Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Nog
May 15, 2006

Just like the thread title says, I'm just curious about how the cash-in-transit industry works. I work as an Operations Manager in the transportation industry now, but I have a pretty solid security background through the military. I'm kind of interested in cash-in-transit as a possible direction for my career, but I'd kind of like to get a better feel for the industry and its specifics. I'm sure a lot of things are simple once you see them, but I can't even wrap my head around some of the basics right now.

For instance, how do you give/get receipts for what you pick up and drop off? I worked in a cash room when I was younger, and counting through even $20000 bucks was a long process. I can't imagine that guards are expected to count through whatever they receive, issue a receipt, and still have more than a dozen stops on their route in a day. How does this process even work?

I've also read that most companies never let the driver get out of the truck on a route. Why? Why doesn't the driver serve as an additional guard while the other guard is engaged doing things like servicing ATMs? That seems strange to me. What does the hopper do if he needs to take a poo poo? How do drivers even take their federally mandated lunch and two 10 minute breaks if they can't stop?

If anyone has any experience with the industry, I'd love to hear about it, regardless of whether you were a guard, dispatcher, or even just in customer service.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

adorai
Nov 2, 2002

10/27/04 Never forget
Grimey Drawer
The driver doesn't count, he takes a sealed bag which is counted elsewhere. And it's not like it's counted by hand, there are machines that count it extremely fast. Cash logistics relies heavily on trust: each party trusts that the other is representing themselves accurately in person. Counting is primarily to avoid mistakes, not fraud. Almost all large currency transactions are going to be under dual control by both parties.

As for the guard, if you think the loving driver of an armored truck is willing to lay down his life for some rich dudes cash, you are extremely naive. His primary job is to avoid any confrontation, which is mostly just being aware of his surroundings and being able to spot any monkey business before it has the chance to escalate.

Nog
May 15, 2006

adorai posted:

The driver doesn't count, he takes a sealed bag which is counted elsewhere. And it's not like it's counted by hand, there are machines that count it extremely fast. Cash logistics relies heavily on trust: each party trusts that the other is representing themselves accurately in person. Counting is primarily to avoid mistakes, not fraud. Almost all large currency transactions are going to be under dual control by both parties.
I figured this might be the case, but I still find it surprising given that armored trucks service even small businesses. When I worked in the cash room years back, we had to examine every bill we took receipt of, not just run the stacks through the machines. The reason being was that folks would slip $1s into stacks of $20s. I can't imagine that the same doesn't happen in cash in transit. (apparently note counters can do this now and the counters we had in that cash room were just crap)

Do folks just receive receipts for sealed bags and trust that the count will be done accurately on the tail end?

quote:

As for the guard, if you think the loving driver of an armored truck is willing to lay down his life for some rich dudes cash, you are extremely naive. His primary job is to avoid any confrontation, which is mostly just being aware of his surroundings and being able to spot any monkey business before it has the chance to escalate.
I get this as well, but it still seemed that you would have the driver dismount for the sake of appearances/illusion of greater security. I'm guessing that keeping the driver in the cab offers the opportunity for him to drive away during a robbery and minimize losses?

Nog fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Nov 25, 2014

horribleslob
Nov 23, 2004

Nog posted:

I get this as well, but it still seemed that you would have the driver dismount for the sake of appearances/illusion of greater security. I'm guessing that keeping the driver in the cab offers the opportunity for him to drive away during a robbery and minimize losses?

More likely to stop anybody else from trying to hijack the now empty cash laden money truck.

adorai
Nov 2, 2002

10/27/04 Never forget
Grimey Drawer

Nog posted:

Do folks just receive receipts for sealed bags and trust that the count will be done accurately on the tail end?
Like I said, it's all under dual control, and under electronic surveillance. If there is a discrepancy, you can have a high level of confidence that it was not the cash logistics company stealing the money.

Lemon
May 22, 2003

I used to work in one of the biggest cash centres in Europe for a well-known Bureaux De Change and I was in the area that was sending bulk cash to overseas branches.

Once a week we would get about 50 million USD that we would break up into batches and these would be sealed in tamper-proof bags and thrown into a trolley. When the armoured van arrived it would park up in the loading bay and the trolley would be brought down.

