Around 2017 and 2018, I worked in our church as an accountant and, in fact, handled everything in the church and office since I was the only staff member.
One day, I was to go to the bank to make some cash withdrawals, and we had a joint account that required different signatures from the authorized signatories to the account. The signatories — three of them — were not always available to provide their signatures whenever we needed them. They acted like mini gods towards me because I usually spent up to two hours seeking and transporting myself to their locations just to get their signatures.
That particular day, instead of passing through the stress (which my pastor was aware of), I decided to play it nice trick by learning and mastering their signatures and signing by myself. Hey, it wasn’t a theft thing — I had done that two times before then, and my boss was aware and had approved my going ahead with it because the signatories were playing hard-to-get like a lady being wooed by a guy she’s not interested in.
Signing the cheque with their signatures was easy-peasy for me, so I did that and headed to the bank.
I got to the bank, gave the cashier the cheque, and he picked it up and faced his desktop. Meanwhile, my mind wasn’t thinking towards getting caught — no, I had done it twice before, and the cashiers didn’t notice anything. But unfortunately, this cashier, who knew me very well, raised his head and said in a soft but slightly loud tone,
“Kingsley, this second signature, yeah, the second one, it’s a bit different from what we have here.”
His voice was breaking as well because he was talking and confirming from the result on their system, and OMG! My spirit left me because people were around, and I could be arrested or heavily embarrassed if others got to know.
“The signature? If it’s not tallying with what you have there, it could be because of the way they signed the cheque in a rushing manner and...” I went on to narrate the troubles I faced in getting them to sign the cheque whenever we wanted to make withdrawals. My heart was shaking, but I tried my best not to let that show in my voice.
The cashier was someone who knew me to be a regular customer because I visited the bank branch at least twice a week. He believed my explanation and overlooked the shaky signature — and paid me.
You needed to see the manner in which I left the bank. All that was on my mind was that I would be called back while leaving the bank premises to further check if there was anything fishy. As soon as I left the bank and entered a bike speeding toward my community, my mind finally came to rest. I was like, if they later found something fishy, they should come and pick my boss first because he authorized the usage of the traced signature.
Since that day, I opted out of anything like tracing someone’s signature to withdraw money because I don’t know when the weapon fashioned against me would be on duty.
Thanks for reading.
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