Note searching and returning notes to banks

News: Welcome to the Canadian Paper Money Forum.

Not that it will do you any good now. But if you want to continue searching large quantiities of new cash I suggest you buy a few private lable bank machines and find a couple of busy locations for them. You take care of the cash loading yourself search and cycle the notes weekly through the ATM network. The profits from the ATM can almost cover your costs. The banks will love you as a client and all is legit. There are lots of ATM dealers who would love to have a few new customers. And best of all they are not that expensive to purchase. I've seen them sell cheap on auction sites but best to buy the first one or two new from a dealer. Good luck guys.

So this raises a question in my mind. How do people who work with bricks do it? Are these people really bank employees and doing it as part of their job? Are these people doing it as a business with full knowledge by their financial institutions?

100% of the brickers I know do not work for the bank however one has their own personal business loading ATM's
If an employee gets caught going through cash most will likely be taking a chance of repremand or job loss.
It is not as easy as it once was
Everyone who gets bricks must deal with a bank in some way, shape, or form since they are the ones doing the ordering and the cash must come from the individual/business to cover the order so I would find it really strange if any bank is not aware that they are ordering bricks especially since brickers must specify NEW UNCIRCULATED BRICKS
Like everything else in life...some get lucky and they fly under the radar and others get caught as soon as a wing tip goes above it....The risk is always there and no one cares once you get caught and disaster strikes..
Every brickers takes the risk of scrutiny by the gods that be....you just have to decide if the risk is worth it or not
The fact is that I know of 4 brickers in the past year that have been shut down from getting anything ....

What you are doing is legal, and as long as the banks are OK with the time and effort required to provide you with service, there should be no problem.  If you want to continue, I would do the following:

1) have a good personal relationship with your bank branch management - build trust
2) be totally transparent - tell them exactly what you are doing and explain how you are collecting and why you are transacting this way

If they understand what you are doing, they should let you continue.  If you have a good relationship and flags are raised, they may warn you.

Others probably have more experience in this area, but that's my 2 cents.


No offence intended but your 2 cents really isn't worth 2 cents...
Banks don't care what you are doing and regardless of any trust or relationships you have built when flags are raised in most cases it is to late because it is the branch manager or district managers aren't concerned about you,,,they have to get their asses out of hot water....your business is never that important to them as is their job

Banks do care what you are doing.  They bend and break the rules for me all the time because I proactively communicate to them what I am doing (so it's been worth more than 2 cents to me).  The key is to ask for permission at several levels, not beg for forgiveness.  I am sure some moderation may be in order here too as others have mentioned.  You may not have had success or tried this, but I have and it has worked for me.

in small amounts maybe but not in large

The fact is that I know of 4 brickers in the past year that have been shut down from getting anything ....

Thank you for sharing your knowledge on brickers. I am trying to understand the whole idea of replacement range determination vis-a-vis some of the issues discussed in this thread. My current understanding (and I do not pretend to be an expert) is that the current method of determining replacement ranges can only work because of the work of the brickers.

Now the Fintrac requirements set out for financial institutions are very clear.

a) The banks HAVE TO report single transactions which are $10,000 or more. No level of bank management has any discretion here. The only bricks that would be under $10,000 would be for $5 denomination. So I would think that anyone who is doing bricking for $10, $20, $50 and $100 denominated notes is doing it with full disclosure (not withstanding the fact that there are huge dollar amounts involved for higher denominations)

b) Additionally banks have to report unusual activities that may suggest money laundering or terrorist activities. The Fintrac guideline provides examples of unusual activities and leaves it upto the banks to report them. Now most of the things that have been discussed in this thread will fall within the guideline as unusual activity. But the banks have some discretion unless of course a computer algorithm is calling the shots. The fines for banks not reporting unusual activities that may be related to money laundering or terrorist acitivities are very high so it would follow that they would err on the side of caution.

Given the amount of replacement ranges still being found for $50 and $100 denomination I cannot help but think that there is still a way around the Fintrac requirements. I wouldn't blame anyone for keeping trade secrets given that  G-UNC replacements are valued very highly.