There was an observation room where you can see into the loading bay and then two doors between that and the bay, making an 'airlock' system where we would open one door, put the trolley in, close the door and then the driver of the van would open the other and take it out. I say we, the doors were actually controlled by security who are watching on the camera.

One of us would stay in the observation room, watch them load the van and then take the trolley back. So far so boring but in all the times I did this nothing was ever signed or handed over to the best of my knowledge, as adorai said it is all down to trust/reputation between companies. Everything is on camera and recorded, they knew which truck was coming in for which job and what was going on it, so there was no need to add any paperwork (at our end at least).

I'm presuming the drivers of the van had to present credentials to security in order to get into the bay in the first place but I never saw that side of things.

Blue On Blue
Nov 14, 2012

Chiming in with my experience at both a small (4-5 ppl on the road) and medium (20-25 ppl on the road) sized companies

Smaller outfits will either have their cash delivered by one of the larger outfits on a daily basis. Or they will pick it up directly from a bank distribution center and or other CIT company, IE: Brinks.

The procedure to cull the cash is pretty standard, just depends on if you're working with a few people or a whole team dedicated to that task. The cash bags are opened and each stack is counted against the total. At the same time you're counting you're also culling the damaged bills, and incorrect bills (sometimes you'll find a $50 in a stack of $20's).

Once everything is balanced according to what you were supposed to receive it all goes into the vault, and that balance is what is divided out and bagged for each 'run', depending on if they're doing deposits, ATM fills, or a mix of both.

Dual custody is something referred to a few times, it basically means no one person has control over the liability (cash, whatever), many companies use dual key systems, so it takes two people to open a vault or safe. One of the places I worked had brand new electronic locks on their safes. Requiring both a time-sensitive pin code, as well you needed a user specific FOB. As soon as the parcel is given to someone else, they sign a receipt for that parcel. We used bags similar to these,



Larger companies have cash rooms with a constant flow of money coming in and going out, all those people do ALL DAY is count and bundle cash.

Sometimes due to time constraints we would be sent on the road with a milk carton full of stacks of 20's, and the passenger would have to cull the cash by hand on the way to the stops. And the first few times you have to count 100 notes out by hand you get pretty quick at it.

I'm trying not to be terribly specific about some things due to the nature of the business

As for the question about the driver staying with the vehicle;

The driver always stays with the vehicle, their job is to take away the liability (and really the whole reason for a robbery). Larger companies have policy in place that their drivers can't use their cell phones, listen to the radio, or read the newspaper. Their job is to drive, and when parked to keep an eye out for their partners.

Smaller companies have pretty big rates of attrition for staff, due to the relatively low pay and sometimes lovely schedules. So finding the 'best of the best' for the job is not always going to happen, you'd have guys park the truck and get out for a stroll through the parking lot, while the crew was inside doing the call. Suffice to say that's one of the quickest ways to get fired.

Not sure what else to elaborate at this time, feel free to ask away!

Blue On Blue
Nov 14, 2012

Nog posted:



Do folks just receive receipts for sealed bags and trust that the count will be done accurately on the tail end?


I'll just answer this again like adorai did;

Basically the cash is counted at the branch or CIT vault, bundled and placed into the bag where it's sealed, and signed by whoever sealed it.

From that point on until it reaches the customer, all information is determined from what is written on the bag.

Once the customer signs for it (example would be a retail store), they then take it into their back room, open it up, and count it. Before placing it into their vault.

---

The flip side would be a pickup from a retail customer, where the crew arrives and might accept 15 parcels. A receipt book would detail each parcel, with the amount indicated on the parcel, already sealed by the customer. Both parties sign the receipt and each have a copy. That way when you get the parcels back to the office, they crack them open and compare the receipt, parcel, and amount inside to each other.

Remember everything happening where there is an exchange is captured on CCTV, and thieves are usually found out quickly. 1 missing bill is noticed by someone in the chain of custody, and it doesn't take long until the trail stops at someones feet

SlayVus
Jul 10, 2009
Grimey Drawer
Retail stores are VERY strict on money handling. I have never been in the money room at my Walmart, but we have had three people fired this YEAR alone from stealing from the cash room.

I actually watched a delivery to Target once, they pennies and dimes to the store. Then picked some cell phones from an automated cell phone buying machine.

