable I had no idea that what was about to happen I walked into my bank the minute they saw me step into that Bank they triggered some kind of alarm because within 60 seconds two armed men were at my side two men in all black suits talking into their sleeve wires coming out of this armed under here I asked the branch manager who are these guys she said they're from risk management and asset protection I said oh I didn't know that came with free checking I've never felt safer in my life I become a smartass when I'm nervous we went into the safe deposit box I took out my check took it out of there took the cashier's check out it Oh they'd done a really nice customer service move in the in the vault you know thousands of boxes mine was marked with a big red X so that it was easy to find I did recover my check and then I went down to the first interstate skyscraper and I wrote up the Elat hands in France those two armed men followed me down the sidewalk and they let me ride up the elevator alone I rode up the elevator to the 30-something floor of their senior legal officers office Oh service sorry during I missed the slide during during all the media frenzy I was on hard copy the world's stupidest show and they ran a phone poll afterwards should keep should Patrick keep the money and all it cost you was a dollar to vote so so 5700 people voted paid a dollar to pay that say that I should keep the money about 400 people paid a dollar to say I should give it back and there were there were actually 13 people that paid a dollar to say I don't know which is so stupid so listen I got in there with I got in there with the senior legal officer and man oh man it was tense because he just just liked me so very very much but he said did you bring the letter and I said he said did you bring the cashier's check and I said yes I did and he said and did you bring the I said did you bring the letter and he said yes he did and he said so handover the cashier's check and I said no way not until you hand over the letter so I was a little bit like a standoff and we were looking at each other he said okay well swap him at the same time so we put them both on the table and then we did the swap and then he said I want you to notice I just gave back $95,000 right that was legally mine three different ways in exchange for a letter of apology right and in light of me doing that and being customer in stand in good standing for 12 years I'm shocked at what he said next and I hope you are too and we presume that you'd be closing your bank account with us now mr. combs to which I replied oh no no not at all I feel like we just got through our first fight and we're closer he said well first interstate would like to require you to close your account with us we no longer want you as a customer and you're overdrawn by $17 so you'll need to write me a check that's ironic so I took out my checkbook and I wrote him a check their bank initials charmingly turned out to be fecal so I wrote him a check for $17 to close my account after all those years and then I couldn't help but write not negotiable in the top right hand corner I wish you could have been there when he looked down and saw that he looked up he starts shaking his head he looked up and he said you are a piece of work and I said there's one other thing mr. mr. Myers and he said what's that Patrick and I said well the bank did just give me a letter in which they admitted that they made a mistake in accepting this cheque so may I have my $5 and he said and he said oh we cancelled that policy a couple months ago and I said why would you ever cancel that policy I can assure you it was customers favourite thing about this Bank and without any self-awareness at it what he was saying was I thought funny he said because it was too expensive and I said for this bank I bet that it was and he said but you know what if it gets you out of this Bank any sooner I'll give you $5 and he took out his own wallet and he gave me $5 which I thought was really nice of him and so I exited First Interstate Bank after that six-month ordeal and I walked out of the bank and the first thing I saw when I walked out the bank was a homeless guy and he was sitting there right in front of the bank and you had a sign that said please help my dog needs a sex-change because it was San Francisco and I said here's $5 for your dogs sex-change and he looked at the way I was dressed as a true story and he said no you keep the money look like you need it more than I do and I was like no you keep the money don't worry another junk mail check will come and so that's where it ended I am gonna just roll this it's only three minutes it's usually people's favorite part of the story and that's where are they now [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so I'll close on this two of my favorite occurrences the I I wrote a book man on Banksy or if any of you are interested in taking home the whole story normally I do tell the whole story in a comedy show that is two minutes and toured the world for for about twelve years but I was as a result of returning the money and being in the media I was hired to be on that crappy television show hard copy and I did a couple seasons of on-air talent for them and then one day far in the future a bank called me up and they asked if I would tell the story to bankers and I was just absolutely gobsmacked that a bank would want to hear the story and they said well how much do you charge and I said of course I charged nine thousand five hundred and thirty three dollars and thirty five cents so but it turned into me often helping banks with the humanity side of their customer service and a little bit of the cheque fraud protection it's been a wonderful experience I'm sharing the story with people because what I believe is that we moved into a connection economy in a connection economy you have to be excellent on the AI seat of things in the and you know so many aspects of your business but the new demand and biz in the connection economy is that you always keep the human side of your business very very real because if there had been one red phone where I could speak to one person at that Bank that would treat me like a human being this thing would have been over in the first three weeks so keep the human side of your business real thanks so much [Applause]