Nog
May 15, 2006

Sappo569 posted:

Chiming in with my experience at both a small (4-5 ppl on the road) and medium (20-25 ppl on the road) sized companies

How did your smaller company function? Two trucks, two routes, two people per truck, and a backup in the yard? How big was the support structure behind you? Just a dispatcher and a GM/operations manager, or are there other essential functions to a CIT business that even small companies need?

tsa
Feb 3, 2014

Nog posted:

I figured this might be the case, but I still find it surprising given that armored trucks service even small businesses. When I worked in the cash room years back, we had to examine every bill we took receipt of, not just run the stacks through the machines. The reason being was that folks would slip $1s into stacks of $20s. I can't imagine that the same doesn't happen in cash in transit. (apparently note counters can do this now and the counters we had in that cash room were just crap)


Have you not used an atm in the past 5 years? I mean I guess not all have it but many (most?) ATMs can instantly process checks and cash deposits.

Blue On Blue
Nov 14, 2012

Nog posted:

How did your smaller company function? Two trucks, two routes, two people per truck, and a backup in the yard? How big was the support structure behind you? Just a dispatcher and a GM/operations manager, or are there other essential functions to a CIT business that even small companies need?

If I remember we had 3 trucks, of which 2 were usually on the road at any one time.

That particular company knew the dangers of running a small crew, and we always had 2 up front with 1 messenger (one doing all the parcel work) locked in the back

Office end of the operation is hard to define, as most smaller companies are operating 2 business out of the same office. CIT is NOT profitable all by its lonesome.

Generally speaking we had an Operations Manager, Supervisor, and 1-2 clerical staff for handling customer calls and issuing out the time lock vault codes.

Nog
May 15, 2006

Sappo569 posted:

Office end of the operation is hard to define, as most smaller companies are operating 2 business out of the same office. CIT is NOT profitable all by its lonesome.

If CIT isn't profitable on its own, and cash management (I'm assuming) is where the money, then how do small CIT operations survive considering that you just said your company got its cash from one of the larger operations? Did you rent out time-lock vaults and such?

Brut
Aug 21, 2007

Nog posted:

small CIT operations

Is that even a thing? I only ever see the major national ones.

Blue On Blue
Nov 14, 2012

Nog posted:

If CIT isn't profitable on its own, and cash management (I'm assuming) is where the money, then how do small CIT operations survive considering that you just said your company got its cash from one of the larger operations? Did you rent out time-lock vaults and such?

I can't be toooo specfic, as it might elude to what company I worked for.

Basically their main business was Convenience Stores.

Someone had the bright idea, instead of paying another company to fill and service their ATM machines, why not do them ourselves?

The CIT business itself is cut throat, someone I knew once joked that if they wanted to send a same-day envelope to a person in the city, it would be cheaper to send it via an armoured truck. The big companies generally run somewhere in the range of $25~ a pickup/dropoff (I'm sure the numbers have changed since I last did the job). And the smaller guys will undercut their competition just to secure a contract, I'm talking $15 a call. An even smaller outfit might come in and bid $13, because they have another drop off next door.

Any place I worked required a mix of ATM's and CIT, the CIT stuff was steady but didn't make you much money. And the ATM side of things can be used to fill out a run.

Just before I left the medium sized company we completely re-did all the runs, mapping them out logically and geographically, instead of based on whatever retarded system they used before.

We would have a truck hit convenience store A, and then drive 10km's to the next location. Meanwhile another truck would hit convenience store B, which was across the street from A.

Ugh

Blue On Blue
Nov 14, 2012

Brut posted:

Is that even a thing? I only ever see the major national ones.

It's slowly becoming a much smaller world for sure, especially with the big multi-national ones making a push to buy each other out.

Off the top of my head I can think of 4-5 small CIT companies operating in my geographical location.

Many of them are in un-marked cargo vans, and the only way you would know they are CIT is when they stop at a call or for a coffee break.

adorai
Nov 2, 2002

10/27/04 Never forget
Grimey Drawer

Nog posted:

If CIT isn't profitable on its own, and cash management (I'm assuming) is where the money, then how do small CIT operations survive considering that you just said your company got its cash from one of the larger operations? Did you rent out time-lock vaults and such?
Like any logistics operation, you can improve your profitability by improving your logistics. It's not like they go from the HQ to load an ATM and then back, they load ATM 1, load ATM 2, pickup from convenience store 1 and load the onsite ATM 3 while they are there, etc.. Furthermore, there are a lot of opportunities for a smaller operation to be subcontracted by a larger outfit who may not find it profitable to service 1 branch of a national bank chain in Podunk town A but can farm it out to a smaller guy who already services a few ATMs and convenience stores locally.

Rubies
Dec 30, 2005

Live Forever
Die Every Day

:h: :s: :d: :c:
This is actually some interesting stuff, I've never really thought about it at all even though I see the cash trucks all the time... but not interesting enough for a career! If you're a vet there's plenty of other jobs you can get that are high security but maybe a little more engaging?

Blue On Blue
Nov 14, 2012

adorai posted:

Like any logistics operation, you can improve your profitability by improving your logistics. It's not like they go from the HQ to load an ATM and then back, they load ATM 1, load ATM 2, pickup from convenience store 1 and load the onsite ATM 3 while they are there, etc.. Furthermore, there are a lot of opportunities for a smaller operation to be subcontracted by a larger outfit who may not find it profitable to service 1 branch of a national bank chain in Podunk town A but can farm it out to a smaller guy who already services a few ATMs and convenience stores locally.

Exactly, a lot of the work done by the smaller guys is stuff that the large national chains simply don't want to bother with. The cost to run a truck 20-30km outside their bubble wouldn't be viable, so they instead pay the small guy a service fee and have him load it. Then it's up to the small company to secure other contracts in the area making that particular stop viable.


Rubies posted:

This is actually some interesting stuff, I've never really thought about it at all even though I see the cash trucks all the time... but not interesting enough for a career! If you're a vet there's plenty of other jobs you can get that are high security but maybe a little more engaging?

God no, never consider it a career unless you're able to jump right into management or operations (and even then make sure you get a company vehicle to drive home, gas card, etc)

There were 4 types of people I saw at that job.

1 - Wannabe cop. Power tripping constantly and enjoyed the feeling of power from carrying a gun.

2 - Ex military who thought it was a lateral move, oops

3 - Curious cat, thought it might be a neat job.

4 - Temporary, someone in transition between careers that needs something vaguely 'law enforcement' to pad their resume. Usually people who are actually applying to be cops and waiting on the hiring process. Also a vast majority of this type end up moving onto other courier jobs (FedEx, postal service), or Truck Driver. Literally 45% of the people I used to work with no drive long haul truck.

The job is 100% FedEx with a gun, people seem to inflate it to be something it isn't. You're not going to do room clearing drills and solving hostage situations.

Reminds me one of the guys we had hired was nicknamed Rambo, he lasted all of about 2 months

Nog
May 15, 2006

Okay, that all makes sense. I appreciate everyone's answers.

Do CIT businesses operate under any different compliance standards for FDIC insurance versus banks? Juggling OSHA compliance, DoT compliance, union bargaining agreements, etc. is already a big enough nightmare for most operations managers. I can't imagine having to toss in banking regulations on top of that. Are things simplified on that end, or is the cash management end generally separate from operations?

Speaking of unions: how much of a union presence is there in the CIT industry? I know that uniformed security is generally non-union stuff, but with all the driving you do, I'd be surprised if the Teamsters weren't involved in some capacity.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Blue On Blue
Nov 14, 2012

Nog posted:

Okay, that all makes sense. I appreciate everyone's answers.

Do CIT businesses operate under any different compliance standards for FDIC insurance versus banks? Juggling OSHA compliance, DoT compliance, union bargaining agreements, etc. is already a big enough nightmare for most operations managers. I can't imagine having to toss in banking regulations on top of that. Are things simplified on that end, or is the cash management end generally separate from operations?

Speaking of unions: how much of a union presence is there in the CIT industry? I know that uniformed security is generally non-union stuff, but with all the driving you do, I'd be surprised if the Teamsters weren't involved in some capacity.

I can't answer any of that to be honest, regulations and banking stuff was way above my pay grade.

80% of the places I know about are unionized now, even the uniformed security places are almost all unionized. People just got sick and tired of being dicked around on pay, shifts, etc etc etc.

Oh and I forgot the other type of employee:

5 - The Thief, as you can imagine any job where you handle money is a huge attraction for thieves, they almost never get away with anything, and if they do its quickly tracked back to them and they're arrested :shepspends:

  • Locked thread